Generic "Upgrading my PC - need help" thread - Help!

[OneCatch]

So yeah, I've been meaning to upgrade my PC for a while now, and I've got some money together.
The PC itself is kind of old but from what I can tell has kind of reasonable, if dated, specs:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+

RAM: 4.00 GB Single-Channel DDR2 (5-5-5-18)

Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. M2N-SLI DELUXE

Graphics Card: 1024MB GeForce 9500 GT (nVidia)

HDD: 466GB Hitachi HDP725050GLA360 (ATA)

Optical Drive: LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1L.

Currently I'm pretty much happy with the hard drive, but was wondering about upgrading the graphics card (and/or any other components needed) to play newer games a bit more smoothly.
I also need to replace the DVD drive because it's in the process of slowly dying.

I've got about £300-400 to spend (about $400-600), but am planning to spend in the future as well.
What would you recommend I do first?

Lastly, I'm currently using Win XP, but was also thinking about upgrading to Win 7 in the future and using dual boot (I have a weakness for older games that apparently won't play on Win 7).
Is there anything that would prevent me from doing that, and if so, any advice on replacements?

 

[evilneko]

Oh yeah, you could do a helluva lot better on the video card. Por Ejemplo:

Your card, at Passmark: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+9500+GT
My card, at Passmark: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTS+250

My card was $100 when I bought it... last year I think it was. You could probably get an even better card for 100 bucks right now. However, before video card shopping, I highly recommend studying the Passmark benchmarks. Do your video card shopping at Newegg or something, and look back and forth between the tabs to find the best value.

Your motherboard has an AM2+ socket, which normally I would say limits you, but since you only have an Athlon X2, you can upgrade to a Phenom (but NOT Phenom II) 9000-series quad core if you can still find one. Any higher than that would require a new motherboard with a newer socket.


btw, 400-600$ has generally been my budget for the initial build.. I've never gone over that for a build, much less a mere upgrade. Of course, I build purely for bang-for-the-buck, not bleeding edge.

 

[OneCatch]

Oh yeah, you could do a helluva lot better on the video card. Por Ejemplo:

Your card, at Passmark: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+9500+GT
My card, at Passmark: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeForce+GTS+250

My card was $100 when I bought it... last year I think it was. You could probably get an even better card for 100 bucks right now. However, before video card shopping, I highly recommend studying the Passmark benchmarks. Do your video card shopping at Newegg or something, and look back and forth between the tabs to find the best value.

Your motherboard has an AM2+ socket, which normally I would say limits you, but since you only have an Athlon X2, you can upgrade to a Phenom (but NOT Phenom II) 9000-series quad core if you can still find one. Any higher than that would require a new motherboard with a newer socket.


btw, 400-600$ has generally been my budget for the initial build.. I've never gone over that for a build, much less a mere upgrade. Of course, I build purely for bang-for-the-buck, not bleeding edge.

Thanks very much for the fast reply!

What would you say about my getting a new motherboard then? Long term, would that be a decent investment instead of tying myself to something that's already out of date?

 

[evilneko]

Thanks very much for the fast reply!

What would you say about my getting a new motherboard then? Long term, would that be a decent investment instead of tying myself to something that's already out of date?

Yeah, a new motherboard would probably be a good investment. It's a bit more of a pain in the ass though, since you have to take your entire computer apart to do it, plus Windows won't like it and you will in all likelihood have to completely reinstall it, possibly even wiping it first (back in the 9x days, you could get away without doing that, just have your drivers and some patience, heh). You might as well be doing an entirely new build, since you'll actually be doing more work than a new build.

That said, you could probably just buy a $100 video card and bide your time with the Athlon and wait til you see a good mobo+cpu combo deal somewhere. That way at least you have something while you wait for a deal.

 

[OneCatch]

Thanks very much for the fast reply!

What would you say about my getting a new motherboard then? Long term, would that be a decent investment instead of tying myself to something that's already out of date?

Yeah, a new motherboard would probably be a good investment. It's a bit more of a pain in the ass though, since you have to take your entire computer apart to do it, plus Windows won't like it and you will in all likelihood have to completely reinstall it, possibly even wiping it first (back in the 9x days, you could get away without doing that, just have your drivers and some patience, heh). You might as well be doing an entirely new build, since you'll actually be doing more work than a new build.

That said, you could probably just buy a $100 video card and bide your time with the Athlon and wait til you see a good mobo+cpu combo deal somewhere. That way at least you have something while you wait for a deal.

I'll bear that in mind - I guess I could basically do a new build (given what you were saying about costs), except keeping my old HDD, case, and periphirals to save a bit cost-wise.

I'll do some research into graphics cards on that website you reccommended as well, to see about what'll suit me best in terms of timescales.
Thanks very much anyhow

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

What would you say about my getting a new motherboard then? Long term, would that be a decent investment instead of tying myself to something that's already out of date?

A new motherboard would mean changing to a currently supported socket type, which means a new CPU and new RAM as well... which adds up to being a substantial rebuild. Plus having to toss out any PATA/UATA drives because most modern mobos don't support it anymore and replace them with SATA drives... Then there's the wee issue of the new GPU you want and if the combined power requirements of all this new kit are more than your PSU can handle, in which case you're up for a new PSU as well.

Still, a Z77 chipset socket 1155 mobo with limited feature set, low end i5 ivy bridge CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a mid range graphics card such as a GTX 650 or HD 7770 should be within your budget... unless the UK prices on tech are even more fucked up than Aussie prices are. You might even be able to squeeze in the cost of a decent PSU as well.

 

[jollybarracuda]

Hey, i am looking to upgrade my video card as well. Would anyone mind giving a bit of advice, i'm exceptionally illiterate at hardware and the like, so some help would be much appreciated.

My specs include:

Mainboard : Asus Benicia
Chipset : Intel G31/G33/G35
Processor : Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 2666 MHz
Physical Memory : 3072 MBDDR2-SDRAM
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Hard Disk : Hitachi HDT725032VLA380 (320GB)
Hard Disk : Hitachi HDT725032VLA380 (320GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : Toshiba-Samsung CDDVDW TS-H653N
CD-Rom Drive : MagicISO Virtual DVD-ROM0000
CD-Rom Drive : DTSOFT Virtual CdRom Device
Monitor Type : Samsung SMB2330 - 23 inches
Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Operating System : Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium Home Edition Media Center 6.00.6002 Service Pack 2 (32-bit)
DirectX : Version 11.00
Windows Performance Index : 5.5 on 5.9

That might be too much info, but its what i got. Thanks in advance.

 

[evilneko]

Hey, i am looking to upgrade my video card as well. Would anyone mind giving a bit of advice, i'm exceptionally illiterate at hardware and the like, so some help would be much appreciated.

Same advice as I gave above: check Passmark. Compare benchmarks. Shop online so you can find the best bang for the buck.