Upgrading brother's old computer...

[MuZI]

My brother is thinking of upgrading something in his aging computer. It is about 5-6 years old so it has a AMD X2 245 Proc, 2GB Geil RAM, old 7.2k HDD...the vid card is a 8600 GTS.

I'm not a gamer but he says he wants a few more FPS when gaming. I think he plays WoW and LOL mostly. The PSU is an older 430W Thermaltake.

I think he wants to keep the upgrade at ~$150.

Which would make the biggest improvement? CPU? SSD? new Vid Card?

I know a 955 goes for $89 these days. I can get him a 128GB Crucial SSD since he never uses more than 80 GB. I'm not sure what the best bang for the buck vid card these days is... I stopped following at 5770.

Resolution he uses for gaming is 1920x1080.

 

[tiraides]

You and your brother should start planning for a new build instead. At best, you could only buy one "improved" part with that $150, but that part will create performance bottlenecks in other areas. Additionally, the PSU and the case may not be able to handle future upgrades, especially considering the age of everything.

Off the bat, you might as well forget about the processor upgrade. If you buy a newer, better processor now, you'll also have to buy a new motherboard that supports it as well as RAM capable of working with those two parts. They'll easily eat up your entire budget, but you'd likely have to spend even more.

 

[Dangman]

That PSU is pretty much the number one limitation to any upgrade: You more than likely have the TR2 430W PSU which is well known for being a total POS. Your bro has been lucky so far since the parts he has are relatively low power and luck as well. So a new PSU is gonna be needed regardless of what upgrade you go with.

I concur with Tiraides that you should just save up for a new build as that PC is just too slow/old to get the full upgrade potential/performance of a new part.

If you and/or your bro won't be able to afford a new PC in the next 5 years, the best upgrade for him would be a new PSU and new GPU. However that new GPU would more than likely be bottlenecked by that CPU.

 

[Jayson]

I also vote for new rig than upgrading it.
I'd rather donate of sell your old rig for additional budget.

 

[Cube Rhino]

XFX FX-775A-ZNP4 Radeon HD 7750 - $120

Great card and it uses less watts than the current card(43w vs ~76w) so you shouldn't have any problem installing this and having issues with the psu not giving enough power. It will likely max out your buddies other parts and his mobo / cpu / ram will likely be holding back the card from getting its max potential.

SILVERSTONE ST50F-ES 500W - $60
CORSAIR Builder Series CX430 - $44

That being said, as your friend said he had a budget of about $150, I'd recommend he gets a new power supply that is more stable and leaves room for upgradability later(This combo is about $180 + tax). something like the above, a decent 500w + that will definitely support your new parts as he chooses to upgrade them later. Could also go with a cheaper or so to stay closer to your budget.

You can also find great deals here on used parts, mobos / cpu combos & ram on the cheap from the for sale section. I highly suggest you check it out. Suggest he saves up a decent chunk of money to later upgrade the mobo / proccessor & ram all at once(likely $300+ depending on parts).

 

[MuZI]

That PSU is pretty much the number one limitation to any upgrade: You more than likely have the TR2 430W PSU which is well known for being a total POS. Your bro has been lucky so far since the parts he has are relatively low power and luck as well. So a new PSU is gonna be needed regardless of what upgrade you go with.

I concur with Tiraides that you should just save up for a new build as that PC is just too slow/old to get the full upgrade potential/performance of a new part.

If you and/or your bro won't be able to afford a new PC in the next 5 years, the best upgrade for him would be a new PSU and new GPU. However that new GPU would more than likely be bottlenecked by that CPU.

So I spoke to my brother and after selling his old computer he is willing to spend a total of $500. We already have the screen and operating system.

 

[Dangman]

PLease answer the following questions:
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? UEFI? etc.

 

[tiraides]

Can you spend a little more?

$132 - Intel Core i3-2120 and Sony Optiarc AD-7280S-0B combo deal
$120 - Foxconn Z68A-S and G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB DDR3 1333 combo deal
$70 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB HDD
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite ATX mid-tower case (from Amazon)
$50 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU (use $10 discount combo code CollegeSave10)
=====
$422 - Subtotal (not including shipping, taxes, or rebates)

I ask because the addition of any (decent) video card above $100 is going to burst your budget. If your brother is sticking to mainly MMOs, then he should be fine with the HD 7750 that Cube Rhino recommended earlier. If he wants to play some of the latest first-person shooters, however, he may be better served by looking for a used GTX 560 Ti or HD 6950.

With the current sales going on, the above setup is (arguably) the best you could do with your budget. (If you really needed to, however, you could stick with just 4GB of RAM to save some money.)

I chose the dual-core i3-2120 as benchmarks show it to be better than most AMD low-end and mid-range processors when it comes to gaming. The price of the Samsung HDD makes it a tempting buy -- $70 is usually the price for 500GB drives -- but the newer versions of the HD013SJ (made by Western Digital now) have more reliability issues than the older ones made by Samsung (before WD bought the HDD production team).

 

[E4g1e]

Can you spend a little more?

$132 - Intel Core i3-2120 and Sony Optiarc AD-7280S-0B combo deal
$120 - Foxconn Z68A-S and G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB DDR3 1333 combo deal
$70 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB HDD
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite ATX mid-tower case (from Amazon)
$50 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU (use $10 discount combo code CollegeSave10)
=====
$422 - Subtotal (not including shipping, taxes, or rebates)

I ask because the addition of any (decent) video card above $100 is going to burst your budget. If your brother is sticking to mainly MMOs, then he should be fine with the HD 7750 that Cube Rhino recommended earlier. If he wants to play some of the latest first-person shooters, however, he may be better served by looking for a used GTX 560 Ti or HD 6950.

With the current sales going on, the above setup is (arguably) the best you could do with your budget. (If you really needed to, however, you could stick with just 4GB of RAM to save some money.)

I chose the dual-core i3-2120 as benchmarks show it to be better than most AMD low-end and mid-range processors when it comes to gaming. The price of the Samsung HDD makes it a tempting buy -- $70 is usually the price for 500GB drives -- but the newer versions of the HD013SJ (made by Western Digital now) have more reliability issues than the older ones made by Samsung (before WD bought the HDD production team).

Correction:

Samsung's HDD division is now part of Seagate, not Western Digital.

 

[MuZI]

PLease answer the following questions:
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? UEFI? etc.

3.) This is how I end up getting kidnapped... US-AZ
8.) 1 week from now
9.) USB 3 and SATA III would be nice.

 

[MuZI]

Correction:

Samsung's HDD division is now part of Seagate, not Western Digital.

I picked up a 128GB SSD for him today and the case will probably be a Corsair 650D since he started acting like a grown up lately. Sooo... those 2 items he won't need to worry about in his budget.