Can I upgrade ? Or Shall I buy new ?

[IJM]

Hi all, second post here. And the reson for signing up really. Hope that doesn't sound rude.

 

Basically here are my specs :

 

CPU - Intel® Celeron® D CPU 3.33ghz.

RAM - 1.93GB DDR2 PC2-5300

Board : DIXONSXP Model : P4M800P7MB

BIOS: Pheonix Tech V 6.00PG.

HDD - 160GB

External 250GB

 

 

Ok, that's that done with. What I can't work out, is whats upgradable and to what level.

 

I'd like to add a 1GB Graphics card, 3-4GB of memory, 1TB HD & upgrade the CPU too.

 

How can I find out what's upgradable, all the google searches on my motherboard return very little info.

 

I've looked on SIW and it states with my 2 Memory card slots the maximum RAM is 1024MB. Is that per slot ( what I have now ? ) As I'd like to put in 2x 2GB sticks.

 

Also the CPU, can that be upgraded on this board, how do I go about finding what heatsink/fan etc to use with it ?

 

The HD isn't a problem, I can buy a TB drive and fit that no problem, use my 160GB as a slave.

 

I've seen a few pre build PC's, one of which is this spec.

 

Standard Configuration:

 

• Windows Vista Ready
  
• 64 Bit AMD AM2 Athlon 64 Dual Core 5000 x 2 CPU
  
• Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan
  
• 1GB nVidia 9500GT PCI Express Graphics Card
  
• 4GB (4 x 1GB) Kingston PC5300 667Mhz DDR2 Ram
  
• 1TB Sata 2 7200rpm
  
• 22x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter
  
• Integrated 5.1 Channel Audio
  
• 2 Front and 4 Back USB Ports
  
• Onboard 10/100 Ethernet - Broadband Ready
  
• Standard 450W PSU
  
• 1 Year Return To Base Warranty
  

 

 

For £378. By the time I buy all the bits for my upgrade it's going to pass £200/£250 isn't it ? So is it better to buy pre build. I get 1year warranty, and 2 years for an extra £25.

 

 

That's about as far as my knowledge stretches TBH. So if anyone can offer any help It'd be most appreciated.

 

Thanks!!

[DirtyPolo]

Hey IJM, the people to best advise you on hardware issues would be Dalo or Tootech.

 

The chances are that if you would like to upgrade your CPU, graphics card and RAM, that you will also be looking at a new motherboard aswell.

 

The total price for upgrading depends on where you get it from and what you get.

 

That's all the input I can put into your question myself, just didn't want to leave you standing around without any response :P

Edited December 22, 2008 by DirtyPolo

[Tootech]

Its a a Foxconn motherboard, max 2Gb RAM, 1 x AGP x 8 slot.

 

Forget upgrading it, you will end up spending alot of money on parts, and will need a new Operating System as well.

 

You wil then end up with the bits from your old PC being virtually worthless.

 

I'd buy a new unit, and sell the old one to offset the cost.

[IJM]

Thank you very much for your swift and direct response chaps.

 

I thought as much about upgrading, it'd be worse in the long run.

 

I am hoping Santa brings me a HD out put Graphics Card for christmas, so I may purchase a new TB drive now.

 

And then buy a new system in the new year.

 

I will hang around here as no doubt I'll have more questions when I am up and running with a new system.

 

Are you able to advise on the specs on that PC I listed. I have my eyes on that one.

 

Is there any other places you can recommend building or buying pre built base units from ?

[Dalo Harkin]

The spec that you listed is fine BUT AMD CPU's are no where near as powerful as Intel's offerings.

A new MOBO can cost as little as £50, but then you need to set a realistic budget and I can spec a PC for you.

Include everything that you need and I will do this as cheaply as possible and please state the main use for the PC :)

[IJM]

Thank you very much.

 

I use my PC for games, music and lots of film watching.

 

My budget would be around £300-£400.

 

I would want a 1TB hard drive, at least 3GB of memory, and a nice graphics card to boot. Suitable for playing demanding 3d games ( GTA - PES - FIFA Etc )

 

That's about it really, a 5.1 soundcard would be nice as I have a 5.1 speaker set up around my PC.

[DirtyPolo]

Okay well 300-400 is quite a tight budget.

 

First of all, as now the topic has changed to building a PC, I shall move this thread into the appropriate place.

 

If you look around at some of the other threads to do with building PCs, you will see the sort of budget that you will be looking at.

 

You will have the choice between a quad core or a dual core, each has its good points and bad points, depending on how much workload you intend to put on it.

 

I myself have a quad core and you can see my thread of when I was building my PC here.

It plays all of the lastest games with full high settings with no problem at all.

It may answer some questions you have.

 

Ideally you should be looking at,

-Intel Quad/Dual core processor,

-Asus Motherboard

- I would opt for an ATI Graphics card as you get more for your money at the moment compared with Nvidia.

- In my opinion, it is wise to stick with OCZ for RAM as they are well known with very little problems ever occurring.

- Look at Creative Soundblaster 5.1 for a very good sound card

 

I shall have a quick scan around now and see how close I can keep it to your budget.

 

are you looking to buy the FULL system, such as case, CD drive, Monitor, etc or can you keep some parts from your current PC?

[IJM]

DirtyPolo,

 

Thanks for your time.

 

I'd imagine I am able to take some bits from my current system. Which has a newish case, DVD +/- RW drive. Built in card reader.

 

I just need the bsae unit. As I already have a 22" widescreen TFT monitor, and wireless Labtec mouse and keyboard. Which look and work great.

 

If it works out to buy the board, CPU , Fan, power supply and Memory in one go. I have no issues in fitting the Hd, DVD any any graphics and sound cards my self.

[DirtyPolo]

Okay, I've done my best to get a decent spec for you that will play the games you are talking about and included the things such as 1tb HDD etc, but I must warn you it's almost doubled your budget.

 

Hopefully Dalo or somebody can find a way of knocking this down, but until then here's the spec I have found:

 

CPU:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, SLACR G0, S775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, 9x Multiplier, Retail

£145

OR

Intel Core 2 Duo, E8400, Wolfdale Core, S775, 3.0 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB Cache, 9x Multiplier, Retail

£140

 

MOBO:

ASUS P5QL PRO iP43 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard

£64

 

RAM:

OCZ 2GB KIt (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel Kit CL5

£39

 

GPU:

512MB Palit HD 4850, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 1986MHz GDDR3, GPU 625MHz, 800 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ HDTV, HDCP

£119

 

HDD:

1TB Samsung HD103UJ Spinpoint F1, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ

£73

 

PSU:

Hiper 530W Black Type M PSU - ATX v2.2, Silent/Temp Control, Active PFC, SLI/Crossfire Certified

£44

 

SOUND CARD:

Creative Labs SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-Express x1

£35

 

OS:

HOT SELLER Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1* 32Bit 1Pk OEM (DVD)

£88

£602-£607

 

 

Unless you are thinking of overclocking it then the standard CPU fan will be fine.

[IJM]

DP. Thanks for doing that mate. That's great.

 

If I was wanting to save some costs, I could do without a 1TB drive, maybe have a smaller one and upgrade when I can.

 

I have my original copy of Windows, which I persume I can re install on a new machine ?

 

So that can potentially knock off £150 or so.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I have my original copy of Windows, which I persume I can re install on a new machine ?

 

Is this a full on copy of XP or an OEM?

[IJM]

Is this a full on copy of XP or an OEM?

 

What's OEM ?

 

When I bought my current PC it did have windows XP on it. It was since formatted, and PC World would no re-install XP on the machine. So I bought it myself was £55 or something from Amazon websit over a year ago. Installed it as normal on my current machine.

 

I persume I can install it on a new machine can't I?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I persume I can install it on a new machine can't I?

Unfortunately no as you have already activated that copy of XP on the old PC and although you could install the copy of XP on the new PC you would have issues when activating that to Microsoft as their records would show differences in system hardware parameters which in turn would leave them to think you are pirating because their EULA indicates 1 License = 1PC.

 

If you were simply reinstalling to the same PC but with certain hardware changes then you would have to call them and explain what changes have been made.

 

 

 

An OEM means Original Equipment Manufacturer and the disk would say for example "For re-installation of XP to a Dell Computer only"

[IJM]

Ah thanks for that.

 

Bit of a bummer that really.

 

Thanks for all you help, I think my best option is to buy a graphics card, a new TB HD. I can keep windows running on my smaller 160GB HD and use the TB as a slave, couldn't I?

 

I think with 2GB Ram, and good graphics card, that should be more than enough ?

[IJM]

Well, I decided to take advantage of the sales today.

 

I purchased an AGP graphics card ( as my MOBO has no PCI EXPRESS slot )

 

It's a ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series card, 512MB.

 

I also had to purchase a new power supply which was £30 for a 500W unit.

 

The card was £80, and the Power Supply £30, with the cost of the 1TB drive, that should be around £200.

 

I think I will be happy with that for a while. If I can run this system for another few years, Dual / Quad Core stuff should have come down even more.

 

Thanks for all your help chaps. You've been really good!!!

[DirtyPolo]

okay, glad that you found a cheaper alternative :P

 

If you ever need any more help with anything else, you know where we are

[IJM]

Ok, all's not so well.

 

The card I bought was PCI Express. My Mobo has no PCI Express slot.

 

So bought an AGP Card instead. I bought a NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT.

 

I thought this would be all good. Seems not.

 

When installing and running, it seems to have slowed my whole PC down. I installed the drivers which came with it, there doesn't seem to be any later ones.

 

When watching video it can freeze every now and again, and typing in web pages here seems awfully slow.

 

I didn't disable the on-board one, as I presume this card did it it's self. Is that something I need to check ?

 

The card has 512MB RAM, and my system now has a full 2GB. I recently moved all my audio onto an external HD.

 

I've also performed a full windows defrag, anti virus and two spyware programs. All comes back clean.

 

Is there anything obvious to why it's acting so sluggish with this new card.

 

I also performed an internet speed test to ensure it wasn't that, and was getting 10MB p/s downspeed.

 

Can anyone assist ?

[Dalo Harkin]

Im sorry to say the the 7 series GPU is dreadfully slow anyway.

the drivers that the Nvidia site lists are the 178.24 dated 15th Oct 08

are these the ones you have on your C drive?

You should always disable the Onboard GPU in the BIOS when using an add in card.

[Tootech]

There would be drivers installed for your onboard video - did you uninstall them before adding your new card?

 

If not, uninstall them if you can.

 

Sometimes they won't uninstall if the onboard video is disabled - if that happens, you will have to uninstall the drivers for your new card, switch off your PC, remove your new card and go back to onboard video, start up, uninstall the old drivers, shutdown and install the new one all over again.

[IJM]

Oh bugger.

 

Well, I actually had old drivers for the card installed. From Oct 2007. So just dowloading and installing those now.

 

I didn't uninstall any previous drivers for my old onboard one. .

 

Is the BIOS a think I can easily mess up ? Ha.