Bluegrass Posted June 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 Investigating the idea of doing some simple upgrades. My motherboard is a few years old (ASrock, not sure which model etc.) but the RAM installed is only DDR 400MHz 3200, so i'm probably going to spend a few quid on Ebuyer to upgrade to 1Mb or even 2Mb of DDR RAM. The CPU is a Pentium 4 3.00Ghz which im sure is fine to keep. Regarding a new graphics card, at the moment i'm using the onboard shitty graphics. I've just opened my computer up and there's a sticker on the card slot saying "Please do not use a 3.3V AGP card on the AGP slot of this M/B - may cause serious damage" Will this restrict what I can buy?? I was looking at the ATI Gecube X1650 512MB DDR2 64bit PCI-E Graphics Card for £24, but because my RAM is only DDR I'm guessing that buying a DDR2 graphics card will somehow not be compatible? I also have a 400w power supply, which again I want to keep aslong as it's compatible with a mid-ranged graphics card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krisboats Posted June 5, 2008 Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 That graphics card would be fine with any ram you put in... unfortunately your motherboard has an AGP slot and that card is a PCI-E slot (the newer better ones... agp is about dead now). Best bet would be a cheap as hell core 2 duo, it'll be faster than your current P4, some cheap 2GB Geil £30 ram, a new mobo £60 and a new graphics card £50. You could have the whole lot done for £280 and your machine wil be a heck of a lot faster at everything. In fact: CPU £40 Mobo £60 RAM £30 GFX £50 is £180 and it'd be a big improvement still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegrass Posted June 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 That graphics card would be fine with any ram you put in... unfortunately your motherboard has an AGP slot and that card is a PCI-E slot (the newer better ones... agp is about dead now). Best bet would be a cheap as hell core 2 duo, it'll be faster than your current P4, some cheap 2GB Geil £30 ram, a new mobo £60 and a new graphics card £50. You could have the whole lot done for £280 and your machine wil be a heck of a lot faster at everything. In fact: CPU £40 Mobo £60 RAM £30 GFX £50 is £180 and it'd be a big improvement still. Damn me and my crap mobo! I'm really thinking it would be a waste to buy a whole new computer when I could just upgrade those 4 major components, because I have a perfectly fine hard drive, OK case with a fan on the side and top (albeit bloody noisy). Really eager to buy and install myself, still not confident with installing and setting up drivers and various bits though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munkee Posted June 5, 2008 Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 (edited) Pretty much, yes. Its all step-by-step and anyone could do it Regarding the building, thats fair enough if you don't feel confident enough, but it is very easy indeed. Obviously read up on it and be careful not to make the same mistakes as others...but for me personally, building it up from components is part of the fun, but hey, its up to you i seem to recall it taking me 8 hours to build mine lol and that was with your help over msn about 2 years ago ! Also.. core 2 duo's are epic.. had my e6300 now for 2 years (as above) well prolly not 2 years.. a year or more? eitherway its 1.86ghz standard and i run mine overclocked to 3.2ghz.. fookin epic Edited June 5, 2008 by Spacemunkee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegrass Posted June 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 unfortunately your motherboard has an AGP slot and that card is a PCI-E slot (the newer better ones... agp is about dead now Sapphire X1650 PRO 512MB DDR2 DVI HDCP TV Out AGP Graphics Card But the above card would 'technically' be suitable for my current motherboard? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
munkee Posted June 5, 2008 Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 seriously, get a new motherboard... £60 for some gigabyte DS or something similar.. the last thing u want is great new parts that cant work to their potential due to shit circuitry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegrass Posted June 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 ASUS P5N-MX GeForce 7050 Socket 775 onboard VGA 6 channel audio mATX Motherboard Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 2GHz Socket 775 800MHz FSB L2 1MB Cache Retail Box Processor Extra Value 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 533MHz PC2-4200 240pin Extra Value Ram Sapphire HD 3650 512MB DDR2 Dual DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card £142.06 inc. vat on Ebuyer Did originally have the ATI x1650 card there but this Sapphire was of a similar price and higher in the Ebuyer 'rankings' (if that's anything to go by), but for arguments sake its a ~£35 affordable graphics card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom aky Posted June 5, 2008 Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 What have you got atm xp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegrass Posted June 5, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 What have you got atm xp? operating system? yes, XP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom aky Posted June 5, 2008 Report Share Posted June 5, 2008 Kk was just gunna say if you did have xp no point making core 2 duo 4 gig as vista is 32bit after 3gig ram wont really do anything just waste money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UrbanPoet Posted June 6, 2008 Report Share Posted June 6, 2008 Kk was just gunna say if you did have xp no point making core 2 duo 4 gig as vista is 32bit after 3gig ram wont really do anything just waste money. Surprisingly, the 64-bit version of Vista isn't 32-bit. Btw, that was the most retarded sentence I've ever read. Both in content and punctuation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD™ Posted June 6, 2008 Report Share Posted June 6, 2008 Btw, that was the most retarded sentence I've ever read. Both in content and punctuation. this/QFT/+1/I agree Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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