Upgrading My PC

[Matta_88]

After a bit of guidance really guys,
Want to make my pc, faster, smoother and to be able to deal with higher demand graphics games for faster fps etc..

I toyed with getting a whole new rig but i havent the money tbh.

At current i have:

AMD Athlon 2600+
1GB DDR
GeForce 5900XT
120GB HD

I dont know how to find out my motherboard i know it needs AGP though.

What would you guys reccomend? i think im going to go for processor and graphics card? but since AGP is a dieing technology cards seem to be big pennies.

Also my pc seems to get roasting hot. lol according to monitor software anyway..


Any help would be the dogs danglies.

Cheers
Matt

 

[b3nje]

what temp do you class as roasting?

i'm in the same boat as you but thinking i may as well get a full new system

 

[theboydann]

Go on Ebay, buy a 939 motherboard and an X2 chip. Whack an x800 or X850 in it and clock it up.

Im running a 3700+ San Diego Chip (single core) I got for £35 and 2gb of Geil Ultra Platinum Ram and its running 2.8ghz (though I have a cheap water kit). My X850xt eats anything I throw at it even now.

You don't have to spend loads to increase the machines speed.

The other option is to get a 3200 Barton Chip (which will fit your board), or clock your chip up to 3200 speed (I think its 2.2ghz from memory but I got rid of mine years back). Then buy an X1950 card for under £100. Though this will depend on how good your ram is.

Depends on your budget really...

Dan

 

[Matta_88]

hmm im confused as to what to do even more now lol.

How easy is it to fit these parts myself? ive fitted a graphics card and ram before.

 

[theboydann]

Putting PC bits together is easy.

You litterally unscrew the old ones and screw the new bits in.

As long as you buy the correct components, heres a super fast lunch time crash course.

Graphics: They have two common slots AGP and PCI-e, they are not interchangable. Everything is moving to PCI-e at the moment.

Ram: Boards will take one of three types at the moment DDR (like the PC3200 you have), DDR2 and DDR3. Newer boards take the DDR2 and 3 types.

Chips: CPU's have different sockets, Socket A is what you have now, it should take all Athlon chips to the 3200+ *this depends on your board though. Athlon 64's Started out on socket 754 then went to 939 and finally AM2 (for the later DDR2-3 boards), Intel ones are different (775 is the current one I believe....you'll have to read up).

Hard Disks: you will have IDE which are ribbons, the new boards tend to use SATA or SATAII which use thinner connectors and plugs, and are much faster.

The length you go to depends on how long you intend to keep the machine and your budget.

If you want something future proof go for a better PCI-e motherboard (which takes DDR2) and graphics card, a 775 Intel chip (Core 2 Duo) and new Sata disk. Be aware though if you go for a newer graphics card such as an 8800GTS you'll probably need to more powerful power supply too.

If instead you just want to beef it up a bit, consider a CPU upgrade to a 3200+, a bit more ram and a reasonable AGP graphics card (such as a 1950 at about £100) or Change to a Socket 939 Athlon 64 board, use your existing ram and hard disk.

It really depends on your budget and what you want from it.

If this confuses you or you simply can't be bothered, buy a Dell from their outlet. There are lots of guides on pc building on the net....

Does this get the prize for the longest post ever??

Phew..