Please Suggest Upgrades for My PC!
January 24th, 2020
My PC is beginning to show its age and can slow down when playing my favourite game at the moment; Battlefield 2, especially when theres lots of action and players! Since Ive got to dismantle my PC to replace the broken chipset fan on my motherboard (again! ) I thought now would be the ideal time to upgrade components. Here are the current specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-57
MOBO: ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe PCI-Express
GPU: 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
RAM: 2048MB DDR400 Memory (2x1024MB)
PSU: 550W
AUDIO: CreativeLabs Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS
HDD: 500GB (2x 250GB RAID0) SATA 7200RPM 16MB Buffer
OS: Windows XP (32 bit)
NET: 2Meg ADSL Broadband (220 KB/second. Ping of about 45-90 on most European servers)
Which upgrades would you recommend? I dont know much about building PCs so replacing the CPU/Motherboard is probably out of the question! So I was thinking the Graphics Card as its easy to install and would this give the best increase in FPS? However, Im a bit out of date with the latest models and which would be compatible with my motherboard and power supply etc? Im on a limited budget of about �130 ($160). I was thinking about the 8800GTS or 9800GT (512MB) or 9600 GT (512MB)? Would this give a significant performance boost?
Alternatively, I could put the money towards upgrading my broadband to try improve my ping?
Thanks.
Graphics Card…
Graphics Card...
Omg you reply quick! Thanks.
Do you have any particular model that you would recommend for my budget, motherboard and power? Sorry if this is a stupid question but are all new graphics cards compatible with mine?
Graphics card and new Internet connection.
Atleast 3MB connection.
nvidia 8800 series are the best as far as I’m concerned…Maybe other people have a different view…
Graphics Card...
The graphics card is everything when it comes to gaming. You can have the worlds best CPU, but if your GPU isn’t as good it means nothing.
nvidia 8800 series are the best as far as I'm concerned...Maybe other people have a different view...
The best for his budget, but there is no doubt that the HD 4870 X2 2GB GDDR5 are the best in the market, as far as I am concerned.
Thanks for the replies guys, you certainly know your stuff!
The video card seems to be the way to go. The 8800GTS (512MB) and the 9800GTX (512MB) seem very similar:
http://www.custompc.co.uk/features/602337/analysis-geforce-9800-gtx-gpu/page1.html
I managed to find a GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB for an amazing �134.54:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.jsp?NOV-98GTXP
However, it doesnt give details of the power connections. In another review I think it said it needs two 6-Pin PCI-E power connectors (is this the case for all new GFX cards?), but I can only see one in my computer (I unpluged it from my current card so you can see), though there is a spare 4-pin one. I have lots of existing power connections in my PC (2x DVD drives, 2x hard drives, floppy disk drive, soundcard), so would I need to upgrade my PSU as well? Heres some pics from inside my computer so you could advise me what connections I could use. Alternatively recommend a video card that only needs one power cable:
So many wires!
Why is upgrading never easy! Thanks.
To know what slot you have:
1) Go to Device Manager
2) Expand the Display and Adapters by clicking on the little +
3) Spot your current graphics card
4) Right Click it and pick Properties
5) See whats written next to Location:. For example i got PCI bus 0, device 2, function 0 which means my slot is PCI