Cheapest i5 upgrade...

K

kmkrreeves1

Member
I have a windows 7 gateway e4100 with the original 3ghz HT P4 in it. This has been ok for a while, but I'm needing something faster.

I have a radeon HD5450 512mb card in it, a 160gb sata drive and an older 80gb pata drive. I also have a pata dvd burner and floppy, but the floppy isn't necessary. So is there some kind of adapter to go from pata to sata, because the one cheap mother board I found didn't have any pata ports.

The current motherboard is a socket 478, so theres nothing I can do with it. I want the cheapest motherboard that is micro atx and can support an i3 or i5 of any kind (the older ones are fine).

I found this mobo on amazon, if anyone knows of anything cheaper please let me know... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ils?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1372629220&seller=&sr=1-7

I also need a processor to go with it. I would prefer an i5 but I could live with an i3. (of course I would love an i7... but I don't have the money) I found this one, but it is one of the older ones and I can't figure out if the socket is compatible with the board above.
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-450M...e=UTF8&qid=1372632454&sr=8-1&keywords=i5-450M

I use it for SD video editing (VHS to DVD) and maybe some minecraft, but thats about it besides web browsing. I think I can find the ram on my own....

I was hoping to keep this under $100 but thats obviously not possible... Any help/ideas would be appriciated!!!
 
Okay thanks everyone, I meant to ask about the motherboards socket too, I saw the Newegg page. I thought there was something different about that i5 I found a bunch of fancy names but nothing would tell me it was a mobile. I'll probably do some bidding on ebay... I'll try to post what I get.
 
I've been looking around, and the amd boards and processors are a lot cheaper, is there an amd equivalent to an i5, I don't really know much about amd's, but intel's seem to have less problems...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0095VPBM2/ref=pe_321050_30920380_pe_epc__1p_3_ti
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005AKK02S/ref=pe_321050_30920380_pe_epc__1p_6_ti
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0095VPBFY/ref=pe_321050_30920380_pe_epc__1p_7_ti


This board seems a little older, and the ddr2 and 3 combination seems weird to me, although it would be nice because a have ddr2 memory already. assuming the amazon page is correct.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083B6HEQ/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

This seems more logical for my needs, even though I was wanting to stay with intel.

Are there anythings I should know about switching from intel to amd? or should it not really matter.

Thanks for all you help
 
Last edited:
Well I killed my dream of an i5... but I can upgrade later if I want to...
I ordered a 2.6ghz dual core celeron and a msi mobo, and 4gb ram. For a grand total of $109.77

CPU- $42.99 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B4BJYVU/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Board- $42.99 (ironic) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0097WLXW6/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
RAM- $20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CZC722U/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also bought this little adapter for my ide dvd burner... $3.79
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000RK89M4/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
if it doesn't work, I'll just sell them both an get a new drive

another question... I have a radeo hd5450 PCI card (notice its not a pcie card). Since I can't use this card with the board, would the intel HD 1000 built in graphics be enough? I know its not great, but I will just be doing sd video editing and maybe minecraft. Would the HD 1000 graphics be close to my little 512mb HD5450?

Thanks for all the help!!!
 
Last edited:
That motherboard would have been a better pick, I didn't see it, I already bought the above though...

I will see what the celeron is like, and if its not enough, I will save up and sell the celeron for that i5. $$$

Thanks for the suggestion though
 
I would recommend the new Celeron G1610 or G1620 ($50 and $60).
Same price, lower TDP and higher clock than the previous low cost CPUs (Celeron G540 and G550, still $50 and $60)
I have two builds with the G540, and I really like it. You get what you expect for such a low amount of money - and then some.

G1610
G1620
 
I had a Celeron G530 before I got my i5-3350p. It was a great little processor, very speedy too. But be forewarned, it is not capable of playing games like BF3 at any settings, even if you have a card like mine.

But it did perform well on minecraft so it should suit you well. And SD video editing should be a breeze.

Its also a great placeholder for better processors since its LGA 1155, so if you need to upgrade in the future, its entirely possible.
 
Good?

Jiniix said:
I would recommend the new Celeron G1610 or G1620 ($50 and $60).
Same price, lower TDP and higher clock than the previous low cost CPUs (Celeron G540 and G550, still $50 and $60)
I have two builds with the G540, and I really like it. You get what you expect for such a low amount of money - and then some.

G1610
G1620
Click to expand...

Well I'm glad that's what I got. (you do realize that I bought the G1610 right?):)
 
Mez said:
I had a Celeron G530 before I got my i5-3350p. It was a great little processor, very speedy too. But be forewarned, it is not capable of playing games like BF3 at any settings, even if you have a card like mine.

But it did perform well on minecraft so it should suit you well. And SD video editing should be a breeze.

Its also a great placeholder for better processors since its LGA 1155, so if you need to upgrade in the future, its entirely possible.
Click to expand...

Great!! That is exactly what I wanted, The placeholder is really what I was thinking when I bought it haha, but that should have me covered for a while, I don't know of anything else I would want it for as of now.
 
and the graphics

I mentioned my current radeon hd5450 (512mb) pci card in the other post, can anyone tell me if the intel HD1000 graphics on the celeron G1610 preform similarly to my little graphics card that I won't be able to use with this mobo?

(i guess I could wait and find out for myself in a couple days...but I would rather not haha)
 
The HD 5450 is a bad card. I had two (in separate PCs, of course) in the past, and I remember they could barely handle World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King in 1280x1024 with all settings on the lowest.
If you upgraded to an HD 7750, you probably wouldn't need to upgrade your power supply, because, like the HD 5450, the HD 7750 doesn't need a power cable. It draws the power from the motherboard.
You would see a big performance increase by upgrading.
But the HD 5450 is definitely more powerful than the integrated GPU on your chip.
 
Ok, thanks, I had the regular PCI version, because that's all my last board had, So I couldn't use it anyway. I looked at the 7750, and my computer is a low profile, so that won't fit, that was one of the main reasons I had to get the 5450. I forgot to mention that, so it has to be low profile and PCIe
 
Ok thanks, that looks like it would work, I'll sell the 5450 and probably buy the 6670, I did't want to spend as much as I have already haha
 
little update: the motherboard and sata pata adapter came in, but the processor and ram haven't. I put the board in, and its a lot smaller than the original (thats a good thing) I can't use the PCI-Express 2.0 x1 Slot because of the case, but I can probably use the 3.0 x16 slot, assuming it lines up (it appears to). I had to get the cutters out to be able to use all the ports, but its all fits now (although not too pretty from the back).


anyway, I was wondering about usb 3.0. I found this little adapter thing, and I can't use the floppy drive anymore anyway because of the sata pata adapter. I know the board doesn't have any usb 3.0 ports, but if I hooked this up via the header, would it be able to?

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-74-I...75647138&sr=8-2&keywords=3.5+inch+card+reader
 
If the motherboard doesn't have any usb 3 headers then you won't be able to use the usb port on the reader. For the motherboard not to match the slots in the case is pretty rare. Are you sure you installed it correctly?
 
Its a gateway e4100 case from 2001, there was a slot for a parallel and serial port, and the original motherboard had 2 pci ports covered by the PSU. 4 usbs were stacked rather than in two stacks of 2., and its has another usb header, but it doesn't say if its 3.0, I wouldn't think it is since there aren't any 3.0 ports on the back.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top