Compaq and upgrades

J

janco

New Member
Im looking at getting a compaq SR1930T and buying my graphics card and RAM from Newegg. I frankly dont trust myself at building one myself and my budget is low enough (500-600$) so I dont feel the need to make my own. I dont need a monitor, because Ill keep everything from my old computer that had its mobo fried, although not the internals because this was a bad comp. anyway, heres what I have selected for now. feel free to make reccomendations, although I would perfer that the price doesnt end up far above 600$


Processor

Intel(R) Celeron(R) D 352 (3.2 GHz, 533MHz FSB)
>>>>>>Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 524 w/HT Technology, 3.06GHz
Intel(R) Pentium(R) D 805 (2.6GHz, 2MB,533MHz FSB) (+70$)

Hard Drive

>>>>>>80GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive
120GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive (+30$)
160GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive (+50$)
200GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive
250GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive

Primary CD/DVD Drive

>>>>>>48x max HP CD-Writer Drive (48x32x48x)
48x max. CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive (48x32x16x48x) (+20$)
Double Layer 16X max. DVD +/-R/RW drive
LightScribe 16X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive

Secondary CD/DVD Drive

48x max. CD-ROM Drive
>>>>>>16x max. DVD-ROM(20$)


Ill say the computer without RAM and graphics card or sound card will be arounds 400$, there are some other things I didnt show Im getting with it.


the mobo has 3 PCI slots and one PCI-E, as it says on the page, so Im planning on getting a 7300GT for 80$ from newegg so I can play CSS and Americas Army and perhaps FEAR combat, but I dont need it on high detail. also Ill get either 1gb of gaming memory or standard of DDR2 at PC4200 because thats the kind that comes with the comp, but the price isnt good enough for me to buy it from compaq. anyway, any input would be nice, mainly I want to know if I should spend 70$ by upgrading to a Pentium D and get a noticable amount of performance increase in games. I am pretty inept with computers, so I hope I didnt make any major mistakes with my choices or anything. I dont think I need a larger Hard Drive, but if its strongly reccomended I might end up getting one.


*edit* Uh oh! it turns out the PSU is only 300W which probably means I wont be able to get a very good graphics card! What should I do?
 
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Yeah, seems you caught the PSU problem. You will need to upgrade it if you plan to get a decent video card.

A seriously doubt a 7300GT would play FEAR very well at all. Consider something more along the lines of a 7600GT.

Get a matched pair(IE dual channel) for higher performace.

Also, you can't get a compaq without RAM, they just don't sell them like that. If I were you, I'd just go ahead and get however much you plan to upgrade to unless it's much higher than the newegg upgrade path.
 
alright, if I just get the RAM from them it costs a bit more, but Ill get 1 stick of 1gb. Now for the graphics card issue.

Im not sure what to do for a graphics card, maybe this x800GTO by powercolor could work, maybe not for FEAR but for other games. I noticed one review that said it doesnt work with CRT moniters, and thats what Ill be using with it. Im wondering what the deal with that is.

maybe getting a PSU would be an idea, but it sounds like it would be some work to install and set up, plus could be expensive
 
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If you want a 'gaming' computer but don't want to build it, go to sites like ibuypower.com and buy a budget gaming computer. You can find a bunch of other sites like it in magazines like PC Gamer....
 
With $500-$600 you can do a LOT on a build your own if you don't need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse!
 
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