Looking to upgrade on a budget.

S

SMGOwnage

New Member
Hi, I am looking to upgrade my PC into a semi gaming PC. I will only be playing basic games like Minecraft, Maybe come CoD, quite a bit of TF2 and some other games that I will probably come by in the near future.

I am from Australia so Aussie websites only please. :D

I have an absolute max budget of 350$ AUD.
I have found a reasonable upgrade package and I would like some opinion from you guys. I will be buying a seperate graphics card.

I found this one for about 50$ AUD.

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/ax5670-1gbk3-powercolor-radeon-5670-p-53821.html?sort=2a

http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/centre-upgrade-p-52874.html?sort=2a

Both of the listings don't give much info but I'm sure a quick google search may do the trick.

I also won't be buying this until Around XMas time so if any price drops occur then feel free to tell me!!


Thanks for reading.
 
Hi, thanks for the fast response!

No this is just for the tower, or at-least the components inside it.

I will keep these parts for the computer:

PSU
HDD
Case
DVD-Drive
And probably a few other things as-well i forgot to mention.
 
what are your current specs, cuz if you buy that a new mobo can't use the current os unless it's a retail copy, and you may be able to contact the manu or microsoft about getting the liscence transfered. but also you don't want to get a h61 mobo, they are junk, although that's mainly for overclockers which the 2100 can't so it might be fine. and also i can almost guarentee the psu it has won't run that gpu. also look at pc case gear. i will look there and post what i find for ya in a min.
 
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=11301

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=15333

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=13454

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=15023

and then that gpu u had selected. if you get any higher budget the first thing would be to go to this mobo for 35 more, it's am3+ so it supports some of the upcoming cpus coming out soon, although they are above your price range so no need to worry for now and this cpu is plenty fast enough for anything.
 
CPU: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=11301

Mobo: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=138_1207_803&products_id=18040

RAM: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186_538_913&products_id=16509 $59

PSU: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_535&products_id=15319 $69

That's $368 in total. What do you get?

A great CPU, good enough for gaming and anything else until Zambezi arrives
Motherboard is compatible with Zambezi and the CPU above.
RAM is fast and cheap, and you get 8GB of it
PSU is quality and quiet. Not modular however.

It will serve as a good base for a gaming system.
 
Yeah I was leaning towards AMD because they have great performance for their price. And the latest i3 has a dual core. For the same price you get a quad core. I've always been an intel guy so I am going to give AMD a go.

My pc specs currently are:
ECS-ALhena 5. 2gb max RAM capacity. See why I wanna upgrade?

2GB RAM

Penguin 4 631 Cedar Mill 3.0GHz

I think it's a generic power supply.
Standard 160GB HDD

And is Zambezi CPU's the bulldozer line of CPU's coming out later this year?

Thanks for all your help.
 
Last edited:
yes, and they are supposedly being released on the 12th, whether that means shipped or purchaseable is a different question.
 
Ok, what type of GPU would be good for me?

The one I listed before or a completely different one?

Let's forget about The budget for now, what would a good GPU be?
 
for the budget the 5670 is good, for getting medium and higher settings on every game it goes to the 6850 or a little lower is the 6770 and 5770 (they just rebranded it with a 6), for maxing any and every game it goes to the 6950, so the price goes from ~50 to 120/150, to 230, but that's just the cheapest and i was going by pccasegear, for a reliable and trusted brand it will cost a little more, or for the 6950 the cheapest good one is like 280
 
jonnyp11 said:
for the budget the 5670 is good, for getting medium and higher settings on every game it goes to the 6850 or a little lower is the 6770 and 5770 (they just rebranded it with a 6), for maxing any and every game it goes to the 6950, so the price goes from ~50 to 120/150, to 230, but that's just the cheapest and i was going by pccasegear, for a reliable and trusted brand it will cost a little more, or for the 6950 the cheapest good one is like 280
Click to expand...

I agree, since the game he listed aren't too expensive, a 5670 or budget 6000 series (6770 maybe?)
 
Yeah good idea guys and when bulldozer comes out I can get Bulldozer and a more higher end GPU with it. Mainly MInecraft and TF2 are my main games.
 
Guys I have found out my PSU Brand and wattage.
It is a HIPRO HP-D3057F3H 300W PSU

I also think that my case is a mATX Case and a ATX Mobo won't fit.
Any ways to test my case to see if it is ATX or mATX??
 
yeah that psu is no where even near close to running anything, you want at least 400 for any card, 450 is preferred, then it goes to the model for the exacts, those are for low end cards though, and the only way to tell the case that i know and is the most definite would be to pull the mobo out and if there is a second set of screws that are larger appearing than it should also have atx then.
 
Well the board is a mATX Board and it doesn't look like theres much room for anything else.

Is there a motherboard in a mATX Factor that can support Bulldozer and has all the great features of the ASRock Motherboard listed before?
 
You will need a new case, as the PSU that you have listed is not able to provide enough power for any PCIe graphics card that can game. Also if you replace the motherboard you will need a new version of Windows.

So unfortunately you will need a new:

Motherboard (Asrock H61DEL 1155) $74.10
Case and PSU (Antec Case and 500W PSU) $118
RAM (Avixr 2 x 2GB DDR3 RAM 1600MHz) - $25
CPU (Intel i3 2100 CPU) - $129 (with upgrade path to i7 or potentially Ivy Bridge)
Copy of Windows (because your new motherboard will require it unless you have retail) (Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium) $109
GPU (HD5770) - $107

$456 (without Windows). You need another $100 bucks mate unless you already have a retail version of Windows.
 
Mate I love the case looks so cool!!

Just dunno about the power supply, to me it looks like a generic one.

And I would like to try AMD to save on costs and to just generally give it a try.
 
Sure, swap the mobo for AMD3+ and CPU to a nice quad core. I was just trying to save you money. You need to double your budget to get anything really worthwhile i think.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top