Need advice on upgrades

T

The Thumb

New Member
Background:

So I am starting to upgrade my PC - I have a budget of about $200. I figure I will upgrade the motherboard first. I am a jobless high schooler so I am not looking to buy everything new off NewEgg all at once, but to stalk Craigslist/Ebay until I can find a good deal on an upgrade.


My current setup is:
cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (socket 775, 1.86 ghz)
mobo: MSI G31TM-P21
gpu: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 gts
memory: 2gb ddr2
psu: Antec Basiq 350w
(let me know if I am missing anything important here)


Usage:
These are just rough estimates and the gaming will surely go down once school starts up in a couple of weeks...
60% gaming
30% surfing the internet
10% playing with miscellaneous programs (Blender, Photoshop, etc.)

The gaming will drop down to around 30% once school starts; word processing will surely take its place:(

My wishlist:
gpu: gtx 460
memory: 8gb DDR3

The reason my wishlist is so short is the same reason I am currently typing this post: I do not know what to get. As much as I would love to own a Sandy Bridge i7, it is just not in my budget. An AMD board/cpu will take its place if I want to get my gtx 460 and 8gbs of ram. While I do have parts I plan on getting, I am open to any and all suggestions/rants/flames.

so basically what I am asking is...
What would you guys buy if you were to complete my setup on MY budget?
 
lol i mean from what i can tell if your going to upgrade one part your going to need a computer, and a whole new budget, theres noe point wasting 200 dollars on something IMO, if you have 200 right now, save up 200 a couple more time, makes yourself a computer that will last a few years and is actually good rather then upgrading a bad computer because well i honestly dont even know if you can upgrade that, your going to have to start off with a new mobo and cup, but i dont even know if you can hook some of that crap up to a new mobo, and with new intels new cpus coming out the begining of next year the sandy bridge 17 will prob drop in price, and new gpus will also be coming out, so why not just wait, save some money, get a good computer?
 
ixiboneheadixi said:
lol i mean from what i can tell if your going to upgrade one part your going to need a computer, and a whole new budget, theres noe point wasting 200 dollars on something IMO, if you have 200 right now, save up 200 a couple more time, makes yourself a computer that will last a few years and is actually good rather then upgrading a bad computer because well i honestly dont even know if you can upgrade that, your going to have to start off with a new mobo and cup, but i dont even know if you can hook some of that crap up to a new mobo, and with new intels new cpus coming out the begining of next year the sandy bridge 17 will prob drop in price, and new gpus will also be coming out, so why not just wait, save some money, get a good computer?
Click to expand...

lol i guess i wasnt clear enough but i am going to build a new computer, im not going to just replace parts as ai get them one at a time thats why im looking for a new mobo/ cpu first and then i will get everything else later and once i get everything i need i will drop it in my case, i cant afford a sandy bridge 17 and even if i save more it will wipe out my budget, im not looking to buy brand new components to make a future ready machine, im not going to buy a new computer i just need something that better suits my needs, nothing over the top, so why not just re-read my original post, think about it, and give your two cents?
 
my two cents is still to save money and buy everything at once, you can still get a really nice machine for a decent price, and will last for a while, if you get your budget up to 500ish assuming you already have a decent monitor and such, you could build a computer to last quite a while and be capable of gaming, im just like this with everything, i dont see the point in buying it part by part till you have everything cause while you do that the first part you buy could be outdated by the time you get them all and doing it that why will be a pain in the ass just looking at everything seeing if its compatible
 
yeah, if you buy parts as you get money, you'll end up having dated parts by the time you can finish, and there will be stronger parts for cheaper, but you won't have a compatible setup so you have to get the weaker more expensive one, like buying a lga1366 then saving to get a i7-960 or so and finding out you could've gotten a lga1155 and i5-2500k now and been way faster for less money.

also if you update the mobo you will need a new cpu unless you leave it outside, but once you change the mobo your windows won't work as it was linked to the other one, so you have to contact windows and see about transfering and might end up needing a 100 buck oem copy to install.
 
Thanks for the replies.

So I guess I will save my money for a while longer instead and buy a bunch of parts of buying them one by one. Maybe I can get all the same parts for cheaper, or better parts for the same price of current parts.
 
well if you have a job/steady income, on newegg if you spend 250+ you can pay it off over 6 months or 500+ is 12 months, and i think it is intrest free too and all, just check out their prefered accounts info, also is like 15 off 100, not sure is every 100 or just the first.
 
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