New Computer but need upgrades

C

chomps82

New Member
New to the forum and new to computers but had an opportunity to upgrade my old HP and trade a guy some ATV parts for a better computer.

Now that I have it I really enjoy it but want to make it even better. What do you guys suggest? Below are my specs...it's hooked up to my 55" Samsung LED TV

Operating System
MS Windows 7 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 @ 2.33GHz
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5KPL-AM EPU (Socket 775)
Graphics
ATI Radeon HD 5450 (XFX Pine Group)
Hard Drives
1954GB Western Digital WDC WD2002FAEX-007BA0 ATA Device
Optical Drives
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-222AB ATA Device
 
You could put in a small 60gb cheap ssd to use as your boot drive, that would give your system a big performance lift for a relative small amount of money.
 
What do you want to use the computer for? For gaming, you'll need a decent graphics card. Your CPU and RAM are plenty.

Have you touched the power supply at all? Will need to upgrade that if you want a graphics card if you haven't upgraded it.

Do you have a budget? I would upgrade the GPU first (if you want a gaming machine, and you'll need to upgrade the power supply), get an SSD second, and then a new case thirdly.
 
claptonman said:
What do you want to use the computer for? For gaming, you'll need a decent graphics card. Your CPU and RAM are plenty.

Have you touched the power supply at all? Will need to upgrade that if you want a graphics card if you haven't upgraded it.

Do you have a budget? I would upgrade the GPU first (if you want a gaming machine, and you'll need to upgrade the power supply), get an SSD second, and then a new case thirdly.
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I don't do much gaming but mostly photo and video editing. Also I deal with alot of large excel/access files for work. I was thinking of the GPU and power supply. I just have a PCIx16 slot but sounds like I can use a 2.0x16 without any issues. No budget really, just want something nice but not out of control expensive.

Any recommendations on a GPU and power supply?
 
If you don't really do much gaming, then it would be kind of pointless to get a new GPU. I'd stick with the SSD only, for now.
 
jonathan2340 said:
P4 is the best one. I am also using p4 from intel. I just love to do work on it. It is very fast system.
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No, the Pentium 4 is a way outdated technology and for general use today is too slow, especially with Windows 7. The OP has a Q8200, this will eat the P4 and will be much better with the newer operating systems and games because it is a quad-core CPU, whereas most Pentium 4s were single-core.

I would highly recommend getting an SSD, I've got a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD now and even with Windows 7 Ultimate installed and a whole ton of other stuff installed, I've got about 52GB free space. One thing though is that most SSDs these days run on SATA 6GB/s, and your motherboard likely only has SATA 3GB/s with it being a Socket 775 board. If you buy an SSD you'll need to make sure it's backward compatible with SATA 3GB/s, most are, but it won't be as fast as if it were running on SATA 6GB/s, but it will be quite a bit faster than a hard drive. One other thing to do is once you have installed the SSD, go into the BIOS and configure the SATA type as AHCI (usually it will be IDE or Enhanced iDE). You want it to be AHCI so that you can enable TRIM in Windows 7 which will keep your SSD like new. Once you have enabled AHCI you will need to install Windows 7 onto the SSD. I went for the Crucial M4 because apparently it is really stable, and it is, but the Corsair Force 3 is faster than the M4 and I think it is cheaper too, so I'd recommend that as well. Good luck!
 
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