So all I want is to play FEAR and other high end games on MAX...

A

AiCPearlJam

New Member
My sister gave me this old Dell and I want to upgrade it but I think that it's so old that I will in the end just be keeping the old case,keyboard and speakers (not interested in looks).

So I have about $900-$1000 to upgrade it. I right now can only play games like HL2 and FarCry on MAX on my current "gaming".


I don't play a wide variety of games besides shooters and AoE3 (not yet, but want too after upgrading the Dell) . THe main reason I want a gaming Computer is because ever since I have had a computer all I've had is 56k....but guess what, now I'm going to college and they have a fast connection. So I'm interested in getting FEAR and other new shooters running at max so I can try my hand at online gaming. So with $900-1000 what is the best I could do?

Some main points I want are:

-Fast boot up time
-Fast program loading
-Multi-tasking (listening to music/videos while writing papers, surfing the internet)
-Enough space for 30GB of music plus a few games (I usually uninstall games after I lose interest in them, you can call me a casual gamer)
-I want a computer that won't get outdated soon. I say this because when I customized my HP (big mistake) from HP I got it and then within 4 months it was outdated and wouldn't run newer games. It has a Radeon 9800 Pro 512MB card and Athlon processor in it but still is slow. SO I really want something that won't be outdated in 4 months.

I pretty much got down what the best Video Card is that I want (the newest NVidia). But I'm confused, back when I built this current PC people on another board said Athlon CPU's are horrible and how Pentium is the only way to go. Now I see everyone saying Athlon 64+ is the way to go. What about Dual Cores? Arn't those the fastest.

Another thing I am confused about are Mobo's, Power supplies and fitting in RAM sticks (want about 4 GB's). Also, should I get a cooling system since I am using this old Dell tower case?

If anyone can give me an outline at some upgrades for me I will be very grateful.

Thanks,
Jason
 
Are you sure the case would be able to house completely new components easily? I have an IBM and the insides of the case seems to have been custom made specifically for the exact IBM parts they intended on putting inside. The only real performance upgrades my case permits is the addition of pci cards MAYBE an AGP graphics card, which would be extremely hard with how they set up the cable management, SWAPPING hdds (not adding unless i use one of the cd drives), swapping cd drives,and more ram. Can't do anything about the psu, mobo, etc, and no room to add much.

Either way, yea, now intel's core 2 duo's provide the best performance and with their recent price drops, almost everyone would recommend one of them to you, especially if you have $1k for upgrades.

What is the newest nvidia you are talking about? The actual newest nvidia would take justa bout all of your budget at about 900 dollars....

Do you want sli? Do you plan on overclocking at all?
 
Assuming you won't be overclocking and that you do not need a monitor, I suggest something along those lines.

For the ram, I think 2 gb would be plenty for now, if you want to add some later, u could, but if you get XP it won't recognize u have 4gb.

CPU: E6320 (168$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115015

Mobo: Asus P5B (120$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131030

PSU: Antec NeoHe 500 (100$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817103940

RAM: Corsair Value Select DDR2-667 2x1gb (100$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145098

HDD: Seagate 7200.10 250gb (68$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148142

GPU: EVGA 8800GTS (260$ after MIR)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130082
or
EVGA 8600GTS (195$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130084

DVD burner: Lite-on (33$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106070

Case: Lian Li PC-60USB Silver (100$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112022
or
Antec NSK5600 (100$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129015

OS: Xp home (85$)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116056

So, that comes to 1034$ with the 8800GTS or 969$ with the 8600GTS. You could choose a case which would be cheaper.
 
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Thanks for the reply guys.......I was thinking of nVidia that was $400, so maybe I'm a bit behind. Anyways yea I'm not planning on making the upgrade untill late June/early July.

So I should probably just keep the Dell in tact and build my own PC......I was thinking that. and I do want a cheap $150 LCD monitor because the one with the Dell is horrid.

I just need to save up money right now, I dishwash for minimum wage.

How much does Windows XP run for?

Oh and before I forget to connect to my college they said I need a wireless connection and recommended a certain product. Once I find the paper I'll post it and if anyone can tell me if I will need to do anything different with the build please tell me!

Thanks for the help guys, you're all great.
 
Whats the difference between PCI and AGP? Which one is better? I bought a AGP Radeon 9000 PRO 128MB card about 4 years ago to upgrade my old ass computer and I didn't have any problems. I also saw this mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188016

Is this a good mobo for gaming?

I decided to buy each piece of the computer one by one. First I'm going to buy the case and the the PSU and then RAM, Mobo, Processor and then graphics card.
 
buy it all at once..will save you some on shipping and i don't know about you but it would kill me knowing i had an awesome part in my closet i couldn't use. Also as they said if you buy the processor now and then other parts later the odds of the costs of some of those parts coming down greatly is very good.
 
But I have a horrible time saving money....thats my problem, lol. Mostly because I work a minimum wage job and I am only 18 so it's tough saving for anything over $500. I just need to learn patients.
 
lol all a want is for my computer to be able to do one of the hardest things commercial computers are capable of lol:rolleyes:
 
for casual gaming and your goal is to run fear i think an 8800 GTS is a bit much. No offense to the guys that suggested it but if you're a casual gamer DX10 means squat to you. Not to mention there's no games out that use it. I think you would be perfectly safe with a cheaper video card.
 
Well I'm not really casual. I want to play more but with my current setup I cant. Because I am goign to college I hope to use there connection to game a bit. But I also want to run AOE 3 and some of the newer shooters on MAX too. Like I'm hoping to build the computer and not have it get outdated in a few months. FEAR is just the game I really wanna play right now. I have it on my current set up and all I can run it at is Minimum for smooth gaming and medium for choppy.
 
RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098 - $88.99
CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115016 - $189.99
Mobo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128042 - $99.99
Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068 - $49.99
PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171001 - $55.99
HD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144140 - $50.99
GPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102075 - $179.99
OS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116056 - $89.99
DVD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106070 - $32.99
Monitor - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824303001 - $139.99

if had that budget thats what i would do.....$978.90
 
ok maybe a different PSU i apparently did not read very well on that one and there is no PCI - E connector

people nag about the rosewill psu's but i personally like them. I've owned 3 and never once had an issue with them
 
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