Upgrading from a 8500 GT

crispy345

crispy345

New Member
Hi!

Currently working on upgrading a computer for a friend, he says he just want it to lat some years, as he is going to buy a better one in the future. The max price for everything is around 525 bucks.

The computer I'm talking about is a HP with these specs.
AMD Phenom X3
3GB 6400 RAM
500GB HDD
8500GT

Rest is just basic HP OEM hardware. I know I am going to put 4GB of RAM in there, also he wants to change the case, which means I have to get a new mobo. An SSD would also be a nice add-on. Amazingly, a friend had a not opened AM2 mobo for sale, only for 10 bucks. Also, I might have to buy a new PSU, as I doubt the Besttec "280W" in there is going to run the upgraded GPU very well.

But, what this post is all about is what video card I should buy for him. I was thinking about going with a GTX 650, but thinking the processor would be bottlenecked, I turned here for any advice as I am not really that into the GPU world yet. He wants one to play games such as MW2, MW3, Minecraft, Amnesia, LoL and so on. I know these games are not power-hungy, but still I know he could want some headroom if he ever is going to run modern games in the next year or so.

Thanks for any input,
Kristoffer
 
But for a X3, isn't that quite a bottleneck? Also, it seems very expensive for what he is going to use it for.
 
the x3 is going to be a bottleneck no matter what card you pair it with. The 7850 is only about $180 and it will be much better than the GTX650. The 650 is a poor card and is bottlenecked by its memory clock and its bandwidth. If you want to use that card, go for it, but at least you are fully bottlenecked rather than being good should he OC or upgrade processors.
 
In Norway, the 7850 is about 250 bucks. I can get a

Silver Power 500W
4GB of Crucical 6400 RAM
Sapphire hd7850
Cooler Master Elite 430

for about 495 bucks. The price is ok and everything, but am I missing anything here in the upgrades?
 
it should work, however, if you are trying to stay below 500, then look at a 7770 and a better PSU from Antec, Corsair, Coolermaster, Kingwin, NZXT, OCZ, PC power and cooling, Seasonic, Silverstone, or XFX.
 
Look for a corsair cx450, hd7770 and an upgrade kit for mobo+cpu+ram (mobo combos are cheaper then you buy it apart). What site are you ordering it from?


__off topic___
saw in your sign, why are you using an h100 with an i5 2400? Pretty funny lol.
 
Last edited:
SmileMan said:
Look for a corsair cx450, hd7770 and an upgrade kit for mobo+cpu+ram (mobo combos are cheaper then you buy it apart). What site are you ordering it from?


__off topic___
saw in your sign, why are you using an h100 with an i5 2400? Pretty funny lol.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the guy just ordered the stuff. I deciced to go with a
Corsair CX500W PSU
Crucical 4GB PC2-6400 RAM
Cooler Master Elite 430 case
XFX HD7770 DD GPU

Got everything for about 440$, plus that motherboard for 10$

My friend did not want to go for "almost" a new computer, as that would go over his budget (as he wants a new screen, keyboard and mouse) He ordered the parts off "Komplett.no", a norweian netshop kinda- site. Their pricing sorta high on some products, but you get excellent service from them.

The H100 with a i5 2400? Ha-ha, I've recieved a lot of questions about that. To make a long story short, I saw it on sale and ordered it with a bunch of other stuff, also I wanted a quiet computer so why not? :) Not a overclock neither, which made all the questions ;)
 
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