PC upgrade advice.

Kev

Kev

Pro Cut Vinyl
Founding Member
Official MSC Trader
Hi all,

many of you know I purchased this PC from ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=370037566740&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=024

My intention is to now upgrade it and purchase the parts seperately. Paddy is having the Monitor and I sold the speakers, keyboard and mouse as well

What I'm after is a good 1gb Graphics Card, upgrade the PSU and possibly the memory. The memory is taken care of for now, but I'm unsure on which Graphics Card & PSU to go for.

Any recomendations that I could use?

I've looked at the following:

PSU - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/116522

Graphics Card - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....m=220204145626&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=012

Thanks for any help

Kev
 
ok i will answer your question :p lol

well as far as PSUs go you should be fine, most PSUs are overkill and the only reason for upgrading is if you are turning it into a server or you want a fanless soloution.

as for the graphics card, that is a nice card for the money but it really depends on what you are doing.

graphics cards only generate 3D polygons, so you don't need them for watching DVDs or using the PC or even Photoshop.

so graphics cards are purely for games, and if you are running halflife 1 and below you won't need much in the way of graphics...
 
1GB is a fairly good graphics card. When i custom made my system, it was the only element i went budget and wacked a 64MB one in, and even that's able to play Half life & do photoshop with reasonable ease. Struggles on the higher resolutions and refresh rates though (as you'd expect).

Kev, i'm assuming you'd want PCIE graphics card? Also, PSU.. how many devices are you running
 
richj said:
Graphics cards arn't purely for games. If you want to use compiz in gnome or aero in vista etc.. a good graphics card is required.

What are you planning to use your pc for? which OS will you be using? If its Vista, checking driver availability and stability might be an important step.
Click to expand...

lol oh yea, well you don't NEED them, thats just for all the fancy crap lol. but yea a graphics card has a seperate processor on it (GPU) and some memory (basically a mini computer) which is purely for generating on the fly graphics,

the only other time you might use it is on 3D graphics programs like bryce or maya *spell
 
I'll be using XP, I just really want to increase the performance to allow it to run multiple programs without slowing down, I will be buying another 2gb of memory to double it to 4gb.

Don't really play games on the PC anymore, just use programes like pinnacle studio, Actinic, Paint Shop Pro, Publisher, Dreamweaver MX etc etc.

The only other devices the PSU will be powering is the basic dvd drive, hard drive, motherboard etc,

Any other suggestions?

Thanks
Kev
 
Kev said:
I'll be using XP, I just really want to increase the performance to allow it to run multiple programs without slowing down, I will be buying another 2gb of memory to double it to 4gb.

Don't really play games on the PC anymore, just use programes like pinnacle studio, Actinic, Paint Shop Pro, Publisher, Dreamweaver MX etc etc.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks
Kev
Click to expand...

sould be good with what you have then mate, i would leave it as it is. get a good screen, fast harddrive, and lots of memory and you will be great :D
 
I was tempted to purchase all the parts seperately, but I haven't built PC's in years, I can upgrade them no problem and when I worked out what the cost of parts would be in comparision to the system I bought there wasn't much in it once I've sold the monitor.

Kev
 
Regards your graphics card, you can't go purely by how much onboard memory its got. Some budget cards have loads, but still don't perform all that well.
Its been a while since i upgraded so i'm behind the times on stuff like this, i'd recommend you read reviews of quite a few cards then take your pick!
 
If your going with XP then it will only see 3.25GB of ram, so if you stick 4Gb in then dont be alarmed if it looks odd.
 
The 1GB graphics cards currently around are worse performance per £ than an 8800GT. Almost as fast as the 8800GTX but a fraction of the price.
 
Don't see what all the fuss is about, I've used linux for years, its still no good for most of the stuff I want a PC for.

Kev, that graphics card is a million times over kill what you will ever need. So is 4 gig ram. I wouldn't bother with either, especially with XP, Vista looks like it will be superceeded in a year as well, so I probably won't ever bother with that OS.
Anyway the dual core CPU thats in your new PC is what is going to make all the difference. I've got a dual cpu athlon MP2800 pc. I have had it since mid 2004, it was even a bit out of date then. I have 2gig server ram (that means ECC-Registered), 256meg gforce gfx card (which will run dual monitors at 1600x1200 each perfectly). I was trying to justify to myself that I should update it. But I simply dont need to, its more than ample for everything bar editing HD video - which I don't do anyway.

Buy what you need - not what looks good on paper. Or youll just be wasting your money.
 
Just to say, I've been running the PC for a while now and it's great.

I haven't bought anything for it and it's soo fast!!! running all the programs I want it to and very quickly at that!

Certainly was good value for money, that's for sure!

Got AVG installed and spybot to keep it running fast too

Kev
 

Similar threads

Littlewood
Whadya think?
Replies
2
Views
765
Arnold
Arnold
tse_adam
contact lens solution
Replies
0
Views
625
tse_adam
tse_adam
pjg1979
Non Car Related Stuff on ebay
Replies
1
Views
804
Arnold
Arnold
B
Would these wheels fit?
Replies
2
Views
915
bobb
B
johnsams
K10 SuperS going cheap on ebay
Replies
1
Views
775
curtis
curtis
Back
Top