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Upgrade possibilities?

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  • 11-02-2012 3:51pm
    #1
    SLK10
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭


    Hey. I'm thinking of upgrading my current system, but have no idea what would be possible since I have no real clue about hardware. Looking to spend around £100/€120, but flexible if it's worth it. Current PC was a custom build off ebay about 4 years ago. I'll try list the components...

    Motherboard: ASUS M2V-MX SE
    Chipset: VIA K8M890CE + VT8237S
    CPU: DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
    GPU: ATI Radeon X1300
    Memory: DDR2 SDRAM 1024 MB

    Using HWiNFO32 to detect this info. Thanks for any help.

    HD Photo/Video editing is what i'm really trying to improve the system for.


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    #2
    Serephucus
    Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    A little over budget, but something like this would most-likely be quite a jump, and would provide you with a vastly better upgrade path.

    http://i.imgur.com/fxlCv.png


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    #3
    deconduo
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 4,281 Mod ✭✭✭✭deconduo


    Gonna be tough to upgrade on that budget tbh. There's 2 things you can do:

    -Bump the RAM up to 4GB and buy an SSD as a boot drive. You can probably get 4GB of DDR2 on adverts for €20-€40 or thereabouts. For the SSD, there are a couple of choices, but this is probably your best option. It will be bottlenecked a small bit by your motherboard, but its a good investment and should last you a good few years.

    -Save up about €100 more and get a brand new motherboard/RAM/CPU:
    Item|Price
    Total build cost: €179.31 + €30 shipping
    Intel Core i3-2120 Box, LGA1155|€105.99
    ASRock H61M-HVS (B3), Sockel 1155, mATX|€40.12
    8GB-Kit A-Data Value PC3-1333 CL9|€33.20


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    #4
    SLK10
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭SLK10


    Thanks lads. I would go to €200. I have no clue what can be mixed and matched though. I'd need to know i'd be safe with it all being compatible.


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    #5
    Serephucus
    Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    With €200 to spend decon's suggestion is best.

    If you google and download Speccy, and post your info from that, it'll help. We'll need to know if your hard drive(s) and CD/DVD drive are IDE or SATA, what your PSU is*, and what case you have**.

    *For this, you'll probably have to pop the door of the case and take a picture. There'll be a side with a table on it, so get a picture of that, along with the model (if it's not on that side).

    ** If you're not sure of it, grab a picture, and hopefully we can figure it out. One of the whole of the inside would help too.

    Mostly the above are just precautionary. Odds are they'll work fine together, but better to be safe than sorry.


    Edit: Never mind the case bit. Just had a look at your motherboard, and it's mATX, so that'll be fine, but it has both SATA and IDE ports, so we'll need to know which ones you're using.


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    #6
    SLK10
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭SLK10


    Attached the speccy summary. Will upload the text file if needed.


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    #7
    Serephucus
    Registered Users Posts: 7,180 ✭✭✭Serephucus


    Ok, so you've got a SATA hard drive, which is good (this is the more expensive bit), but your optical drive is IDE, and while you can get adapters, I'd just as soon pick up a €15 SATA drive and be done with it.

    http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=47362&agid=699

    Still need to see the PSU to make sure it can power everything. I'm not sure if the 2120 can get by on just a 4-pin EPS connector (which your PSU is likely to have) vs. the regular 8-pin.


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    #8
    SLK10
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4 ✭SLK10


    Need to pop out for a couple of hours, I'll be back with that picture! Cheers


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