Upgrading Advice

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iamwado

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Right i was given a friends old pc with the following specs:

4 x 512MB PC2700 DDR RAM

radeon 9600Pro 128MB DDR (AGP)

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-8IK1100 (Rev. 1.0) socket 478

PSU - Tagan TG430-U22 430W

CPU - P4 3.3GHz

I have about 300pounds (~600 dollars) to spend on upgrading it for a bit of gaming and using office etc. would also like to install vista. Do i need to replace everything? I know the PSU is fairly new so should be ok, will connect to PCI-E graphics cards too.
 
Definitely upgrade the motherboard, CPU, and graphic card. Actually with 600, you could build a whole new computer, that would be much better. Like:

CPU - X2 3600+
Motherboard - Biostar TForce550
RAM - 2x1gb G. Skill DDR2-800 NQs
Graphic card - 7950GT
And just use the same power supply.
Case - Cooler Master Centurion 5
Hard drive - Seagate 7200.10 320GB

Welcome to T.F.!
 
I would try to stretch your budget to 400 quid and go with something like this:

Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6600 2.40GHz Retail / Gigabyte 965P DS3 / 2GB GeIL PC2-6400C4 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle

with this 3d card:
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail


or this one:
BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

or if you really want to dip into your wallet:
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
This card is QUITE good for the money...downside is that you'd be going almost 200 quid over your budget
 
Cheers guys that was fast!!! So am i right in thinking the bundles are cheaper than buying the bits separately?

And in terms of graphics cards I'm confused as to how you can compare them and their prices, is it usually the case that the more you pay the better the card or not?

Sorry for the crappy questions, just im new to this.

Cheers.
 
The bundles at that site, I think are similar in price, if you were to buy them separately. And it is the case, that if you pay more, you get a better card. Hence, "You get what you pay for." There are some though, that you can buy for not alot of money, and still get an awesome card. Like the 7900GS, 7950GT, X1950XT, and the 8800GTS 320mb especially. These cards are like the bang for your buck, cards.
 
The bundles at that site, I think are similar in price, if you were to buy them separately. And it is the case, that if you pay more, you get a better card. Hence, "You get what you pay for." There are some though, that you can buy for not alot of money, and still get an awesome card. Like the 7900GS, 7950GT, X1950XT, and the 8800GTS 320mb especially. These cards are like the bang for your buck, cards.

yup well said.

And yeah the bundles won't really save you money but it's just easier to buy it as a package. Luckily you're right the PSU isn't too bad....it could be more powerful but it has 20a on each of the 2 12v rails which is enough for a c2d setup and a decent gfx card
 
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