Upgrading pc

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El Mike

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Current build is pretty much stock
http://www.docs.sony.com/release/specs/VGCRB34G_mksp.pdf
Only difference is I have a tad more Ram and its running on windows 7.

Basically I want to upgrade this to be able to play 1080 Mkvs flawlessly. when it was on xp it could actually run them, but ever since i switched to 7 it constantly gets out of sync.
I also plan to set this up to use a HDTV as a monitor.

The thing is I don't know where to start and how much its going to cost. D :
 
Once everything I have everything done It would have to be below 480. As low as possible though.
 
these are his specs according to his link(except he says he has more ram)-
Processor
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 540J with
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology
(3.20GHz1, 1MB L2 Cache)
Front Side Bus Speed
800MHz
Chipset
Intel® 915G
Memory
512MB PC-3200 400MHz DDR
(256MB x 2)
(Expandable to 2GB)
Hard Drive2
200GB2 7200rpm Serial ATA Hard Drive
Graphics
ATI Radeon® X300
128MB Video Memory
Graphics
TV-Out / VGA-Out / DVI-D Out
16x PCI Express
Giga Pocket® MPEG2 Realtime
Encoder/Decoder board with TV
Tuner
DVD+R Double Layer / DVD±RW5 /
CD-RW Drive


so you really need a graphics card basically?
 
His memory is sub-par, even for entry level standards. His graphics are going to perform worse than any onboard solutions of recent times by far. His memory capacity is terribly, not to mention his graphics memory capacity.

Upgrading the video card will increase performance, yes. However, this is not what I would recommend in his situation. I would recommend saving as much money as possible and building a completely new rig. Upgrading piece by piece is just not a reasonable option at this point. It makes more sense to go for a Core i5 750 or Phenom II x4 955.

Upgrading 1 piece at a time is not only a waste of money, but it also hampers your ability to upgrade over time, and for a budget minded consumer this is a drawback.
 
Actually theres some other very minor changes to the set up Different hardrives, Dl burner I just knew that wasn't important so i didn't mention it.

^ As for the post right above this I'm not going to bother starting over, this set up worked fine with XP.. So I just want to see what changes would be necessary to get it to work the same on 7.




"so you really need a graphics card basically?"
Any recommendation that will work with what I got?
 
Ok so my current build is slightly different from the stock model, very slightly just ram when it comes to main components.


Stuff that matters
-Intel D915GAG (Board)
-Intel i915G
-Intel (R) Pentium (R) 4 540J@ 3.20 GHz
-1024 Mb ram
-Radeon X300


Ect
-WD 200GB
-WD 500GB
-LG DVD-DL
-Intel PRO/100 Ethernet controller

Everything else I either removed for lack of use (Tv tuner, 56k connection..lol) or stopped working (Multiformat memory card reader )



I ended up ordering a HD4650 Graphics card. And I'm fairly certain thats a low budget card that would still meet my needs video wise. Please correct me if I'm wrong since I'm not to good with hardware.




I'm thinking of getting the 942 tower and I just wanted to check if there was any issue with my current Motherboard and if my current power supply is salvageable or if i would have to fork out for a new one. Thanks for any possible advice anyone here can give me.
 
you might run into an issue of your mobo being able to run that newer gpu at its full power
 
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