Help me upgrade my computer

[malcolmk14]

I have no idea what I'm doing, so I thought I'd turn to CP's wisdom. I got this computer about three years ago, and haven't done anything to it upgrade-wise.

Now, Starcraft 2 is out, so it's as good a time as any to think about upgrading it.

This is what I've got:



Video card is NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE

I don't know much about computers, but I know that's not very good. And it's certainly not good enough to run SC2. So any suggestions as to what I can upgrade, what the cheapest/best ways to do it are, would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Raekwon]

Whats your budget?

[malcolmk14]

Good question. I don't really have a budget necessarily but I don't want to spend an insane amount. Let's say $500-600. I don't know how realistic that is.

Like I said, I know virtually nothing. So I'd like to upgrade as much as possible as cheaply as possible...

[TSXCman]

keep an eye on redflagdeals > forums > hot deals > Comp

great stuff out right now

i'm considering the dell vostro tower at 800$.
Dell: Vostro 430 w/i7-860/8GB/500GB HD/Win 7/2yr warrunty

they have some video cards and such for sale

[sa226]

It depends how much you want to pimp it out. I don't know what the requirements are for Star Craft 2.

First I would toss more RAM in there 1gb isn't very much these days, I would say 4-6 gb of Ram is a good amount

Second get a video card. I think the 6150 is onboard graphics. You can get a decent video card for 100-150 bucks. The top of the line ones are closer to 600, but again it depends on how demanding the games are that you want to play.

Third you can think about upgrading the processor, that one isn't terrible but there are better ones out there. If the computer is 3 years old you might have a socket 939 motherboard, in which case you processor upgrade possibilities are quite limited

Like I said it depends on what you are looking for in increased performance. If you just want to get a little more juice out of it, more ram and a video card is where you should start.

Here is what you would be looking at

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...9/Default.aspx

and
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...3%28ME%29.aspx

These 2 upgrades For $210 would be a significant increase over what you have right now

[QuadCityImages]

Anything more than 3 gigs of RAM and you'll need an OS upgrade as well.

[Hack&Lube]

Your computer is not as bad as you believe. You only need less than $130 in upgrades. $170 if you get some ram.

The processor is fine, I could play Crysis on an AMD X2 3800+ (although I overclocked). The fastest CPU your motherboard can support is an AM2 5000+ so it's not really worth upgrading at all.

The most important thing for you is to get a new videocard.
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...r&promoid=1141
I think a 5850 would be good future proofing. It's $119 after rebate. Shipping is only $5.99 for this sale. That said, you are a bit CPU limited which could be a bottleneck (videocard is faster than your CPU can keep up with). You could get away with a $60-$75 videocard like an 8800/9800 GT that you find used on kijiji/ebay.

You could use another gigabyte of ram. For the ram, you need to figure out how many sticks of ram are currently installed. If there are two sticks of 512MB DDR2 in there, you could put another two sticks of 512MB DDR2. You could get away with spending $34 for two sticks of ram.
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...X3985(ME).aspx

Your ram is what is sitting in those long blue and black vertical slots on the right


This is your computer right? It should be somewhat upgradable since it has an AM2 processor, 4 slots for PC 4200 (533 MHz) and PC2 5300 (667 MHz) DDR2 DIMMs, and a PCI-E x16 slot for video.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...roduct=3239117

Your computer is too limited by the CPU to really spend $500-600 on it. If you wanted to spend that amount, I'd sell your old computer and buy an entirely new one.

[Vulcan]

You could upgrade your memory and video card but than you may have to upgrade your power supply also. I wouldn't go any higher than a HD 5770 video card or you'll just be wasting your money as your system will bottle neck because your processor is too slow. Probably more like a HD 5670 would be more in tune with your system as the power needed for this card is low. So you could upgrade for about $200 but it may be sending good money after bad seeing as your willing to spend about $600, I'd spend a couple hundred more and go with a new system. Memory express or NCIX would be glad to put something together for you. Just remember to price match all the components.

Here's a couple of sites to do your price matching with.

http://www.pricebat.ca/

http://www.shopbot.ca/

Because I'm bored here's a system to consider before price matching.

Case $116 and PSU http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...c&promoid=1141

MB $103 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...S&promoid=1141

Processor i3 $130 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...l&promoid=1141

Memory $115 http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=42745

Hard drive 500GB $54 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...D&promoid=1141

Video Card HD5750 $120 (this is optional as the processor comes with a built in card but I don't know if it's much good)

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...r&promoid=1141

DVD drive $19 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...g&promoid=1141

Windows 7 64 bit $106 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?s...t&promoid=1141

PC assembly and testing $50 http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...facture=NCIXPC

Total $813

This would give you a great computer with the option to upgrade easily.

[Hack&Lube]

If you decide to build your own, you could probably do very well just asking CPers for their old hardware

Regarding cases, I've been using this case to build computers for people lately, I enjoy it quite a bit with the small size. Only $34.99 until May 5th! 50% off is an incredible deal!

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33714&...anufacture=GMC

[Mike F]

Boom -- there you go pardner