Upgrading an old desktop gaming PC. Appreciate advice please

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harvin1975

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Oct 29, 2014
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Hi,
I have a Cyberpower PC bought around 2007.
MB: ASUS P5N32-E SLA
GC: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
RAM: 2GB

Running on Vista.

It's running very slow nowadays and I'm keen to update it to Windows 8.
I'd also like to get a SSD as my current hard drive is 5GB away from capacity.

Has anyone recommendations.
Would like to bring it up to date without spending a fortune.
No longer play games on it so it will be used for internet with MS Office installed.

Would really appreciate your thoughts and opinions and what I need to update and upgrade.

Many thanks.
 
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chromebook can't update your remote control. that software is probably windows/mac only and Chromebook is neither.

for photos, what I'd suggest is to take your old hard drive out of your old outdated PC, put it in a USB3.0 external HDD enclosure and when you're home, you should be able to(though I haven't tried this) plug in your camera to the chromebook and your new external USB hard drive and move the photos from your camera to the external HDD. Chromebooks don't have much built in internal storage for photos (although you can upgrade it if you know what you're doing). local file management is also not one of its strong suits.

If those are deal breakers for you, then you'd be better off with a Windows laptop.

one more thing to...
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xStampede

xStampede

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Jun 18, 2013
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It's hard to upgrade and old computer with outdated pieces, no new pc parts fit your computer, you need to buy second hand stuff and it will be very minor upgrade. You should just try to save money for a budge PC, if you know how to build it yourself you can do a decent pc for 400$.
 
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bliq

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In all honesty, for that use case, my recommendation is to buy a $200 chromebook. Chrome is an excellent browser, webmail is all I recommend for anyone except really determined techies, and google docs is a worthy (and free) replacement to most of MSOffice. By the time you add an SSD and RAM, you'll be halfway there.

Actually, depending on how you feel about refurbs, you can get an Acer C710 for about $100. I've bought 2 from amazon and they're both excellent.

Also, performance is relatively excellent, provided you have a good internet connection. There's just no need for a powerful CPU or a lot of RAM when you're doing everything in the cloud (it does have a small SSD so it boots almost instantly). you get the added benefit of it being mobile so take it on trips. It'll do spotify, play movies from a USB stick, netflix, hulu, etc. If I wasn't an engineer, I'd probably be using a chromebook.
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Agreed, if you aren't gaming then any retail desktop PC or laptop will meet your needs. Most computers come with between 4 and 8 GB of memory these days.

Going to be tough to find a desktop with an SSD, and ultrabooks with one are going to be quite expensive. That might be an upgrade you have to purchase yourself.

Take a look at Cruxial MX100 or Kingston HyperX. If you want to make it easy, a Samsung upgrade kit will even include software to move your OS and files to the new drive.
 
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xStampede

xStampede

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I think SSD disk is the last thing he should be spending his money on, SSD disk don't help if your CPU and GPU are garbage. First buy a low budged PC, then you can add SSD after when you get additional money.
 
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Math Geek

Math Geek

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i'd just scrap it and grab a cheap pre-made pc. you can get one without the monitor and such for probably $300 which will more than work the web and run office. this would be cheaper than any kind of worthwhile upgrade.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Refurbished-Black-110-243w-Desktop-PC-with-AMD-Quad-Core-A4-5000-Accelerated-Processor-8GB-Memory-1TB-Hard-Drive-and-Windows-8.1-Monitor-Not-Inc/37821509

here you go. $269 and has 1 tb hdd, 8 gb ram, win 8.1 and an a4 cpu. just drop your old hdd into it, transfer the data and your good to go.
 
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harvin1975

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Oct 29, 2014
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Thanks for all responses so far. The Chromebook seems like a great alternative.
Google docs sounds like a great alternative and actually better for me for purchasing MS Office.
However, I forgot to mention earlier that I also upload all my photos from my camera to my current PC. Do Chromebooks allow me to save photos onto them. Do they have a hard drive/SSDs?
I also have software installed that programmes my Logitech Harmony remote control.
I think I've got to research whether Chromebook just does everything on the net or whether I can also install some programmes.
 
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bliq

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Jun 29, 2006
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chromebook can't update your remote control. that software is probably windows/mac only and Chromebook is neither.

for photos, what I'd suggest is to take your old hard drive out of your old outdated PC, put it in a USB3.0 external HDD enclosure and when you're home, you should be able to(though I haven't tried this) plug in your camera to the chromebook and your new external USB hard drive and move the photos from your camera to the external HDD. Chromebooks don't have much built in internal storage for photos (although you can upgrade it if you know what you're doing). local file management is also not one of its strong suits.

If those are deal breakers for you, then you'd be better off with a Windows laptop.

one more thing to mention- an SSD will help juist about any old system with a SATA port. I actually put one in an atom N270 (much weaker than even a P4) netbook and installed fedora- made the netbook useable again. except for HD video. booted in 10 seconds, apps opened almost instantly. made it almost a pleasure to use. as a matter of fact, my experience with our CB's are similar to that- near instant boot, near instant app launches, etc. that's why I like ours so much.
 
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