updating my graphics card and cpu

newton123 · Mar 9, 2016

hello now i know ive got an older machine in the dell inspiron 530 but i would just like to upgrade my graphics card and cpu. Could anyone please check my specs and suggest as to what to do please and possibly give me models upgrades i can do with the cpu and graphics card please.

The specs are:

The specs to my pc are as follows,

Operating System
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz 34 °C
Conroe 65nm Technology
RAM
6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 332MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
Dell Inc. 0RY007 (Socket 775) 40 °C
Graphics
SAMSUNG (1360x768@60Hz)
Intel G33/G31 Express Chipset Family (Dell)
Storage
298GB Hitachi HDP725032GLA360 ATA Device (SATA) 36 °C
Optical Drives
TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653B ATA Device
Audio
High Definition Audio Device

Motherboard
Manufacturer Dell Inc.
Model 0RY007 (Socket 775)
Version ÿÿÿ
Chipset Vendor Intel
Chipset Model P35/G33/G31
Chipset Revision A2
Southbridge Vendor Intel
Southbridge Model 82801IR (ICH9R)
Southbridge Revision 02
System Temperature 40 °C
BIOS
Brand Dell Inc.
Version 1.0.10
Date 15/12/2007

SkyEvil · Mar 9, 2016

newton123 :

Hey, you could try to find a used Intel Q6600 or Q6700 cpu and get an nvidia gtx 750 or similar graphics card, but it would be a much better idea to get a whole new system. It's not really worth putting any money into this 10 year old desktop anymore. Tell us your budget for a new system?

X79 · Mar 9, 2016

You need a new system. There's no discussion. That hardware is ancient. You can't upgrade your CPU, without upgrading your motherboard, as it uses an ancient socket. This would then mean you'd have to upgrade your RAM too, as your old DDR2 RAM would no longer be compatible with your new motherboard. This is to speak nothing of the very old PSU, which probably won't be able to handle a modern GPU. Even if it could, you wouldn't want to risk new hardware getting fried because of an old PSU. So all in all, just upgrade. If you give us a budget, we may be able to help. In the end, it's the cheaper, safer and better option; although we don't know what you're upgrading for.

newton123 · Mar 17, 2016

im really sorry for such a late late reply ive had some family issues. If i upgraded i could spend around £250 but would this even get me a pc thats up to standards. now i wouldnt mind if i had to build on it but i would like a pc with bvuild potential etc.

X79 · Mar 17, 2016

Well I don't know what you actually want the PC for. Whether it's for gaming (and in which case, what kind) or if it's for casual web browsing. I also don't know what sort of cases you prefer, both in terms of size and color-scheme. So with that uncertainty in mind, here's a build which, while definitely not spectacular in any sense of the word, should be workable:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (£85.98 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 Evo 43.1 CFM CPU Cooler (£15.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£39.10 @ More Computers)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£15.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 250 2GB Video Card (£64.48 @ Dabs)
Case: BitFenix Comrade ATX Mid Tower Case (£32.88 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£39.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £294.40
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 02:51 GMT+0000

There's no harddrive, as you can take your old one and put into it, I should think. Depending on your PSU, maybe it would be possible to do the same there, momentarily. It's not something you might readily build on so much, except for adding a good PSU, more RAM and a good GPU; again, depending on what exactly you're trying to achieve, which I don't know.

There's also the Intel way:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor (£92.79 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£34.98 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£15.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GT 610 1GB Video Card (£31.98 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case (£27.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£36.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £240.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 03:03 GMT+0000

In short, I need to know what exactly you want, before I'm going to expend energy on trying to optimize the builds. But do know, that there's definitely options for you, with 250£. You shouldn't expect to buy 1 motherboard and then keep it for 5-10 years and expect to be able to buy the latest CPUs to go along with it. It doesn't quite work that way. Things change and it's inevitable with PCs that you change stuff. It means you get to choose. Unlike, for instance, with consoles, wherein if you wish to upgrade, you have to wait until MS or Sony release a new console. Also, it would be useful if you could find out what PSU you have. I expect you to take Windows 7 from your old computer if possible, as well as the optical drive too, so you can save money. You might also be able to sell your old parts, which means your budget might actually be closer to 300£ if we factor those in. Anyhow, tell me what you want first off.

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

i want it for a home media center and also gaming pc. But i really do want it to be quality pc. i would put the price up if that was what it took?

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

What kind of gaming? What kind of games do you want to play? It would be helpful with some example titles. I'll assume it's at Full HD too. Also known as a resolution of 1920 x 1080.

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

yes full hd and i would like to play games like pro evolution and warcraft. im willing to spend money on a bundle to im just taking advice from people. I would like to build it myself.

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£173.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£64.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury White 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.49 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.98 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GB Video Card (£127.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Zalman Z11 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£43.98 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £528.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 18:27 GMT+0000

This PC has it all, except for overclocking ability and an operating system. It's pretty ideal. You can re-use the case for future builds. This PC would be quite excellent as a gaming PC, for this price range, due to having an i5 CPU, which is the ideal gaming CPU to have and a GTX 950, which is a card which will work very well for 1080p gaming. Coupled with 8GB RAM and the standard 1TB HDD, it's a very nice starting point. The CPU is technically around 2 generations old already, however there's not a huge difference between the newest generation 6 CPUs and this generation 4 CPU, in terms of FPS/performance. But it does mean that you'll have to change the motherboard most likely, when you'd like to upgrade your CPU, since newer CPUs require different motherboard sockets.

What do you think? It can be done cheaper of course, but this would be around the ideal state of things for you, in my view.

An example of something cheaper is by dropping the CPU to an i3, which is still a pretty powerful CPU. And dropping the GPU to a GTX 750 Ti:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4370 3.8GHz Dual-Core Processor (£130.63 @ More Computers)
Motherboard: MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£64.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury White 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£29.49 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.98 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£99.49 @ Dabs)
Case: Zalman Z11 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£43.98 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £456.54
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 18:37 GMT+0000

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

yes the first one would be ideal but would it play all games? and is there any sites that do the whole bundles themselves with payment options cause that way i could spend more. What do you think?

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

It would play "all games". That's not to say you can *always* max out the settings, but running on at least medium settings, at FHD, will produce a good result in most games currently. What you want is at least 30 FPS. That's sort of the threshhold for a good experience, in most gamers opinion. Ideally every game would run at over 60 FPS of course, but that requires even beefier hardware or that you play slightly older games and/or adjust few graphics settings a bit.

I'm not too sure about the payment options. I only know that there's several vendors you can choose to buy from, if you follow the link to the build you prefer.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/y7HqK8/by_merchant/

Feel free to check out reviews too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1k6nTgxFnk

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

i wonder how much i could get the parts to build this for?

Case:
Corsair Graphite 760T V2 windowed (Front Ports: 2 x USB2.0, 2 X USB3.0,Headphone Jack, Microphone Jack).

PSU:
Cooler Master Hybrid 750 W (ready for the top graphic cards and also SLI).

Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-GAMING-G1 for gaming and professionals Windows 10 Ready (BIOS has been updated to the latest version).
• 10 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
• Creative® Sound Core 3D chip
• Support for 4-Way/3-Way/2-Way AMD CrossFire™/NVIDIA® SLI™ technology
• 8 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (6 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
• 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 6 ports available through the internal USB headers)

CPU:
INTEL CORE i7-4770 (LGA1150, Haswell Refresh, Intel Smart Cache 8MB, No of Cores: 4,No of Threads: 8 (2 logical cores per physical), 3.4GHz Base, 3.9GHz Turbo, 1200MHz GPU, 84W).
If the buyer require I can easily overclock it to at least 30% stable absolutely free

CPU Cooler:
Corsair H100i CPU Cooler (Aftermarket Hybrid CPU Cooler To Provide Low Temperatures During Gaming)

Graphics Card:
Asus Strix GTX 980 to deliver the best gaming experience (Every game is running on ultra-settings like a charm).

RAM:
Super Fast Avexit Blitz 16 GB kit 2133 Mhz ( With lightning effects)

STORAGE (FOUR DRIVES INSTALLED):
• 2 x 250 GB Samsung SSD (in Raid 0 configuration) (Extremely Fast For An Operating System And All Programs).
• 1X512 Samsung SSD ENTERPRISE SERIES (For gaming or Photoshop processing )
• 1 x 1000 GB Hitachi Travelstar 7200 RPM (as used for media )

Optical Drive:
LG BLURAY Writer (combo ofcourse with dvd/cd writer)

Other media :
Akasa card reader including 2.5 “ hdd dock ( this will enable you to fast transfer files from a 2.5 hdd or SSD at a glance)
Case fans:
All the fans are aftermarket which make the computer really silent

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

That would be very expensive. I just tried to keep things low, as I got the impression you didn't want to go too much beyond 250£.
If you bought that entire build, I think you'd be around 1000£ or more. It's a good build, to be sure. However you don't need an i7 and from what you expressed in terms of gaming wishes, a GTX 980 is excessive. Likewise you don't need such a big PSU or two SSDs; although of course it's lovely to have.
That i7 isn't a K edition CPU, yet there's talk of overclocking.

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

yes ok, So you honestly think i should stick with i5 then? ok so the build you showed me with the i5 that you put together was actually a great pc for me yes? im really sorry for all the questions.

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

is the MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard which you suggested very upgradeble for the future though cause i would spend extra in order to be able to upgrade in the future for example.

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

An i7 is only worth it if you're into really high-end gaming and/or things like video and image editing. Otherwise the price hike relative to what you get, is very low. Hence an i5 is the sweetspot. As for your motherboard, that depends very much on what you mean by "future". As I said previously, those are already "old" in a sense. That motherboard has socket LGA 1150, since it uses a 4th generation CPU. Well newer ones use 1151 and so if you bought a 6th generation CPU, you wouldn't be able to use it with that motherboard. So in that regard, no, it's not really upgradeable, unless you stay within the same generation. But that shouldn't be one of your biggest concerns.

What you should bare in mind, is that planning for the future isn't a very ... easy thing to do. It shouldn't be the biggest factor, because in the end, you're not meant to keep a gaming PC for 5-10 years and still expect it to perform really well. It's just not feasible, if we're talking about wanting to continuously play newer demanding titles. Then it's better to get what you need *now* and then save the money you would've used to make it "future proof" and use that money as your "upgrade money". This allows you to continuously upgrade your system whenever you feel performance isn't up to par and thus you always achieve a good result. I refer you to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jG1-gjHJkA#t=30s

I didn't know the upper limits of your budget, so I just picked a motherboard which would be workable. There's better motherboards of course, but it's not as if it's "bad" as such.

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

are you based in the uk? whats the max ram that that specific motherboard would hold?

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£186.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-AR ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£102.10 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£52.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Mushkin Chronos 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£53.71 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.98 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£264.98 @ Novatech)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£264.98 @ Novatech)
Case: NZXT Phantom (Black/Green) ATX Full Tower Case (£102.70 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£81.29 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1147.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 20:28 GMT+0000

I don't know if it's more this sort of thing you're looking for. This one can do basically everything obviously.

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

Click on the motherboard in question to see. It's a max of 32GB DDR3. But most people never even go beyond 16GB.

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

just wondering what do you think of this pc as im sure i could build on it and i think its playable in terms of gaming? its 130 pound

Powerful Dell Optiplex 960 PC with Brand New Ati Radeon R7 240 2GB HDMI Graphics /

its Good For Gaming or Any Kind of Video Editing , or Graphics Designing

Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit Activated ( You Can Update to Windows 10 )

intel Core 2 Duo 8400 ( 2x 3.0 Ghz = 6.0 Ghz Processors )

8 GB Ram / 500 GB Hard Drive /

New Amd Radeon R7 240 2GB Shared Total 4GB Graphics Card with DVI , VGA and HDMI

DVD ReWriter & CD ReWriter / 10 X USB Port / eSata / Gigabit Ethernet Port

Microsoft Office 2010 Pro Plus ( Word , Excel , Power Point ... and many more )

Microsoft Security Essential Anti Virus Program ( Free For Lifetime )

Very Fast Desktop Computer and Works Perfectly

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

i think its going back a step aint it?

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

by the way im gonna use your specs to buy my pc. But just so your aware i dont mind buying used parts either if that helps the price

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

Various shades of horrible, is perhaps how I'd describe it. The GPU isn't something worth much praise, for one thing. It's good there's 8GB RAM and it's also okay with a 500GB HDD, although there's no mention of the speed of it; whether it's the slower 5400RPM or faster 7200RPM. The CPU is also ancient, in a sense. Better get an i3 then, at least. The fact that it says "any kind of video editing and graphic design" is just a lie, flat-out, pretty much. Any serious editing PC would first of all have 16GB of RAM, not 8GB and a better CPU/GPU configuration. I'd say that computer is fine for very light gaming and browsing. Prebuilt PCs aren't too good either. It's better to build your own. As for the software such as Word and so forth, there's other alternatives such as Open Office, which are freely downloadable from the web. So don't let that affect your decision.

X79 · Mar 18, 2016

Well cool, feel free to ask me when you've decided on parts, if I think it's okay or not. If you set yourself a budget of 500-600£, you can get some pretty good things.

newton123 · Mar 18, 2016

ok, could i just say thank you so much for all your help honestly i so very much appreciate it. Im gonna stick to your first gaming specs and then are have me a lovely pc. in terms of hard drive storage i could cut it down i dont need 1 tb i could deal with a lower storage just the cpu motherboard and ram are the main things aint they. would you suggest buying used?

updating my graphics card and cpu

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