2GB DDR3 for 3GB DDR2 - Screwed by repair shop??

[Hico]

Hey Guys,
I had my PC (Acer Aspire M3100) repaired through insurance after a little accident (blew MB, CPU and some other 5V stuff by plugging wrong power adapter into connected USB Hub...).

I gave the PC away with a Athlon 64X2 Dual Core 5600+ and 3GB of DDR2 RAM.
I got it back with a Athlon II X2 260 and 2GB of DDR3 RAM.
Did I get screwed?

I can't remember what motherboard I had, but the new one looks decent (Gigabyte GA-880GM-USB3).

In terms of usage, the most demanding applications would be games, video rendering and SolidWorks CAD.

I don't particularly trust the repair shop, considering they overlooked that I had a 7 port powered USB Hub instead of unpowered 4 port and a Logitech wireless mouse instead of a corded no-name... New CPU fan is also a noisy piece of ***.

Would be grateful for your opinion/advice on this!

Cheers, Hico

 

[Guest]

The Athlon II x2 260 is faster than the 5600+ and is newer am3 chip, ddr3 is better than ddr 2, motherboard will be better as well as is newer am3, could put a nice phenom II x4 or x6 in there. its not like for like, as what they replaced is no old technology, you got upgraded, fair enough trade off, but I would not stand for the USB Hub and Mouse, Id ask for a similar logitech product as well as powered USB hub, those shouls not be so hard to get, also now you are ddr3, look into getting another 2gb ddr 3, its well cheap at moment.

 

[jevon]

As moricon said, you got upgraded Except for the hub and mouse, that's BS. If you have a 64bit version of windows I'd pop in another 2gb of ddr3.

 

[becandl]

The CPU fan is probably noisy because they put the stock AMD CPU fan on it. If you want it to be quieter you can buy an aftermarket cooler, but if you don't know what you are doing inside a computer I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[Hico]

Cheers Guys

All good then!
Hub and mouse is sorted, I noticed it on the insurance quote and put forward a gentle reminder that I want 1 for 1 replacement... (although Logitech M510 feels a lot cheaper than LX8, but so be it...)

Talking about Win7, I have 32bit professional installed and was already preparing for data recovery and new installation, but it simply boots without any problems on the new hardware!!! Quite impressed! Just updated a couple of drivers on the running system and that was it.

Should I leave it as is or would you recommend a new installation anyway? If so, I also have access to a free 64bit version (thanks MSDNAA ), should I put that on?
I just vaguely remember something about not all software being compatible and not much gain from 32 to 64, that's why I stuck with the 32bit so far.

 

[Hico]

Thanks becandl,

I'm looking into the fan issue. Pretty confident with electronics, been in the industry for a while. I haven't had much to do with computers gutts for the last 10 years, but at least I don't touch RAM sticks by the contacts without antistatic precautions like the repair guy... in a carpeted room... I have serious doubts about that guy

 

[obsidian86]

just get 2gb more ram and get the 64 bit windows ddr3 is much cheaper then ddr2 these days