Upgrading old PC

[Oranos]

Heya,
So I have been running my e7500 oced to 3.3, 9800gt and 3gb ddr2, well it will be 3 years soon.

Now its time to upgrade. My budget is thin. I had on my mind i3 2100 with MSI H61 mobo, I placed link in the end, and Kingston 4gb ddr3.
I play at 18' monitor so no big resolutions, might upgrade in not so near future, ''might''.

Now on this small monitor, I could max out everything for almost 2 years, so would what I wanted in the 1st place be good?
Or maybe try to get little more for i5 2310, or maybe put that money into better mobo?
Or third solution, take i3 and upgrade this old dinosaur of my GPU?

Btw, atm I have non branded 500W PSU which is handling pretty well with small OC, but wont i3 eat less power?


Well I think I said it all, thanks :]

 

[Oranos]

Damn I forgot link xD
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/H61M-P22--B3-.html

 

[amuffin]

Get rid of your non branded psu and grab a quality psu. Also get a z68 or p67 board, a good cheap board is the asrock z68 extreme 3 gen 3.

 

[Oranos]

Hm, that only got part of the question covered :s

Also to add up, that board is out of my reach. My budget is like ~160 euros top for cpu and board :/

 

[MU_Engineer]

Heya,
So I have been running my e7500 oced to 3.3, 9800gt and 3gb ddr2, well it will be 3 years soon.

Now its time to upgrade. My budget is thin. I had on my mind i3 2100 with MSI H61 mobo, I placed link in the end, and Kingston 4gb ddr3.
I play at 18' monitor so no big resolutions, might upgrade in not so near future, ''might''.

Now on this small monitor, I could max out everything for almost 2 years, so would what I wanted in the 1st place be good?
Or maybe try to get little more for i5 2310, or maybe put that money into better mobo?
Or third solution, take i3 and upgrade this old dinosaur of my GPU?

Btw, atm I have non branded 500W PSU which is handling pretty well with small OC, but wont i3 eat less power?


Well I think I said it all, thanks :]

If I were you, the first thing I would upgrade would be the monitor. An 18" monitor is very unlikely to have more than a 1440x900 resolution, and probably something like 1280x1024, 1280x800, or 1366x768. Putting that EUR160 into a nice 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 monitor will do much more for usability of your computer than anything else. The next thing I would look at is getting a decent PSU.

You won't be able to buy much of a computer for EUR160 so wait until you have enough to upgrade to a significantly better quad-core CPU instead of a dual, 8-16 GB of RAM, and a decent motherboard.

 

[xtremegamer2da-max]

well you should at least tell us what your budget is exactly cuz u could get a decent pc for 800-1000 dollars pls post ur budget so i can help u more

 

[diellur]

The bottom line here is that your whole system needs upgraded, if you want to play newer titles. Unfortunately, the components in your current rig are all from an older generation of technology, so it all needs to be replaced.

The most important thing to upgrade is your PSU...2 reasons; 1) it's getting on a bit now anyway and 2) being unbranded, it won't have the protective safeguards that more mainstream PSUs have.

You didn't give us a budget, but based on the mobo, RAM and CPU you mentioned I guestimated you'd be looking at about £160 (not sure where in the world you are...). Anyways, with that you could get the mobo and RAM you're after and instead of the i3-2100 go for the Pentium G840 CPU and this Corsair PSU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/430w-psu-corsair-builder-series-cmpsu-430cx-80-eff-uncertified-quiet-fan-atx-v23

I think that would come out round about the same cost as what you're looking at spending right now, assuming components where you are are priced in reasonable proportion to what they are in the UK.

That would get you a reasonable PSU and an upgrade to your system, which also provides and upgrade path up to whatever Sandybridge CPU you'd want to go for later.

A new monitor and GPU can come later on...although to really benefit from a newer system you want to at least upgrade your GPU sooner rather than later, also.

 

[Oranos]

Thanks for replies. Well I did state I cant cross 160 euros, some 130 pounds, and I am in Serbia, just i3 2100 here is almost 100 pounds.

Also, with what I currently have, wont some 1920*1200 monitor be above what PC can pull?

So, I see branded PSU is a must. And branded 430W will do the trick even after I upgrade GPU? Cause I heard 9800gt is power thirsty.

One more thing. I am kinda confused. Did you mean I should take Pentium cause I got small monitor and old GPU, cause, wont i3 be kinda better investment for future proof ( if I can say so hehe ) gaming? I might be wrong though

One more time, I did mention that my budget was 160 euros~130 pounds~ 16.000 rsd in my own currency.

 

[MU_Engineer]

Thanks for replies. Well I did state I cant cross 160 euros, some 130 pounds, and I am in Serbia, just i3 2100 here is almost 100 pounds.

Also, with what I currently have, wont some 1920*1200 monitor be above what PC can pull?

So, I see branded PSU is a must. And branded 430W will do the trick even after I upgrade GPU? Cause I heard 9800gt is power thirsty.

One more thing. I am kinda confused. Did you mean I should take Pentium cause I got small monitor and old GPU, cause, wont i3 be kinda better investment for future proof ( if I can say so hehe ) gaming? I might be wrong though

One more time, I did mention that my budget was 160 euros~130 pounds~ 16.000 rsd in my own currency.

A 1920x1200 monitor might be a higher resolution than a 9800GT can manage in some games with all of the eye candy up (high details, AA, AF, etc.) However, monitors last for a long time and what you will buy to eventually replace the E7500/9800GT pair will be able to manage 1920x1200. A 9800GT will be more than enough to put a picture to a 1920x1200 monitor for non-gaming uses, and I assume you do use your computer for something besides gaming, right?

I doubt you will be able to buy even a crappy i3 setup since you need the CPU, a board, and DDR3 RAM. If my European prices to American prices estimation is correct, parts cost about the same number in dollars and euros due to VAT and the like pushing up European prices. $160 would just buy the CPU and RAM, and no board or better GPU. And an i3 is not all that huge of an upgrade of a CPU over a C2D E7500 when you really get down to it- they are both dual-core CPUs. The i3 is moderately faster but not greatly so. I'd go get a new monitor first, then look at getting a better PSU and better GPU before you replace the board, CPU, and RAM. Actually, I'd spend all EUR160 on the monitor since monitors last a long time and you don't want to cheap out on one.