Whats better? Upgrading parts or buying a new system

[mrsnow]

Hello,
I have a gateway GT5432, I want to run Diablo 3 when it is released but the specs that I need are a new video card and more ram. My processor meets the min but not the recommended requirements. Would it be more cost efficient to replace these parts individually or get an entirely new system?

 

[panwala95]

is this your computer ?
http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/1009464/1009464sp2.shtml
if yes then bro, you need a rig upgrade pronto...

 

[athlondude]

Unfortunately, this.

If that's your computer, there's no point in upgrading anything, you need pretty much an all-new rig.

I have to agree, if that is indeed your current system you would be better off building a new rig. The good thing is, you could build a really good budget PC that would be 4 times faster than your current rig. Ram is dirt cheap, video cards have never been cheaper, processors are more than reasonable, its a great time to build a new PC.

 

[tinmann]

Start from scratch and build your own.

 

[TheCereaKillerPT]

Start from scratch and build your own.

That's the best thing that u can do. How much do u want to spend overall?

 

[frombehind]

If are lost in the sauce dude... look at tom's templates when they build their $600, $1000 and $2000 PC's just pick the one that most fits your budget, and get as near identical parts as you can - they should all fit together, and you can look at the benchmarks and see exactly what kind of performance you will get from the finished product.

I myself have used their cookie-cutter design to build the Micro-AXT liquid cooled PC... Very pleased with the final results ^^

 

[mrsnow]

Unfortunately that is my PC =[. I have a year old laptop that I do all my work and computer related things on. I rarely use PCs for gaming ( I'm more of a PS3 kind of guy). But, D3 is probably the most epic game of 2012 and I have been waiting for it for quite sometime. I'd really like to spend as little as possible in order to play it at low to medium settings. Visually the game resolution doesnt need to look crisp as long as it doesn't freeze up or become choppy i'd be happy.

 

[egilbe]

Your laptop will probably be able to play it better than your pc

 

[mrsnow]

Your laptop will probably be able to play it better than your pc

Yes, it would but unfortunately the graphic card is integrated and therefore cant be replaced. Other than that I would be able to use it.

Im looking to spend like $250 in order to make the game playable.

 

[athlondude]

Unfortunately that is my PC =[. I have a year old laptop that I do all my work and computer related things on. I rarely use PCs for gaming ( I'm more of a PS3 kind of guy). But, D3 is probably the most epic game of 2012 and I have been waiting for it for quite sometime. I'd really like to spend as little as possible in order to play it at low to medium settings. Visually the game resolution doesnt need to look crisp as long as it doesn't freeze up or become choppy i'd be happy.

Well I just looked through your Specs and it says you have a PCI Express 16 slot which is a good thing so at least you can put a dedicated video card in there, and you can get a great card that will run diablo beautifully for about a hundred bucks. It says your RAM is upgradeable to 4 Gb which should be a piece of cake, just make sure that whatever you buy is 100% compatible with Gateway computers, alot of proprietary systems can be picky when it comes to ram.

Video card wise I would recommend a Geforce GTX 550 TI or Geforce GTX 460, you should be able to find either of those for about a hundred on the internet. Ram, depending on where you get it, $25 to $30 for 4Gb.

If your REALLY in a pinch I have a Geforce GTS 250 laying around doing nothing. Its a decent card, my wife used it to play Serious Sam 3 and it ran it on medium settings just fine.

 

[mrsnow]

Well I just looked through your Specs and it says you have a PCI Express 16 slot which is a good thing so at least you can put a dedicated video card in there, and you can get a great card that will run diablo beautifully for about a hundred bucks. It says your RAM is upgradeable to 4 Gb which should be a piece of cake, just make sure that whatever you buy is 100% compatible with Gateway computers, alot of proprietary systems can be picky when it comes to ram.

Video card wise I would recommend a Geforce GTX 550 TI or Geforce GTX 460, you should be able to find either of those for about a hundred on the internet. Ram, depending on where you get it, $25 to $30 for 4Gb.

If your REALLY in a pinch I have a Geforce GTS 250 laying around doing nothing. Its a decent card, my wife used it to play Serious Sam 3 and it ran it on medium settings just fine.

Are the video cards you recommended compatible? Also do you recommend any brands of RAM? I'm not really in a pinch its more so that I'm a teacher and with the summer coming im going to be off, so to spend a ton of money to entertain myself for 3 months isn't really economical

 

[athlondude]

A 550ti or GTX 460 are too powerful for his CPU, I think they'll just be bottlenecked. I don't know their power draw off hand, but he only has a 300W PSU.

Get a 6670 or 6770 IMO. If you can find a 550ti or 460 for the same price (~$90 ish or less) then go for it, but I don't think it will be worth extra money for them. A 7750 may also be worth considering, since you only have a 300W power supply.

You should probably add some RAM as well to get to at least 2GB. I'm guessing you have a 32-bit OS so more than 3GB will be pointless... maybe just add a 2x1GB DDR2 kit to your rig in addition to what you already have.

I would try to keep total upgrade cost to as close to $100 as possible... the rig isn't worth more than that in terms of upgrades.

Shoot I missed the power supply, wow. Yeah thats not enough power for a 550 TI or a 460, and even the GTS 250 I offered to give ya reguires a 450 Watt PSU. Thats gonna be the killer right there PSU requirements. I dont know how proprietary the PSU is in that Gateway, but in order to upgrade your Video Card you may have to upgrade your PSU if you can.

 

[athlondude]

Are the video cards you recommended compatible? Also do you recommend any brands of RAM? I'm not really in a pinch its more so that I'm a teacher and with the summer coming im going to be off, so to spend a ton of money to entertain myself for 3 months isn't really economical

They should work they are PCI Express 16 cards, the only hang up is the power supply. You should check with Gateway and see what your options are for upgrading your PSU. As Far as Ram goes, I recommend Gskill, However before you buy, verify with Gateway that it will work. I dont know how Gateway is now, but I recall several Gateways I worked on that wouldnt take anything but Gateway's ram. I dont know why but it just wouldnt work.

 

[bkoop]

Also do you recommend any brands of RAM?

Crucial Memory Advisor is very helpful and I have had good luck with their memory and they may be much cheaper than Gateway.

http://www.crucial.com/

A general question to anyone, the PC comes with 1024 MB DDR2, 533 MHz, (PC4200) dual channel memory (two 512 MB DIMMs), if he took them out would the motherboard support DDR2 800? I checked the Gateway specs and it does not say.

You can add 2x1GB kit and get to 3GB and a video card and power supply for under $250, but you can not build a new PC for under $250.

 

[pyimini]

Hello,
I have a gateway GT5432, I want to run Diablo 3 when it is released but the specs that I need are a new video card and more ram. My processor meets the min but not the recommended requirements. Would it be more cost efficient to replace these parts individually or get an entirely new system?

I have pretty much the same system with an athlon x2 3.0 gig processor I upgraded to a sapphire 6670 graphics card and it worked fine. The psu made me nervous so I upgraded to a antec 400 watt. The processor often has to push hard in games. I play oblivian and morrowind.
pyimini

 

[mrsnow]

Do you recommend buying refurbished video cards from somewhere like Ebay?

 

[bkoop]

Do you recommend buying refurbished video cards from somewhere like Ebay?

No, I don't even on Newegg refurbished video cards carry a 90 day warranty, but new cards from eVGA carry a three year transferable warranty (the ones that end in -KR).

For me, the three year warranty, is key.

 

[mrsnow]

I was just looking at the budget rig building what could be salvaged from this old one? processor video card and RAM would be the most important things to upgrade right?

OS is vista
100 gbs of harddrive space
the case?
the DVD/ CD drive
other random parts?

 

[bkoop]

If you are talking about reusing the Vista OS in a new build, I have some bad news, all companies, Gateway, HP, Dell etc. all use OEM editions of the Operating System only for that one PC.

Is it Vista 32 bit or 64 bit?
If it is the 32 bit version you can go to 2GB or 3GB of Ram, if it is the 64 bit version you can go to 4GB of ram on that motherboard.

 

[athlondude]

Do you recommend buying refurbished video cards from somewhere like Ebay?

I never buy refurbished anything when it comes to PCs, its just not worth it. They usually want next to new prices on those and with little to no warranty.

 

[imonlymyself]

DO NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE SAYING U ONLY NEED A NICE GPU. (Besides i wouldnt trust ur power supply to handle ur system and a newer card like they suggest)
you need a new rig. They are right about D3 not being a graphics hog, but both WOW & D3 are more CPU based systems.

next question is what is ur budget?
i recommend intel but you can go a bit cheaper running amd, really depends ur budget

i just built a new rig/used a few parts from old rig cuz they were well enough.
its funny looking at ur rig u got becuz its somewhat what i had.
i had 2 gigs of 800 ddr2 and my processor was the 5800+
im now running the intel i5 and 1600 ddr3 and same gpu for now (sapphire radeon hd 3870)and its more than night and day difference, like a century difference.
For D3 you dont have to get as much as me but i only spent $720 not counting my rebates which would put me under $700. that cost isnt including a power supply, GPU or a dvd/bluray drive

if u ask i can give you the details of my new parts in my new rig

 

[imonlymyself]

Asterisk in front of all the new items:

*COOLER MASTER HAF 912 (*added 200mm top & 120 mm side fan) GREAT f'n case for $60, cant beat it for the price
Win7 - 64 bit
*ASUS P8Z77-V LK Mother Board
*i5-3570k (*COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus CPU fan)
*G.SKILL Ripjaws 16gb 1600 mem (shoulda went 2133 with board)
*OS drive OCZ Agility 3 120gb
4 Western Digital black storage drives (640gb, 1tb, 2 - 1.5 tb's)
Xion 600 watt PS
Still using old GPU (Sapphire Radeon HD 3870) (next to be upgrade)

 

[athlondude]

DO NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE SAYING U ONLY NEED A NICE GPU. (Besides i wouldnt trust ur power supply to handle ur system and a newer card like they suggest)
you need a new rig. They are right about D3 not being a graphics hog, but both WOW & D3 are more CPU based systems.

next question is what is ur budget?
i recommend intel but you can go a bit cheaper running amd, really depends ur budget

i just built a new rig/used a few parts from old rig cuz they were well enough.
its funny looking at ur rig u got becuz its somewhat what i had.
i had 2 gigs of 800 ddr2 and my processor was the 5800+
im now running the intel i5 and 1600 ddr3 and same gpu for now (sapphire radeon hd 3870)and its more than night and day difference, like a century difference.
For D3 you dont have to get as much as me but i only spent $720 not counting my rebates which would put me under $700. that cost isnt including a power supply, GPU or a dvd/bluray drive

if u ask i can give you the details of my new parts in my new rig

Thats a pretty bold statement considering I dont think anyone here said "U ONLY NEED A NICE GPU". If you had read through the posts you would realize that most of us suggested a new rig, but he stated that he didnt want to spend more than $250 so that kind of puts a new rig out of the ballpark for him. That being said there are still alot of options for his rig without breaking the bank, options that will improve his performance dramatically. Right now the 3 biggest things he needs to look at is a new video card, more ram, and a better PSU. That 5000+ while not a powerhouse can still run alot of the games out there right now at more than playable speeds. Heck I played the first Crysis on a singlecore AMD Athlon 64 3400+ with 1Gb or ram, and an 8600 GT and it was playable at medium settings. I upgraded from that to a 5000+ with 2 Gb or ram and an 8800 GTS and that made Crysis run like a dream. My Wife's system at the time ran WOW at 85 FPS on a system with a 5000+, 2 Gb ram, and an 8600 GT, all at stock speeds no over clocking or anything crazy, so yeah considering his situation I think dropping more ram and a new card in there will help tremendously. Sure a new system would be ideal, but on his budget its just not in the cards.

 

[imonlymyself]

Thats a pretty bold statement considering I dont think anyone here said "U ONLY NEED A NICE GPU". If you had read through the posts you would realize that most of us suggested a new rig, but he stated that he didnt want to spend more than $250 so that kind of puts a new rig out of the ballpark for him. That being said there are still alot of options for his rig without breaking the bank, options that will improve his performance dramatically. Right now the 3 biggest things he needs to look at is a new video card, more ram, and a better PSU. That 5000+ while not a powerhouse can still run alot of the games out there right now at more than playable speeds. Heck I played the first Crysis on a singlecore AMD Athlon 64 3400+ with 1Gb or ram, and an 8600 GT and it was playable at medium settings. I upgraded from that to a 5000+ with 2 Gb or ram and an 8800 GTS and that made Crysis run like a dream. My Wife's system at the time ran WOW at 85 FPS on a system with a 5000+, 2 Gb ram, and an 8600 GT, all at stock speeds no over clocking or anything crazy, so yeah considering his situation I think dropping more ram and a new card in there will help tremendously. Sure a new system would be ideal, but on his budget its just not in the cards.

ur a tool. LMAO..... ur basically telling him to waste his $250 budget money to band-aid a bad situation to start with. TOOL TOOL TOOL

 

[athlondude]

ur a tool. LMAO..... ur basically telling him to waste his $250 budget money to band-aid a bad situation to start with. TOOL TOOL TOOL

Your the one acting immature, and your calling me a tool? You may want to check yourself there, once again his budget is $250, and thats not going to build him a new system so like everyone else here I was giving him my opinion of his best bet so he can play Diablo 3 which is what he is most concerned about anyway. That in mind think before you speak, and like recon-uk said, a little respect will go a long way.