Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

Need Advice - Repurposing old Desktop for media/gaming PC in living room

Tags:
  • Gaming
  • Desktops
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
Share
April 13, 2013 10:42:01 AM

Main Question:

Is it worth upgrading from my current 9600gt to a Radeon 7850? My current desktop is an E8400 Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM. My power supply can handle the 7850.

More information:

I'm looking to build myself a new main desktop, which will mostly be used for work (web browsers, a local database, photo editing, etc). There are usually at least 8 programs running, sometimes more. I want to re-purpose my old machine as an htpc, including some gaming. I'm willing to spend in the neighborhood of $800 on the full project. My new work machine will probably be:

AMD FX-4300, FX-6200 or FX-6300 (still debating price/performance)
970 based North Bridge motherboard
8GB RAM
120GB SSD Boot
500GB or 1TB Data Drive
My old 9600GT video card

Then my repurposed media pc would be:

Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo
G31 North Bridge motherboard (specifically a GIGABYTE GA-G31M-S2L)
4GB RAM (may upgrade in future)
320GB Hard Drive (its current drive)
Blu-Ray drive (new purchase)
2GB HD 7850 (New Purchase - specifically the HIS H785F2G2M)

Will my 4 and a half year old current desktop benefit from that 7850? I'm not expecting crazy performance, but hoping for a boost from its current capabilities, and have it have some more flexibility for Blu-Ray playback and gaming. The current 7850 promotion for free Bioshock and Tomb Raider is really tempting as well.

More about : advice repurposing desktop media gaming living room

a b 4 Gaming
April 13, 2013 11:47:31 AM

What case is it in?
I know that sounds like a daft place to start but having a case full of whining fans is n't going to make the system a pleasure to use, or be around.
I do n't think you'll get the best out of a HD7850: even at 1080 resolution it's going to be held back by the CPU, I suggest you drop back to either a GTX650 or HD7770.
If the case will allow you could add a cheap cooler and overclock the CPU, in fact, for HTPC I will suggest you add such a cooler anyway-case permitting-the stock cooler can cause quite a whine under full load.
April 13, 2013 3:39:37 PM

coozie7 said:
What case is it in?
I know that sounds like a daft place to start but having a case full of whining fans is n't going to make the system a pleasure to use, or be around.
I do n't think you'll get the best out of a HD7850: even at 1080 resolution it's going to be held back by the CPU, I suggest you drop back to either a GTX650 or HD7770.
If the case will allow you could add a cheap cooler and overclock the CPU, in fact, for HTPC I will suggest you add such a cooler anyway-case permitting-the stock cooler can cause quite a whine under full load.


I don't remember the exact model of the case, but it's a pretty well built Gigabyte, plenty of air-flow and cooling. Noise I'm not too worried about. The only difference on this system will be a new video card. It sits less than 2 feet from my head all day at work and I have gamed on it a fair amount in the past; the noise has never bothered me. As an HTPC, it will be at least 15 ft away from the couch. It can't be worse than my original white 360 and its jet powered DVD drive.
a b 4 Gaming
April 14, 2013 4:18:43 AM

HA! HA! OK, no problems with noise, then.
Only other issue might be the power supply.
As for card, I still feel a GTX650 or HD7770 will be a better fit for the CPU, I'm not saying a 7850 will not fit and work well, you'll just be paying for performance it will be unable to deliver because the CPU will not keep up with it.
!