Help Me! Upgrading my Computer Advice

Giildy

Giildy

Australian Skial God
Contributor
So, relatively shortly I'm going to have some money to attempt to buy parts for this terrible machine I like to pretend is a computer. I'm here to ask you what I should upgrade, what I need to check to make sure certain components are compatible for my computer and if I need anything extra to install certain bits, like thermal gel or something.

Anyways, this is the computer I have:
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/hp-pavilion-p6557c-athlon/4507-3118_7-34421541.html

It is terrible

With the addition of a cheapo Videocard:
GeForce 210

STOP JUDGING ME.

I also have a whooooooooooooooooooooooole lot of additional storage space installed in the most assorted ways you could imagine. (A hard drive isn't done with me until it refuses to live. ALL HARD DRIVES WILL BE USED TO THE GRAAAAAAVE... I've watched a whole lot of anime.)

Anyways. I think need to replace my cpu and my videocard. Wat do i replace them with so as to run a game like oh I dunno... skyrim with more than 6 fps and tf2 with more that 30 fps.

Also, I plan on upgrading my memory sticks. But I don't need advice for that. Thanks. <3
 
PsychoRealm

PsychoRealm

Australian Skial God
Contributor
HP.....

Advice: Upgrade the computer!

Being more specific:
  1. CPU
  2. Upgrading CPU will assume an upgrade of motherboard;
  3. Video Card;
  4. Power Supply (250 Watt... lol)
  5. Probably, RAM (to 6-8GB)
 
Giildy

Giildy

Australian Skial God
Contributor
PsychoRealm said:
HP.....

Advice: Upgrade the computer!

Being more specific:
  1. CPU
  2. Upgrading CPU will assume an upgrade of motherboard;
  3. Video Card;
  4. Power Supply (250 Watt... lol)
  5. Probably, RAM (to 6-8GB)
Click to expand...

fml, do I really need to upgrade the motherboard? Do i neeeeeeeeeed to upgrade the power supply? Fuck, I might as well just build a whole new machine if that's the case ._.
 
PsychoRealm

PsychoRealm

Australian Skial God
Contributor
Giildy said:
fml, do I really need to upgrade the motherboard? Do i neeeeeeeeeed to upgrade the power supply? Fuck, I might as well just build a whole new machine if that's the case ._.
Click to expand...
if you don't wanna upgrade the motherboard - you'll have to find a CPU that would match a socket type supported by your motherboard (which is AM3 in your case).
Power Supply - yes, you will have to upgrade it. Nowaday's GPUs require at least 500 Watt.
 
KOS-MOS

KOS-MOS

Uncharitable Spy
Giildy said:
fml, do I really need to upgrade the motherboard? Do i neeeeeeeeeed to upgrade the power supply? Fuck, I might as well just build a whole new machine if that's the case ._.
Click to expand...
Yes. Unless you're buying a processor with the same socket, you need to buy a new motherboard. However, even if it's the same, it's still recommended to buy a new one. For you power supply, if you plan on running any decent graphics and CPU then you need a higher watt PSU. I'd say probably a 650-750 Watt minimum. For your graphics card, depending on how much you want to spend on one, try reading this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
If you rebuils the entire PC, is 750 still your price limit?
 
Giildy

Giildy

Australian Skial God
Contributor
PsychoRealm said:
Btw,
Here is some CPU's that have the same socket type (AM3) and are compatible with your current motherboard: http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.phtml?N=4294966995 4294930481
As you can see, all of them are outdated and suck big time.
Click to expand...
I love you.

KOS-MOS said:
Yes. Unless you're buying a processor with the same socket, you need to buy a new motherboard. However, even if it's the same, it's still recommended to buy a new one. For you power supply, if you plan on running any decent graphics and CPU then you need a higher watt PSU. I'd say probably a 650-750 Watt minimum. For your graphics card, depending on how much you want to spend on one, try reading this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
If you rebuils the entire PC, is 750 still your price limit?
Click to expand...
If I rebuild the entire pc I would put the hard price limit at about $1000.

(I'm slightly terrified of building the whole thing on my own. I have no idea what I'm doing.)
 
KOS-MOS

KOS-MOS

Uncharitable Spy
For $1000, you could easily buy a decent machine. Now it's all down to preferences like AMD/Intel or ATI/nVidia
 
Giildy

Giildy

Australian Skial God
Contributor
KOS-MOS said:
For $1000, you could easily buy a decent machine. Now it's all down to preferences like AMD/Intel or ATI/nVidia
Click to expand...
._. This was the first computer that was really 100% mine. /nostalgia. I guess it'll be my file graveyard from now on.

Um. I think I am pro-nVidia.

lol, I have no idea what I'm doing outside of knowing that buying the components and assembling it on my own is the best plan.
 
Giildy

Giildy

Australian Skial God
Contributor
PsychoRealm

PsychoRealm

Australian Skial God
Contributor
Giildy said:
lol, so what's the suggestion for a $1000 build?
Click to expand...
That's a nice question. I think if you go to any local IT store they will help you to line up the parts for your custom build better than us here on the forum. We can come up with the list of parts, but when you go to the local store, parts might be out of stock.

The reason why I suggest buying parts from local store is that pretty often parts are DOA (dead on arrival), so if you buy them through online retailer - you will waste almost 2 weeks on shipping (getting them, and then sending them back should they be DOA).

We can provide you some guidelines in regards to the parts (such as what to aim on), e.g. CPU, GPU, motherboard, PSU, RAM and so on and then you can show it in the local store and see if they can come up with something.
 
Giildy

Giildy

Australian Skial God
Contributor
PsychoRealm said:
That's a nice question. I think if you go to any local IT store they will help you to line up the parts for your custom build better than us here on the forum. We can come up with the list of parts, but when you go to the local store, parts might be out of stock.

The reason why I suggest buying parts from local store is that pretty often parts are DOA (dead on arrival), so if you buy them through online retailer - you will waste almost 2 weeks on shipping (getting them, and then sending them back should they be DOA).

We can provide you some guidelines in regards to the parts (such as what to aim on), e.g. CPU, GPU, motherboard, PSU, RAM and so on and then you can show it in the local store and see if they can come up with something.
Click to expand...
So, what I would like to do is either get the parts from newegg or generate a shopping list from newegg and see if I can't get the parts local. Either way, going to newegg and putting it together there isn't a bad plan.

Also, apparently I'm getting
for $100 I can hook you up with a barely used pair of Radeon HD 5770's for your new system. :P (or one for $50, but if you're building a new system anyway you might as well get two right?)
Click to expand...
so there's that out of the way i guess.
 
KOS-MOS

KOS-MOS

Uncharitable Spy
A couple things you may want to consider as well:
Do you like the inside of your computer looking clean and sharp, like no extra cables, Nice and clean looking?
How long would you like your current setup to last for?
Would you prefer to just continue to upgrade parts in this machine or build a new machine next time?
How would you classify your gaming: casual, hardcore, etc.?
What else would you like to do with this computer besides gaming?
Do you want to Overclock the PC? If so, do you have adequate cooling to do so?

just a few basic questions to help guide you in the direction with building it
 
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