Pc upgrade

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Sharkie 187

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So I have a fairly decent pc at home,sempron amd processor 2.2ghz,2g ram.i feel it's time to upgrade bit by bit.where or how would u start?
I was thinking of starting off with the casing and buy the components bit by bit.
Where to look,what to use?

I basically want to use it for watching movies and series,surf and the occasional game or two.other concern is space so preferably something with more then one hdd slot and plenty of USB slots
 
That is an ancient PC!

What kind of games do you play and on what detail level and resolution?

A gaming PC would cost you considerably more than one capable of running office and watching full HD (1080p) movies!
For the office and movies you just need a graphics card capable of hardware decoding for the movies and enough RAM to have multiple applications open.

In terms of HDD space, you can buy anything from a 1TB - 4TB single hard drive nowadays - or even a 4TB USB 3 external for R2600.
 
Pada said:
In terms of HDD space, you can buy anything from a 1TB - 4TB single hard drive nowadays - or even a 4TB USB 3 external for R2600.
Click to expand...

I'd much rather get 3 1TB drives as opposed to one 4TB drive. If that one drive fails, you lose everything!

Also, like AcidRazor, get a separate drive for the OS, as it will improve performance drastically, especially if you can afford a SSD for that.
 
Recommending an SSD straight off the bat when you have no idea what the budget is, is silly. Not to mention the OPs primary uses, for which an SSD is really the very last thing you are going to want to get.
 
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Ja get the case and a decent power supply first.. You will see no improvement in performance but those are the vital components... or at least the PSU is. Once you have enough money get a new mobo and cpu and RAM... then save up for a few months and get yourself a decent gpu, don't skimp.
 
Sharkie 187 said:
So I have a fairly decent pc at home,sempron amd processor 2.2ghz,2g ram.i feel it's time to upgrade bit by bit.where or how would u start?
I was thinking of starting off with the casing and buy the components bit by bit.
Where to look,what to use?

I basically want to use it for watching movies and series,surf and the occasional game or two.other concern is space so preferably something with more then one hdd slot and plenty of USB slots
Click to expand...

Any idea on what your possible budget might be?

For your current needs I would suggest the following

CPU: AMD APU-3850
Motherboard : Asus F1A75 - V EVO
Case : Coolermaster HAF 922
RAM : 4Gb Kingston DDR3 ValueRAM
HDD(s) : 2x Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Power Supply : Antec Earthwatts 380W

*GPU is not needed since the AMD APU has an intergrated GPU
 
Bought a p4 about a whole ago and two years ago put in the sempron.i have a decent graphics card in will check tonight
 
Sharkie 187 said:
Bought a p4 about a whole ago and two years ago put in the sempron.i have a decent graphics card in will check tonight
Click to expand...

If you have a graphics card decent enough to run demanding games like Battlefield 3 at your preferred/desired resolution then it won't need an upgrade. It would be better then, to get a low cost i5 build.

Sharkie 187 said:
I have seen ur threads duff,what would something like ur suggestion cost??
Click to expand...

The suggestion that I made is bordering on R6500, then again changes can be made to fit your budget. If you have a decent graphics card than the better option would be to get a low cost i5 build. Let me know what your budget is and I will qive you a full quote.
 
For this pc to last you a longish time i will go for:
A four core AMD or even four threads Core i3. (new games are optimised for four cores/threads)
a mobo with USB3 and SATA6G which is becoming cheap.
Depending on how many add on cards your use and your case this will be an ATX or Micro ATX board.
For games i would go with a case with two fans and either an 500Watt OEM psu included or a good quality 450watt branded PSU.

Either two HDD drives or one SSD and one HDD drives.
I always make a system image backup to internal HDD over SATA. That way it is quick.
Sometime to an external disc.
The USB3.0 will come in handy for backups and the SATA 6 will mean you can go for the fast +500Mb/s SSD's should you want to now or in the future.
 
Last edited:
droid said:
For this pc to last you a longish time i will go for:
A four core AMD or even four threads Core i3.
a mobo with USB3 and SATA6G which is becoming cheap.
For games i would go with a case with two fans and either an 500OEM psu included or a good quality 450watt branded PSU.

Either two HDD drives or one SSD and one HDD drives.
I always make an system image backup to internal HDD over SATA. That way it is quick.
Sometime to an external disc.
The USB3.0 will come in handy for backups and the SATA 6 will mean you can go for the fast +500Mb/s SSD's should you want to know or in the future.
Click to expand...

An SSD won't be of much use when the OP mentioned that the build will be used for watching movies & series, surfing and light gaming. Space was mentioned as a concern rather than boot time, so it would make more sense to have 2 HDD's in the build rather than 1 HDD and 1 SSD

"watching movies and series,surf and the occasional game or two.other concern is space"
Click to expand...
 
Duff-Man said:
An SSD won't be of much use when the OP mentioned that the build will be used for watching movies & series, surfing and light gaming. Space was mentioned as a concern rather than boot time, so it would make more sense to have 2 HDD's in the build rather than 1 HDD and 1 SSD
Click to expand...

For light gaming i would take an AMD A8 with intergrated graphics.
Can play many new games with that with acceptable framerates.
 
droid said:
For light gaming i would take an AMD A8 with intergrated graphics.
Can play many new games with that with acceptable framerates.
Click to expand...

I had also suggested that

Duff-Man said:
Any idea on what your possible budget might be?

For your current needs I would suggest the following

CPU: AMD APU-3850
Motherboard : Asus F1A75 - V EVO
Case : Coolermaster HAF 922
RAM : 4Gb Kingston DDR3 ValueRAM
HDD(s) : 2x Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Power Supply : Antec Earthwatts 380W

*GPU is not needed since the AMD APU has an intergrated GPU
Click to expand...

But if the OP - Sharkie 187 has a decent graphics card then it would be better to get a low cost i5 build.
 
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