help me upgrade this desktop pc

ok so i picked up an HP Pavilion a6334f desktop at a thrift store for around 15$ us was missing the dvd drive. any how i figured id upgrade the CPU and video card but im not sure whats best. now before you guys question why i would wanna upgrade such an old PC i do this as a hobby i like toying with fixing and collecting older desktop pc's also i plan to turn this into a server for counter strike source as well as use it for the few 98/me/xp based games that my more powerful desktop cant run. i dont have a set budget or any budget yet as i will be buying the parts used/new and when i can afford them

now im open to both dual core and quad core but most of the games i will be playing were released around the pentium 4 athlon era so i want the fasted cpu i can upgrade to by fastest i mean which ever cpu is 3.0 Ghz or faster and will work with my mobo

as for graphics card id prefer nvidia but am open to ATI also the card must support the game in this link http://gamesystemrequirements.com/game/starship-trooper

so pre nvidia GTX 200 series cards and pre ati/amd HD cards

Starship Troopers’ ONLY SUPPORTS the following video cards: Nvidia GeForceFX* 5600/5700/5800/5900 series. Nvidia GeForce 6 and 7 series. (* NOT LE versions) ATI Radeon** 9600 Pro and XT/9700/9800 series. ATI Radeon X300/X600/X700/X800 series** (** NOT the 9700SE or onboard versions)

also would prefer an enthusiest card just because i can use one but am open to other tiers

What I would do is to go to HP site to see what the max cpu you can put in there is. Then choose the fastest gpu the system can handle with whatever likely questionable power supply is in there. Last, upgrade ram to 4-8gb.

Mobo specs.

So an LGA 775, G33 Chipset, DDR2 setup. You can upgrade to a quad core Q6600 fairly cheap ($10 on eBay), but as far as a video card goes, most of those HP/Compaq SFFs come with weak 250W PSUs so you might need to upgrade that too. Give the specs on the PSU and is it one of those oddball SFF ones.

Edit: Looks like a standard ATX from some eBay listings that specifically mention "HP Pavilion a6634f Desktop PC FK571AA, FK571AAR".

Here you go:

http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c01297099

I would personally go for a used GTX 750Ti ($25-50 depending where you look) and a used Q6600 ($10ish) as well as 8GB of DDR2. That should let you play counterstrike and E-sports titles (LOL/DOTA/etc) fairly nicely. Should even be able to play overwatch.

the good old Q6600 G0 stepping days. as noted on the website, you could also try to get a Q9400 too

I just re-read the post. Apparently he's stuck with oooooold GPUs. The one I would pick out of that bunch is the 7000 series from Nvidia. Best one you can find. Those were the last of the great DX9 GPUs. Shouldn't cost you more then a tenner these days if you can track one down. Hit up ebay and similar websites. Should be able to find what you're looking for.

Personally I'd want to see it working before I bought it since we're talking about stuff from 2006 and earlier but I doubt anybody is going to go through the trouble for the chumping change one of these cards is worth now.

Make sure you get a PCIE card, not AGP. They were making AGP cards all the way up to the 3000 series from AMD, which is ridiculous given the bandwidth of AGP but they were doing it. Buyer beware. These cards are not compatible with your motherboard.

Theocnoob said:

I just re-read the post. Apparently he's stuck with oooooold GPUs. The one I would pick out of that bunch is the 7000 series from Nvidia. Best one you can find. Those were the last of the great DX9 GPUs. Shouldn't cost you more then a tenner these days if you can track one down. Hit up ebay and similar websites. Should be able to find what you're looking for.
.

Click to expand...

The GeForce 7 series are also plagued with bad caps from possibly the worst cap company on this planet! If any of the caps say "FZ" on them, then they're crap caps!

ended up snagging a 7950GX2 for a tenner

A dual gpu card?? Not the easiest thing to use...

Did you confirm what power supply you have?

Wow, 10 bucks for a dual GPU card. Awesome. I like what's happening here.

i will be upgrading the psu as the stock psu is **** and psu suggestions as i know this is a beefy card

Good.. should be ok then.. its not that bad, actually as it only has a 6 pin PCie plug, but still...

Good. You got one of the most powerful cards that this application supports.