Looking for Low Cost Upgrade

[rescuetoaster]

Ebay is fine for buying and selling hardware - I sell all of my old equipment there, and have gotten lots of used parts. It's just like anything else there - make sure the seller has good reviews.

 

[Mr. Fri]

OK, I’m going to get a better processor since my CPU is maxed out (per task manager) when I have a bunch of Firefox tabs open. A new graphics card will help for games but I think I also need more from a CPU and they’re only $20-25. Any concerns about getting a used processor on ebay? How often do you get duds? Can I trust what I’m being sold?

VIDEO CARD:
I’m still in need of some guidance for a video card.
- I need to keep it to less than $80.
- I have a PCIe x16 slot.
- Does that mean I can run ANY PCIe 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 cards? Are there any gotchas?
- Space is not a problem since I have full tower.
- My PSU is a 500w unit. It has two PCIe connectors. I assume they are +12 V because the specs say +12V1@16A, +12V2@17A. Does that mean I need to splice them together (in parallel) to get more than 17A to run a higher end card? Usually the video card specs just says something like “500W power supply” but doesn’t have a current rating. The one rating I did find said 400W power supply - a min of 20A is suggested.
- Assuming I can use all PCIe versions, I checked Newegg and came up with a few based on the ratings and number of raters. Can I get some options on these (or others)?

1) The R7 Sapphire card that ivanlabrie suggested. It’s a Radeon R7 250 1GB 128-Bit GDDR5 ($80).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...m1132X509988X401fb05328606ef27827e02fe42fcf7e

2 – GeForce GT 630 with 2GB 128-Bit DDR3 ($65). Is it better to have 2GB DDR3 or 1GB GDDR5 as in the R7 card?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rebbr=1&cm_re=pcie_x16-_-14-130-821-_-Product

3 - Similar specs as the previous one but a few dollars less ($58).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rebbr=1&cm_re=pcie_x16-_-14-133-459-_-Product

4 - This one is a GeForce GTX 650 1GB 128-bit GDDR5. It’s on sale for $80 but it that much of an improvement over #2 at $65?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rebbr=1&cm_re=pcie_x16-_-14-127-703-_-Product

5 - SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6570 2GB DDR3 ($60)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...rebbr=1&cm_re=pcie_x16-_-14-102-942-_-Product

Thanks!

 

[ivanlabrie]

the r7 is faster than the rest.

 

[Mr. Fri]

Ivanlabrie, Specs say I need a min of 4GB system memory. Since I only have 4Gig and am running Win7, will this be too much for my system?

 

[ivanlabrie]

Nope, not at all...4gb is enough most of the time.

 

[Mr. Fri]

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon 64 X2 3600+ - ADO3600IAA5DD (ADO3600DDBOX).html

PCIe video card will fit that mobo. I would not get ridiculous though. Something rated as half again as powerful as what you have. You can g00gle benches of what you have against the next later series of video cards.

Anyone else care to chime in on this? I'd like to get more than one person's opinion.

It looks like the R7 250 is a good card with good reviews but will it be more than I need and waste $$ or even load down the CPU? Ivanlabrie really, really thinks this is the solution. Do others agree?

 

[RGone]

I think you may have the idea of loading down the cpu all "wrong". The video card does not load the cpu down but rather the cpu may not be able to keep up. That is not the same thing.

Most of us don't really have much of an opinion since we are not really sure the whole project is worth the doing. If the dollars going to be expended were not so low...then surely no upgrade to that old of a platform is going to do much good. Not with the newest of games.

I really might have suggssted a video card closer to the era of the platform, but you have already moved the O/S to Win 7 and still have my older platforms on Win XP still or one on Linux.

But buying a way more up to date video card makes sense after looking hard...the video card might be okay for the next build because it is not so dated.
RGone...

 

[deathman20]

Heck I just found a ok PC
Dell
E6400 Core2Duo
4GB Ram
250GB HDD
Onbaord video in a mid-sized case.

All for $50 on craigslist. You might want to check there, you can get some killer deals for systems. Only thing you might have to get then would be a decent video card. But otherwise I think still even today a decent Core2Duo still can treat you well.