[jasonculp]

I need a little assistance….well really advice.

My current system:

• Is OLD
• AMD Athlon XP 1500+
• 2.5 GB Ram
• XP Pro
• 2 old GeForce Cards
• 2 old CRT’s
• IDE Disk Drives

I am having a few problems, and my system is slow. I am not a gamer. I do a little photo editing - cropping/printing (only when my wife makes me). I do quite a bit of database/spread sheet work. Do a lot of GeekU stuff too.

I would like to bring this old PC at least up to the year 2000.

What I was wanting to do is to replace the Mother Board and Processor and keep the Hard Drive. This has really turned into more than I wanted. I am currently saving up to do a complete build but I am not ready to do it at this time. I will use this computer as a 3rd string backup when I get my new one built!

I was hoping to do this without a reinstall of XP until I get some stuff backed up…

What I want is a cheap/good:

• Case
• Power Supply
• Mother Board
• Processor
• Memory
• Video Card/s

Trying to keep the price down….so I have more to spend later. It wouldn't take much to be a lot better than what I have!

Any Ideas?

Jason

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Cheap can mean different things to different people. What price budget are you looking at?

[dhitchner]

Cheap can mean different things to different people. What price budget are you looking at?

[jasonculp]

$500 - $600

Well that really isn't what I call cheap....but when I price all of the parts for the new computer.....

[reconman]

I'm assuming your hard drive is ATA? If that's the case, I would honostly consider building an entirely new system now which can be upgraded when needed. I personally believe you're wasting your money if you're going to buy $600 worth of obsolete hardware just so you don't need to replace your hard drive.

Here's what I would suggest, for $600 you can build a computer that is in the current standards (SATA, PCI Express etc...). You could most likely get by with spending less than $600 since you're not going to be doing any heavy duty tasks, such as gaming, on it.

Motherboard - $90
Graphics Card - $90 (It has more than enough power for your needs)
RAM - $43 (MUCH faster than DDR RAM which Is what I'm guessing you're still using.)
CPU - $125
500GB HD - $95 (you can always get a smaller hard drive for less money but it would be a much smarter choice to stick with a 500GB HD that's around $100 instead of a GOOD250gb HD that's $60-$80.)
430W PSU - $40
Case - $70 (you can find cheaper cases but this is a pretty nice one for $70)
SATA DVD burner/drive - $30

Total price = $583.

[jasonculp]

reconman,

This is almost identical to what I was coming up with! I was really stuck on the graphics card. I have been out of the loop for so long on computer hardware, I didn't know what to do.

I am slowly buying all of my software that I have lost in the move (that is why I havn't done this sooner) it all needed upgrading anyway!

Thank you again for all of your help!

Jason

[jasonculp]

Graphics Card- $90 (It has more than enough power for your needs)

Will this work with my 2 old VGA monitors?

[kamille316]

I think you should get these instead:
Power Supply - Corsair 450W - $69.99 after rebate
DVD-writer - Pioneer - $28.99
RAM - Muskin 2GB - $54.99
Case - Coolermaster CM690 - $79.99

And maybe a smaller capacity hard drive so you're not over the budget.
Case is something you should pick yourself, I just recommended the one above because I have it and its a great case, you can get some cheap one as well to stay in budget.

Edited by kamille316, 18 March 2008 - 10:00 AM.

[reconman]

Graphics Card- $90 (It has more than enough power for your needs)

Will this work with my 2 old VGA monitors?

Well, it comes with a DVI to VGA/D-sub Adapter so I'm assuming it would but I would email Sapphire and ask to be sure.

[jasonculp]

Thanks reconman and kamille316 for all of your help! I basically combined all 3 of our ideas to make what I think will be a great computer. It also looks like this setup will have plenty of room to grow. I ended up spending $ 900 after it was all said and done. I bought a new router and some software. It really adds up, but with y'alls help the computer itself was only $682.

Thanks again,

Jason