[Mark033]

I found a desktop computer in the industrial bin at my boarding school and I have decided to upgrade it, mainly for gaming. At the moment it has and ASUS P4GE VM motherboard (specs can be found here) and a 32mb graphics card, 256mb of RAM as well as an Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz CPU. This motherboard only supports DDR SDRAM and AGP x4 graphics cards. I was thinking of either:

Buying two sticks of this RAM and getting this graphics card to put into the existing ASUS motherboard

OR

Getting this pack of RAM, this graphics card and this heat sink to put into this motherboard (that I would also purchase).

The main reason for upgrading the motherboard would be DDR2 RAM and PCI Express Slot/s for graphics card/s. In the future I am looking to add a DVD burner and a second hard drive to the setup. As I said earlier this is going to be mainly a gaming PC it will also be used for word processing and web surfing. The game I really want to play is Oblivion (with the expansions) but Unreal Tournament 2004 would be great as well. Obviously I live in Australia and I have bought products from I-Tech before and think it is a great site. I am particularly worried about the graphics card and heat sink that I am considering if a new motherboard is the way to go, specifically I am worried about the graphics card being crap and the heat sink not fitting the new motherboard. If there are better parts for my proposed setup available on I-Tech for around the same price I would love to know. Any advice at all would be great!

Edited by Mark033, 25 June 2008 - 01:29 AM.

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Hi there,

I would suggest the upgrading pretty much the whole computer, if you can afford it. First off, you'd need to add a new CPU, as the existing processor would not fit in the socket 775 motherboard you have chosen. By choosing a retail CPU, it would come with a heatsink/fan.

The PCI-Express graphics card you have selected is, well, not a very good gaming choice. There are better ones out there, of course, but they cost more money.

If you can't afford it all, your first scenario would be the best, if at all. I would avoid spending any money on this "beast", and save for a better system down the line. Just a hint, don't bother with Lemel RAM, it's just "branded" generic junk. I've wasted my money on them in the past. Get this Kingston stick, lifetime warranty. Even just 1GB should be plenty to give you some half-decent performance, along with that X1650 Pro.

Do you know what PSU is in the system - will it be able to withstand the upgrades?

Cheers

Troy

[Troy]

Hi there,

I would suggest the upgrading pretty much the whole computer, if you can afford it. First off, you'd need to add a new CPU, as the existing processor would not fit in the socket 775 motherboard you have chosen. By choosing a retail CPU, it would come with a heatsink/fan.

The PCI-Express graphics card you have selected is, well, not a very good gaming choice. There are better ones out there, of course, but they cost more money.

If you can't afford it all, your first scenario would be the best, if at all. I would avoid spending any money on this "beast", and save for a better system down the line. Just a hint, don't bother with Lemel RAM, it's just "branded" generic junk. I've wasted my money on them in the past. Get this Kingston stick, lifetime warranty. Even just 1GB should be plenty to give you some half-decent performance, along with that X1650 Pro.

Do you know what PSU is in the system - will it be able to withstand the upgrades?

Cheers

Troy

[Mark033]

How much would it cost to put together a decent computer from scratch? I mean like buying the case and PSU and all. I think I might just save up a bit and build my own system a bit further down the track. If I built a computer from scratch an ATX mobo would be the way to go right?

Edited by Mark033, 25 June 2008 - 06:50 AM.

[Troy]

Hi there,

An ATX motherboard would be a possibility, but it's more the features and performance we're looking at, over the form factor.

I made a build for a customer recently, it was about $600 in parts, but was using onboard video - so depending on the graphics card used (and purchase place), I should think about $750 - $800 would give you a really good gaming box.

Going less than this would still work, but obviously less performance.

Cheers

Troy