Upgrade relatives old PC

[CorneliusFGerald]

1. Budget & Location

Germany. Preferably gonna use mindfactory.de for new parts. The owner left the budget up to me but scince he is definitely not a heavy user, I wouldn't want to go above 300€ 300€ is the max I would do but it is my goal to stay as far below as possible.

 

2. Aim

His PC is pretty outdated. Needs 7-12 minutes to boot. He still runs Win XP (32bit I believe) and is complaining that it runs very slow. Trying to get him something that will work fine without beeing annoyingly slow but the most important part will be to keep it as cheap as possible. As mentioned not a heavy user at all. Checking e-mails or printing some PDFs. Therefore I would prioritize an SSD over any other part to upgrade.

 

His specs right now are

dualcore AthlonX2 4800+ 65nm @2.5 GHz on a AM2 socket

2 Radeon X1950 Pro

2x 1GB DDR2 @ 357 MHz (2 slots left on MB)

an old 320 GB harddrive

MB has 2 SATAII ports

PSU has 380 watts and PCIe connectors (probably not going to be replaced, if anything because of incompatibility)

ATX Tower (probably not going to be replaced)

 

3. Monitors

Not going to be replaced. An old 1280x1024, has DVI-D though.

 

4. Peripherals

Not going to be replaced.

 

5. Why are you upgrading?

As mentioned above the system is outdated and even for a light user as him way too slow. Also wanted to try and get him Win 10 for free once it is released.

 

I am currently not sure if a simple SSD with a fresh OS (WIN 7) would do the trick. That was my initial plan but he is prrobably not going to upgrade anywhere in the near future again so I at least wanted to do something more. Thought about getting him a used Phenom quad for ~30€ + another 2 GB of RAM for another 30€. Third though was to replace MB and get him an i3 or a Pentium ( because of the integrated graphics beeing more than enough for him) and getting him 4 GB DDR3 on top of the SSD and Win 7.

[VioDuskar]

add an SSD and RAM.

 

swap to win7 and the phenom if you can. even 32bit version.

[techguru]

i3 4150

h97 board

4gb ram 2x2gb

256gb ssd

let him pick the case outta 5 good ones that you pick

400w seasonic psu

maybe a cm hyper 212 cooler to so the pc is quieter

[CorneliusFGerald]

add an SSD and RAM.

 

swap to win7 and the phenom if you can. even 32bit version.

Would I be able to upgrade to a Win 10 64bit version if I have a Win 7 32 bit version?

[VioDuskar]

Would I be able to upgrade to a Win 10 64bit version if I have a Win 7 32 bit version?

not if that core isn't a 64bit CPU.

the CPU has to support 64bit

 

if it does support x64 then use a x64 version of win7, then upgrade to win10 when it comes out for free.

[manikyath]

so i was rolling arount the website to squeeze out a build. am i crazy for thinking this guy would be fine with a raspberry pi?

 

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/mF2ZD3  if he *wants* a newer cpu, i'd suggest getting this as an upgrade, and keeping the case, PSU, DVD drive and HDD (for storage)

 

add a recent version of windows x64 in with that (7 or 8.1) and he should be a tad future proof (if thats even possible)

 

the reason i'd suggest an x64 version of windows is *if* said person ever needs more than 4GB of ram, he isnt stuck with x86 windows.

 

sidenote: yes, i know that cpu is *TERRIBLE*, but i dont think the user will need more, so i doubt its worth spending more.

[techguru]

am i crazy for thinking this guy would be fine with a raspberry pi?.....yes...it wouldn't be an improvement over what hes got now

the cheapest solution would be to format that pc and reinstall windows

or format that pc and install a version of linux

runs better on older hardware

[CorneliusFGerald]

i3 4150

h97 board

4gb ram 2x2gb

256gb ssd

let him pick the case outta 5 good ones that you pick

400w seasonic psu

maybe a cm hyper 212 cooler to so the pc is quieter

His case is just fine and your PSU has only 20 more watts. 120 GB SSD would be more than enough and your suggestion still hits the 300 mark easyly

[CorneliusFGerald]

am i crazy for thinking this guy would be fine with a raspberry pi?.....yes...it wouldn't be an improvement over what hes got now

the cheapest solution would be to format that pc and reinstall windows

or format that pc and install a version of linux

runs better on older hardware

I have a version of Win 7 64 lying around here so it would be for free and Win 10 seems to run even smoother so thats why I suggested it. I would not like to attempt to install Linux on someones PC who can barely open Thunderbird, especially scince I myself am not a Linux user and wouldnt be able to help without research if he'd have any problems

Also I doubt that just reinstalling Win XP would solve 10 minutes boottimes.

[CorneliusFGerald]

so i was rolling arount the website to squeeze out a build. am i crazy for thinking this guy would be fine with a raspberry pi?

 

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/mF2ZD3  if he *wants* a newer cpu, i'd suggest getting this as an upgrade, and keeping the case, PSU, DVD drive and HDD (for storage)

 

add a recent version of windows x64 in with that (7 or 8.1) and he should be a tad future proof (if thats even possible)

 

the reason i'd suggest an x64 version of windows is *if* said person ever needs more than 4GB of ram, he isnt stuck with x86 windows.

 

sidenote: yes, i know that cpu is *TERRIBLE*, but i dont think the user will need more, so i doubt its worth spending more.

 

I know he probably doesnt need a good pc bt i can understand someone finding it inconvenient to  have to wait 10 minutes to check his mail.

 

The build looks fine to me, excpet the 60 GB SSD beeing way to small. but that would step it up by only increase cost by 10€.

I don't know how your CPU would compare to his current one and if it wouldnt be more worth it to spend an extra 20 to get a Pentium G3220

[manikyath]

I know he probably doesnt need a good pc bt i can understand someone finding it inconvenient to  have to wait 10 minutes to check his mail.

 

The build looks fine to me, excpet the 60 GB SSD beeing way to small. but that would step it up by only increase cost by 10€.

I don't know how your CPU would compare to his current one and if it wouldnt be more worth it to spend an extra 20 to get a Pentium G3220

my first bet would actually be a core2duo, and the SSD is well... i'd guess enough.

 

i should start noting my builds are mostly meant as a guide.

[CorneliusFGerald]

my first bet would actually be a core2duo, and the SSD is well... i'd guess enough.

I've heard of a lot of spaceissues with just windows on a 60 GB harddrive and I dont see a reason to only install OS on the SSD

[manikyath]

I've heard of a lot of spaceissues with just windows on a 60 GB harddrive and I dont see a reason to only install OS on the SSD

well, i'll put it like this: thats what i'd recommend as a minimum, always feel free to get more, but i *highly* doubt he'll need much more than a pentium, and the SSD mostly depends on how much he'll be installing. my system currently uses 48GB on the C drive.

[Redut]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (€67.90 @ Caseking) 

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (€48.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Memory: Crucial 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (€32.86 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€95.90 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Case: Cooler Master K280 ATX Mid Tower Case  (€16.90 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (€50.24 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Total: €312.79

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-29 17:37 CEST+0200