Upgrading a pretty ancient Build.

[GrievingJosh]

Well, as the title says I guess ... To cut a longish story short, I am planning on upgrading my PC. Now, this PC is pretty ancient by now and thus I think it's slightly overdue on a upgrade, anyway, my budget for the upgrades alone are around £250-300. 
Specs:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ OC'ed to 2.4 Due to being limited by stock cooler
ASUS M2N4-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
4GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 RAM 800MHz

ATI Radeon HD 3870
1TB WD Green SATA drive for storage and Games, and a 200GB Maxtor IDE Drive for Applications/OS ect
XFX Core edition 550w PSU
Oh and there's a WiFi card in there if that comes at any help, which I need for Internet 

[Samdb]

If you can, buy a new PC.

[Hazy125]

Wow... A maxtor drive... Anyway, unless you can increase your budget get a cheap graphics card and a SSD

[pewpewmerica]

you need a higher budget if you want to upgrade it to a decent pc...

 

Anyways if you use it for gaming I would put most of the money into the gpu

[heineygoat]

Pretty much what @Samdb said. If you want to upgrade your CPU, you will need a new motherboard most likely, and then DDR3 RAM to go with it, just buy it all at once. Sorry but your PC is too far gone. You can't upgrade a horse and cart to a sports car.

[Samdb]

You can't upgrade a horse and cart to a sports car.

Well, you could if you put the effort in.

[heineygoat]

Well, you could if you put the effort in.

HA! You would have nothing left of the horse and cart. Unless you want wooden wheels on that sports car.

[GrievingJosh]

It sounds pretty old I know, however at the moment in runs okay in games, which is what it's intended for, can play almost any game so far, but at medium-low settings and sometimes high, with decent framerates. I would prefer to just upgrade it than to buy an entirely new PC, but any help is vastly appreciated.

[SSOB]

PSU and HDD and Case are probably fine  for 300 pounds get this :

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1n1ej

[Haggis_]

Don't bother to upgrade that one, buy a new pc when you get the money.

Find another user for the old one.

[MrSuperb]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ OC'ed to 2.4 Due to being limited by stock cooler

ASUS M2N4-SLI Deluxe Motherboard

4GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 RAM 800MHz

ATI Radeon HD 3870

1TB WD Green SATA drive for storage and Games, and a 200GB Maxtor IDE Drive for Applications/OS ect

XFX Core edition 550w PSU

Oh and there's a WiFi card in there if that comes at any help, which I need for Internet 

 

Only things maybe worth reusing: Case,PSU,Sata HDD

[GrievingJosh]

Don't bother to upgrade that one, buy a new pc when you get the money.

Find another user for the old one.

Yeah I get that a lot, I think people doubt older Machine's too much!  :o

[Haggis_]

Yeah I get that a lot, I think people doubt older Machine's too much!  :o

I know what you mean, I just build a new PC. My old one was from 2006.

I gave my old computer to my parents, and my parents old to a friend. (feels good to find a use for it instead of just scrapping it)

I have tried to upgrade before, but it always ends up with me saving just the floppy drive.

[ProGearUk]

Turn that computer into a server for whatever. Game servers who knows. That is what I did with my old rig.

[GrievingJosh]

Hmm, reading down here, I would build a entirely new PC, but due to planning to upgrade this one I have a very small budget. I'll plan out a new build and put this one aside as a Home server or what ever I decide to do. So, I have a new question then, for my budget, what would be a good build? Without having to buy a new PSU, HDD, Case or even GPU (maybe) so, this is for around £300ish.

[WoodenMarker]

Grab an ssd/gpu and do a new build eventually. I'm assume you're gaming. What kind of games do you plan, if any?

[GrievingJosh]

Grab an ssd/gpu and do a new build eventually. I'm assume you're gaming. What kind of games do you plan, if any?

All kinds of games, FPS Games, RPG Games, Racing Games ... Any really, I'd also really like to try Crysis 3 next too, because no I haven't played it.

[WoodenMarker]

All kinds of games, FPS Games, RPG Games, Racing Games ... Any really, I'd also really like to try Crysis 3 next too, because no I haven't played it.

I suggest you get these: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/178da

[GrievingJosh]

I suggest you get these: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/178da

Thanks dude. ;)

[ShadowRaven]

Well, as the title says I guess ... To cut a longish story short, I am planning on upgrading my PC. Now, this PC is pretty ancient by now and thus I think it's slightly overdue on a upgrade, anyway, my budget for the upgrades alone are around £250-300. 

Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ OC'ed to 2.4 Due to being limited by stock cooler

ASUS M2N4-SLI Deluxe Motherboard

4GB OCZ Platinum DDR2 RAM 800MHz

ATI Radeon HD 3870

1TB WD Green SATA drive for storage and Games, and a 200GB Maxtor IDE Drive for Applications/OS ect

XFX Core edition 550w PSU

Oh and there's a WiFi card in there if that comes at any help, which I need for Internet 

After looking over the facts here is my suggestions

 

     PARTS TO KEEP

 

1)  1 Tb wd green sata hdd drive

 

 2)  xfx core edition 550 watt psu

 3)  Wi-Fi card

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

        UPGADE-300 POUNDS

 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1nb5c

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

          PARTS TO BE PUT IN THE ALSO ASSANATED

 

1)  Asus m2n4 sli motherboard

 

2)  Maxtor hdd drive

 

3) 4 Gb ocz platinum memory

 

4)  AMD Radeon hd 3870  ( onboard graphics would be better )  

 

5)  Old case

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

         FUTURE UPGRADES

 

1)  Graphics card

 

2)  Ssd

 

3). pci Wi-Fi  card

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[GrievingJosh]

After looking over the facts here is my suggestions

 

     PARTS TO KEEP

 

1)  1 Tb wd green sata hdd drive

 

 2)  xfx core edition 550 watt psu

 3)  Wi-Fi card

 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

        UPGADE-300 POUNDS

 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1nb5c

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

          PARTS TO BE PUT IN THE ALSO ASSANATED

 

1)  Asus m2n4 sli motherboard

 

2)  Maxtor hdd drive

 

3) 4 Gb ocz platinum memory

 

4)  AMD Radeon hd 3870  ( onboard graphics would be better )  

 

5)  Old case

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

         FUTURE UPGRADES

 

1)  Graphics card

 

2)  Ssd

 

3). pci Wi-Fi  card

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I could in theory upgrade the CPU, Motherboard and RAM, as I have pretty much everything else that's needed, I have a TJ07 case that is waiting to be used here so. I was actually wondering, maybe, I could try and get a Motherboard and RAM, and try and find something like a 3570k, because I could upgrade the GPU later, it's not what is holding the machine back.

[Dravic]

Do not buy a new PC with AMD CPU inside. AMD is so far away with CPUs that it doesn't make sense.

 

APUs are the worst thing somebody can do, NEVER EVER buy an APU if you are serious about your PC. Zero upgradability, low settings 30FPS gaming at most and they are just so... damn... underpowered!

 

IF you can't buy everything right now, get i5 (if you overclock) or i7 (Xeon 1230v3 or v2) if you don't overclock. Xeons don't have integrated GPU but they do have Hyper threading and can't be overclocked at all.

 

Mobo... anything with the correct socket (1230v2 is Ivy Bridge and needs LGA 1155, 1230v3 is Haswell and needs LGA 1150) will do but the better mobo the more features, you just gotta pick the right one for you (amount of input/output, storage etc.)

 

and of course you need new RAM because you're sitting on ancient DDR2... DDR3 1333mhz if you are on budget or 1600mhz if you can squeeze that much (both CAS 9/CL9, DONT GRAB CL10 because they are slower). For a modern system 4GB is enough but aim to get at least 8GB. If you can, grab 1x8GB now, or 1x4GB now and add another 1x4GB later.

[GrievingJosh]

Do not buy a new PC with AMD CPU inside. AMD is so far away with CPUs that it doesn't make sense.

 

APUs are the worst thing somebody can do, NEVER EVER buy an APU if you are serious about your PC. Zero upgradability, low settings 30FPS gaming at most and they are just so... damn... underpowered!

 

IF you can't buy everything right now, get i5 (if you overclock) or i7 (Xeon 1230v3 or v2) if you don't overclock. Xeons don't have integrated GPU but they do have Hyper threading and can't be overclocked at all.

 

Mobo... anything with the correct socket (1230v2 is Ivy Bridge and needs LGA 1155, 1230v3 is Haswell and needs LGA 1150) will do but the better mobo the more features, you just gotta pick the right one for you (amount of input/output, storage etc.)

 

and of course you need new RAM because you're sitting on ancient DDR2... DDR3 1333mhz if you are on budget or 1600mhz if you can squeeze that much (both CAS 9/CL9, DONT GRAB CL10 because they are slower). For a modern system 4GB is enough but aim to get at least 8GB. If you can, grab 1x8GB now, or 1x4GB now and add another 1x4GB later.

I'll see about a Ivy i5 or Sandy, MAYBE a Haswell i5, because I could always get a i7 later. OR alternatively, I could hold off and wait for i3 and Pentium Haswell chips, get one of those, then upgrade later.