help buying a desktop

[joycem10]

My 5 year old POS Dell is just about dead. The hard drive has been slowing dying the last year or so and its bugged to hell. Im pretty illiterate when it comes to hardware and I would appreciate any help. I have no idea what level of processor or memory I need.

My current hard drive is 40Gigs, Im probably going to upgrade that to 80. I use the desktop to run remote work applications, internet, some basic gaming (mainly hearts of iron, the civ series and old ROMs), photo/video storage, word processing and music/video streaming.

I think my old machine is 2.8/512. Do I need to upgrade?

 

[civ_king]

My 5 year old POS Dell is just about dead. The hard drive has been slowing dying the last year or so and its bugged to hell. Im pretty illiterate when it comes to hardware and I would appreciate any help. I have no idea what level of processor or memory I need.

My current hard drive is 40Gigs, Im probably going to upgrade that to 80. I use the desktop to run remote work applications, internet, some basic gaming (mainly hearts of iron, the civ series and old ROMs), photo/video storage, word processing and music/video streaming.

I think my old machine is 2.8/512. Do I need to upgrade?

40GB
2.8GHz
512MB RAM

yes you need to upgrade

 

[Fëanor]

How much are you looking to spend and are there any parts of your pc you can/want to keep (eg Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, Speakers etc.)

 

[stormbind]

You can still upgrade the components and it will make the world of difference.

Same PC with:

1) 2Gb RAM (crucial.com)
2) any new HDD (newer is often quieter)
3) a free overclock (whoohoo)

.. would save you a lot of money and give your digital partner a second lease of life

 

[Genocidicbunny]

You can still upgrade the components and it will make the world of difference.

Same PC with:

1) 2Gb RAM (crucial.com)
2) any new HDD (newer is often quieter)
3) a free overclock (whoohoo)

.. would save you a lot of money and give your digital partner a second lease of life

Not as a primary machine.
1. Judging by the HDD and the age, the machine is probably DDR1. 2GB DDR1 aint cheap these days.
2. HDD speed won't make too much of a difference. It may expand storage capacity, but for an average user, there's not much difference.
3. The CPU in that machine is likely a P4. Since it's a Dell, the cooler's gonna be stock. You wont be getting anything decent out of a stock-cooled netburst if you try to overclock it. The architecture is just too hot-running.

You can buy a cheap machine for about 500$ that will outperform the OP's machine like 4x. But then again, you're a macboi, so 500$ gets you some iCrap in a pretty minimalist box.

 

[stormbind]

touche

He can put a nice cooler on it for low cost, and I'm sure the RAM is cheap but first check what the choices are

The HDD is cheap too. The complaint was noise rather than speed/size. His old one is a bit knackered and probably awfully fragmented from using that POS malware-stock-OS

These things are about best value for money. Some compromise is made but there's real satisfaction - especially your first overclock! It's like a rights of passage...

 

[Zelig]

His old one is a bit knackered and probably awfully fragmented from using that POS malware-stock-OS

I agree, an upgrade to Windows 7 would be an excellent idea.

To the OP: If you've been happy with that computer for the past 5 years, anything you can buy currently will be more than satisfactory. For $400, you can get a Dell system with Pentium E5400, 320GB HDD, 2GB RAM.

 

[civ_king]

Not as a primary machine.
1. Judging by the HDD and the age, the machine is probably DDR1. 2GB DDR1 aint cheap these days.
2. HDD speed won't make too much of a difference. It may expand storage capacity, but for an average user, there's not much difference.
3. The CPU in that machine is likely a P4. Since it's a Dell, the cooler's gonna be stock. You wont be getting anything decent out of a stock-cooled netburst if you try to overclock it. The architecture is just too hot-running.

You can buy a cheap machine for about 500$ that will outperform the OP's machine like 4x. But then again, you're a macboi, so 500$ gets you some iCrap in a pretty minimalist box.

The Mac Mini is only good for its extremely small size because the component s are laptop parts so they are more expensive then the cheap desktop ones, so the cost per performance is atrocious and the only saving grace is the size (which is pretty damn small) but it still sucks

I personally would build a computer off the i3 and make it a hackintosh

 

[Genocidicbunny]

touche

He can put a nice cooler on it for low cost, and I'm sure the RAM is cheap but first check what the choices are

The HDD is cheap too. The complaint was noise rather than speed/size. His old one is a bit knackered and probably awfully fragmented from using that POS malware-stock-OS

These things are about best value for money. Some compromise is made but there's real satisfaction - especially your first overclock! It's like a rights of passage...

The RAM is 75$ for 2GB. Thats ridiculous for RAM. I can get 4GB of DDR2 for less than that.

HDD -- It may not be that much quieter.

Value for money-- upgrading the HDD and RAM as well as buying a cooler will put him out 200+ USD. Thats enough to get a more recent motherboard and CPU. With those two parts, you're already well on your way to a decent system.

Also, he has a Dell system. The BIOS on it is severely limited, especially on a budget machine. You wont be doing any overclocking even if you wanted to.

 

[stormbind]

no bios patch?

that makes success just that much more satisfactory!

i'm going to recall a long time ago, but i made a 1GHz monster out of 266MHz stock machine. i had to put cello-tape around pins and patch other pins with bits of wire to trick the bios and set the voltage.. those were the days

 

[Zelig]

no bios patch?

Even if you wrote your own BIOS, such motherboards generally have physical hardware limits preventing them from being useful overclockers.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

i'm going to recall a long time ago, but i made a 1GHz monster out of 266MHz stock machine. i had to put cello-tape around pins and patch other pins with bits of wire to trick the bios and set the voltage.. those were the days

I call Bull. nearly 4x overclock? Unless the chip was initially rated to be a 500-600mhz part, I don't think this was possible.

 

[stormbind]

Well no, I did change the chip

The fun was that the motherboard was never designed for those kinds of speeds and had no support for them - even the voltage was not an option so needed to be hard-wired. This was made easier because there was a riser board for the CPU

The latency on the mobo was quite low and it was very reliable at weird clocks. It produced a lot of heat but in those days Gigabyte were well built so didn't buckle and it was sweet. It gave benchmarks that were double what the benchmarking software had in its profiles. Well chuffed!!

Its old history but the point is, only by doing those things can you learn and its fun like lego

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Well no, I did change the chip

The fun was that the motherboard was never designed for those kinds of speeds and had no support for them - even the voltage was not an option so needed to be hard-wired. This was made easier because there was a riser board for the CPU

Then you didnt make a 1ghz part out of a 266mhz part.

 

[stormbind]

I didn't say part. I said machine - like the OP has a machine!

It might (or might not) have the potential to go way beyond manufacturer claims.