Computer upgrade.... it's been a while

[Lopez]

The time has finally come to upgrade my wheezing, struggling PC.

Current spec:

AMD Sempron 2800+ (1.6GHz)
1.25 GB DDR
Some ancient motherboard hauled out of a skip
Generic AGP card
Clunky old IDE HDDS

You get the picture.

I use it mainly for web browsing (70+ tabs open in Firefox is not uncommon which sucks a fair old bit of resource), editing pics in Photoshop, mild gaming (nothing cutting edge, got an XBOX so it's only the odd game really)
Playing music.

I mainly notice the lack of performance in the current setup when I have Media Player or VLC running while I'm also web browsing/using Photoshop - lots of stuttering and general poor performance.


SO


The time has come to upgrade I think, I've not rebuild the system for a good few years and hence am now totally out of touch!
I don't want to spend a fortune, there just isn't any point as I won't benefit much from it.

Been doing some digging and basically I'm looking at 2 routes

Sempron 140 (AM3)
Athlon 64 5200 or similar (AM2)

Guessing that as the Athlon is AM2 that it is older architecture, but the Sempron surely has significantly less processing power? But on the other hand I'd have thought it would be more future-proof.
Athlon costs almost double what the Sempron does (around £40 for the Athlon, more like £25 for the Sempron) - will I really notice the difference?

Motherboards are expensive these days aren't they? Anyway it seems I have 2 routes I can go down there, DDR2 or DDR3.
DDR3 RAM is more expensive it seems. Is it worth the extra cost?
AM2 boards more plentiful in the budget range than AM3 ones from what I've found but overall price differences relatively negligable.

I'll need to get a PCI-E graphics card too. Joy.

PSU? Can't remember what's in this thing, I seem to remember changing it a couple of years ago :D

Any comments welcome. It was all so much easier when you only had to choose between a Duron or an Athlon :D

[Will]

Rather than buy all the bits, you can get some really cheap decent kits already made by different companies. Buying all the bits will cost you just as much as a ready made system. If you go for el-cheapo basic spec everything you'll still be spending over £200. For £300 you can easily get a complete system for that of decent clout, certainly for your needs IMO.

You can get motherboards with built in gfx cards too.

What OS are you running? I'd probably aim for about 2gb of ram nowdays as a minimum really.

[Joe 90]

yeah I'd consider just buying a desktop pc... if you don't currently use the PC for much in the way of intensive applications it'd probably make for a better all round upgrade;
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Desktop-PC

just a matter of finding which meets your budget really, they're all pretty good.

[LeperousDust]

Can i recommend the save yourself any hassle and get a full warranty route. Although i fix PC's still i never build them, it just doesn't save you money in almost any budget range now days, mayabe apart from second hand extreme stuff...

I'd also recommend getting a laptop even if you have pre concieved views of them, you can still plug them into a monitor and keyboard/mouse use them like a PC but yet have them totally portable when the time comes :) It's what i do now days.
Cheap amazing laptop i've just made a relative buy here (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/669202/asus-ul30a-laptop-ultra-thin-ulv-su), and am so impressed it's replacing my mini i think... [/URL]

Cheap PC's of varying price [URL="http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/662914/glitch-dell-vostro-230-desktop-base"]here (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/669202/asus-ul30a-laptop-ultra-thin-ulv-su) here (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/662915/glitch-dell-vostro-230-desktop-base) here (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/662916/glitch-dell-vostro-desktop-430-i5-7) here (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/634034/dell-vostro-230-desktop-base-unit-2) and here (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/662266/dell-inspiron-560-desktop-2-7ghz-du)

They won't all work, but you get the idea, and an idea of prices. Just religiously keep checking HUKD and you'll come across something that fits the bill :)

[Daz]

Chuck a couple of hundred £ at Dell and they'll give you something reasonable:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/634034/dell-vostro-230-desktop-base-unit-2 [edit]Alex also lined to this, whoops!

Hardly top spec but you cant really argue for the monies. Like Alex says, HUKD will probably be your friend regardless of vendor really, always lots of good value PC/laptop deals :)

[Mark]

here (http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/669202/asus-ul30a-laptop-ultra-thin-ulv-su)

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't very tempted by that. I'd even consider selling off the D830 as I no longer need such a heavyweight laptop. Netbook price for much-better-than-Netbook spec (even if it is a Celeron).

Might not be a good choice for Photoshop and 70+ Firefox tabs though. :dunno:

[LeperousDust]

Its beautiful man, its a "celeron" but its out of order execution dual core 64bit compatible core 2 due architecture celeron, ie 3 or 4 times better than a little atom. Its coupled with the x4500mHD which is the mobile version of the 4500 integrated graphics, capable of running full1080p BD stuff etc... So it should be very capble as it goes. I'm managing on a gma500 and Z series atom with 30/40 tabs on opera and quite heavy stuff, it just about struggles by. Now i'm expecting that laptop to be about 3 to 4 times better, which to me is amazing ;D:D

[divine]

I have to agree with the suggestions to just buy a complete system. These days the margins on stuff mean self builds only make sense at around £450+ in my experience.

Below that the massive buying power of companies like Dell trump any self build.

Browse Dell and find a PC that suits your budget, then shop around other places to try and beat it, if you can beat Dell you can be pretty sure it's a good deal as Dell are very very competitive at the low end.

[Mark]

Still pondering the UL30A. Saw one last week and very tempted as it seems like the ideal choice for me.

Reason for delay? It'll be the fourth laptop in the house (keep meaning to sell two, never getting around to it), it's a big change in direction from previous purchases, and I wasn't planning on spending on hardware for a while. Would like to get out of the 'office' more though and that means a thin and light - which this is.

PS - Sorry for the slight hijack. Just need to get things straight in my brain and writing it down somewhere helps. :)

[Lopez]

No worries on th hijack Mark

In the end I went DIY, after much deliberation.

I already had a 1TB SATA drive so that bit was taken care of.
I spent a long time picking a motherboard that offered a good compromise between performance and price, and ended up choosing a Gigabyte Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H. The board can take a huge range of AMD processors (I went with the AMD Athlon X2 (7850) Black Edition 2.8GHz for now), has HDMI output and lots of other bits and bobs I wasn't going to get in most of my prebuilt options
2GB of RAM for now which I will double when funds allow.

Total cost including a new SATA DVDRW drive, PSU (which I didn't really need but wanted a quieter one) but excluding the HDD was £190 delivered which was well within budget. I can now use Firefox, Photoshop, my scanner utility (very intensive, always has been) and media player in HD all together with no issues.

Deep joy!

And Windows 7 has been a revelation for me, how I stuck this long with XP is beyond me.

[Will]

Yeah windows 7 is pretty good - getting towards Mac style of "just works" :)

Glad to see you've got your new system up and running - it's quite fun and exciting sometimes doing such things isn't it?! :D


My next upgrade (which will be next year as I've spent my gadget budget this year already!) will be a solid state HDD for my OS drive.

[Burble]

I've still not tried Windows 7 yet. I've got a new work laptop on order that I'll run with 7 to see how I like it, then I may get a copy for bootcamp on the Mac.

[Mark]

Definitely go with Win 7. Only reason I haven't got it on this PC is because it's too much bother to upgrade (old hardware etc.)

PS - The UL30A is on order. Should have arrived today save a CPW screw-up. :/