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Brother needs to upgrade computer


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Judging that it only has a 300watt power supply, I'd recommend a 9800gt green edition which only consumes 75watts and doesn't require an internal 6pin power connector.

 

If he wants something with a bit more kick, I'd recommend a gts450 but the downside is he would need to upgrade to a slightly higher wattage power supply. Personally I'd recommend a power supply with 500w minimum but a decent 450w unit may work just fine.

Edited by N3C14R
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Best bet would be to take a $500-$700 budget, and buy parts from Newegg and build your own. Things like the case, PSU, optical drive, HDDs, could likely be used in future builds/upgrades. Which you could subtract the cost off your next build. You can build a way better PC for $500-$700 than you can buy pre-built. I recently built a PC with a $2000 budget and it is a phenomenally powerful PC. The I5 2500k CPU is the best CPU on the market for the value right now if gaming is your intention. It beats most previous I7s. Very overclockable. You can hit 4.5ghz easy with an after market cooler that costs less than $50. High clock is what you need for gaming, more than 4 cores isn't going to get you really any performance increase for gaming. People doing heavy photo/movie editing and multitasking might need the I7 990x six core. Anyone who buys one of those just for gaming is out of their mind when you can get an I5 2500k for around $200 when the 990x costs $1000. The 990x will get you NO better performance in gaming over the I5 2500k.

 

Also the new Z68 chipset boards for the second generation intel CPUs, have smart cashing, which uses a solid state drive as a caching device and boosts your HDD, and makes your OS run considerably faster, and boot up lightning fast. This also improves the load times in games, I have tested this on my computer with it on and off, and load screens are much faster with the SSD acceleration enabled. It was a major pain in the rear to get this setup correctly though.

 

I could help spec a PC out for a particular budget, get you close to or the best bang for your buck on components.

Edited by crimsonblade1
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I would recommend spending at least $120- $150 USD on a GPU, it would get you a middle of the road GPU, which is good enough to play games on low to medium settings.

 

Here is an ASUS GTX 550 for $129.99, or $109.99 after mail-in rebate a decent GPU for the price. ASUS makes quality products, and has a 3 year manufacturer warranty.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121435&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo

 

Here is a 500W power supply with a 6 pin connector for $39.99:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182038

 

Here is a 2GB stick of DDR3 1333Mhz for $12.99

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820576001

 

This PSU will work with the above video card. Which requires only one 6 pin connector. It will cost less than $200 for all this. I found these from a quick search, could probably find a better deal if I looked for 30 minutes.

 

And lots of these newer GPUs are pretty huge and wont fit in mini towers. Says the dimensions are Height:16.23" Width: 7.09" Depth: 16.27", This sounds like at least a mid tower.

 

The dimensions of the above GPU are 9.54" x 5.5" x 1.54". I think you will be ok, but it depends on how things are arranged inside of the tower. You could take a tape measure or a ruler, and see how much space you got from the back of the case to where it hits on the inside right over the PCI E slot.

 

For the money invested, that would be a phenomenal upgrade over what your brother already has. The difference would be night and day.

 

Also you might need help plugging the new PSU in because it will require you unplug the old one and all of the chords and hook everything back up. Its not exactly easy if you never done it before.

Edited by crimsonblade1
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Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look around and see if I can find a good deal on a more high-end video card.

 

Is there a difference between RAM chips or are they all pretty much the same?

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Well, RAM is decided by "Speed" And each motherboard has a certain "Standard" which means the default speed you should buy. Speed is rated in amounts of 1066, 1333, 1600, 1866. There are lower and higher amounts as well.

 

You will also see numbers like 12800, which means 1600, or 14900 and 15000, which are both 1866Hz.

 

I see a lot of people recommending Intel motherboards and CPU's, and nVidia Gfx cards.

 

Please be aware while they are better, they are more expensive, and ATI Radeon GFX cards and AMD motherboards and cpu's ARE cheaper and more cost effective. Sandy Bridge-type CPU's (Which are intel) are GREAT for overclocking and gaming, but run at high prices.

 

I'd love to help you out constructing a gaming CPU. You might be better off returning that computer or selling it on craigslist in full. The case for that computer is going to be too small to hold some of the graphics cards people are speaking of here.

 

If you give me your budget for a PC, I can build you a wishlist on newegg matching it.

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