Help a hardware noob upgrade

[Raghav Talwar]

Guys, I'm a real n00b when it comes to computer hardware.

So much so that I don't even know which motherboard I've got (threw away the box, lost the manual). It a 2.66 GHz Intel Pentium 4.

I assembled it in 2007 I guess. So which RAM do you think I have? DDR1 or DDR2?
I've got 512 MB (504MB effective) RAM

The hard disk is a crappy 40 GB.

I'm looking forward to making some upgrades. I need to be able to play DX9 games such as BF2 and NFS MW, COD2. Being able to play DX10 games is welcome, but it's too much to ask for, right?

The budget is 5K, but I can stretch it a little.

[ajai5777]

Originally Posted by Raghav Talwar

Guys, I'm a real n00b when it comes to computer hardware.

So much so that I don't even know which motherboard I've got (threw away the box, lost the manual). It a 2.66 GHz Intel Pentium 4.

I assembled it in 2007 I guess. So which RAM do you think I have? DDR1 or DDR2?
I've got 512 MB (504MB effective) RAM

The hard disk is a crappy 40 GB.

I'm looking forward to making some upgrades. I need to be able to play DX9 games such as BF2 and NFS MW, COD2. Being able to play DX10 games is welcome, but it's too much to ask for, right?

The budget is 5K, but I can stretch it a little.

Investing on that rig is a waste.I would suggest you to sell it and invest 25k for a new rig.

If you have no other choice, I would suggest

1GB DDR 400 RAM @ 1.6k
Sparkle 9500GT 512MB DDR2 @ 2.6k
Seagate 500GB HDD @ 2.2k

You can play most games till 2009 with that rig
Titles include
NFS upto under cover
POP upto POP 4
Splinter cell up to Double Agent
PES even PES 10
Fifa upto FIFA 10
GTA upto San Andreas
GRID in low settings
and other games before 2009

[Cybertonic]

it would hardly be future proof and the CPU is crappy for gaming
better get a budget of 15k and get the following
AMD athlon ii x2 240 - 3k
MSI GF615M - 2.5k
2GB DDR3 - 2.5k
WD Caviar Blue 500GB - 2k
Nvidia 9600GT - 5k
u can get abt 1 - 2k by selling that rig

[stonecaper]

Originally Posted by Cybertonic

it would hardly be future proof and the CPU is

u can get abt 1 - 2k by selling that rig

Max 1K is what he can get 4 A Machine Like that [and Mine ]

[asingh]

^^
I had that board once upon a time, with a 8500GT..!

[Raghav Talwar]

Just checked my system with Everest Home 2.

The motherboard is ASRock 775i45GV
It has 2 DDR DIMM RAM slots
and these expansion slots: 3 PCI, 1 AGI, 1 AMR

So am I right to say that I've god DDR1 RAM?

I cannot afford a new system.
Please suggest something for this one

Originally Posted by ajai5777

You can play most games till 2009 with that rig
Titles include
NFS upto under cover
POP upto POP 4
Splinter cell up to Double Agent
PES even PES 10
Fifa upto FIFA 10
GTA upto San Andreas
GRID in low settings
and other games before 2009

Will those games work without a graphics card?
What about battlefield 2?

P.S.: Can a DDR RAM be used in a DDR2 RAM motherboard?

[ajai5777]

Originally Posted by Raghav Talwar

Just checked my system with Everest Home 2.

The motherboard is ASRock 775i45GV
It has 2 DDR DIMM RAM slots
and these expansion slots: 3 PCI, 1 AGI, 1 AMR

So am I right to say that I've god DDR1 RAM?

I cannot afford a new system.
Please suggest something for this one



Will those games work without a graphics card?
What about battlefield 2?

P.S.: Can a DDR RAM be used in a DDR2 RAM motherboard?

A BIG NO
As it has got AGP slot.All your hopes vanish here.Its not worth to spend a penny on that rig.

[Cool Buddy]

It isn't possible to upgrade this machine. All ports on it are outdated and components are hardly available.
Hard Disk (Where you store your files, since you are a noob): Your motherboard has only IDE, newer standard SATA has become common around 4 years back, you must have bought that system very cheap or you would have had a SATA port

RAM (Where files which are currently being used by the PC are temporarily stored): DDR2 came and is now going. within a couple of months DDR3 will be cheaper than DDR2, DDR is impossible.

Graphics port (Where you conect your graphics card): AGP is the older standard, your motherboard has only this. PCIe came and is now in PCIe 2.0 stage. AGP cards are impossible in the market. For your knowledge, the second series of PCIe cards from nvidia (8xxx series) has also left the markets. even 9xxx series is old now.

so, I'm really sorry, but no upgrade is possible. PCs are cheap these days. Just wait for a few months and make a budget of 12k for a new PC (just mobo, proccy, RAM, HDD & cabinet) and get a new PC altogether. Unfortunately, even this would not run new games without a dedicated graphics card, but you'll be able to run NFS (till MW), POP (till T2T), FIFA (till 2008). So grab those games now as they might not be available by the time you upgrade.

[Cybertonic]

Go with AMD athlon ii x4 240 ~ 3k
MSI GF615M ~ 2.5k
1 GB DDR3 ~ 1.5k

Sell ur current proccy mobo and ram
I'm sure some ppl will buy ur old ram and u'll get abt 1k frm them
Total amount ~ 6k
Just hope that the onboard graphics will suffice, u can add a gfx card later

[Cool Buddy]

I think he (^) meant athlon II X2 240 & not X4 240. This one should come around 2600. It's a good option, just stretching your budget by 500-600. For now your IDE drive will work, later on you can change that for better performance, 250 Gb ones should be available for around Rs. 1500.

---------- Post added at 06:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:24 AM ----------

You could also wait for a few months, RAM prices might come down to 1k levels and a better processor would be available at the same price

[Sam]

a big no to Nvidia chipset based AMD machine. 740G or 760G based motherboard cost same & support DX10. & graphics power is better. rest everything ok. go for used DDR3 module, will get cheap.

[Raghav Talwar]

Originally Posted by ajai5777

A BIG NO
Its not worth to spend a penny on that rig.

So........ can DDR2 be used in a DDR3 capable motherboard?
DDR2 is super cheap!

Originally Posted by Cool Buddy

Hard Disk (Where you store your files, since you are a noob)

RAM (Where files which are currently being used by the PC are temporarily stored)

Aw C'mon man!
Even a noob knows that *nudge*.

Originally Posted by Cybertonic

Go with AMD athlon ii x4 240 ~ 3k
MSI GF615M ~ 2.5k
1 GB DDR3 ~ 1.5k

Sell ur current proccy mobo and ram
I'm sure some ppl will buy ur old ram and u'll get abt 1k frm them
Total amount ~ 6k
Just hope that the onboard graphics will suffice, u can add a gfx card later

Hmmm..... that sounds good! But how long before I have to upgrade this again?
How about a MSI Nvidia GeForce 8400GS or 8600GT with this system?

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Raghav Talwar

So........ can DDR2 be used in a DDR3 capable motherboard?
DDR2 is super cheap!

not all. DDR2 price rising & it almost same as DDR3. maybe 100 bucks cheap & thats not called super cheap.

Originally Posted by Raghav Talwar

Aw C'mon man!
Even a noob knows that *nudge*.

Originally Posted by Raghav Talwar

Hmmm..... that sounds good! But how long before I have to upgrade this again?
How about a MSI Nvidia GeForce 8400GS or 8600GT with this system?

get 740G motherboard. as you'll loose all Hyper transport 3.0 & Cool & quite features with a Nvidia based motherboard. price is same. and these features impact speed & lower power consumption respectively.

for card, opt for 9500GT 512Mb DDR2. from any manufacturer. should cost 2.5-3k. Sparkle giving out one such card for 2.5k. grab it.

[Jripper]

Sell ur rig mate.
I know its hard.But its very very outdated.Sell it and buy a new one.You can get a decent PC for 15-16k.(Go for AMD,theonboard graphics is great.I played assassins creed on a 785 board without any problems.Hell it even runs GTA4 with 2GB ram. \m/)

[Cool Buddy]

For cheap gfx cards you can consider 9500GT or HD 4650. Otherwise a 780G based will suffice I supose. I would suggest not to go for 8400 or even 9400. keep away from even GT210. these cards are a waste of money, better use the IGP for now and buy the card later.

[Raghav Talwar]

OK guys, time to behave like a n00b again

What is a 785 board? 780G? 740G?

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Cool Buddy

For cheap gfx cards you can consider 9500GT or HD 4650. Otherwise a 780G based will suffice I supose. I would suggest not to go for 8400 or even 9400. keep away from even GT210. these cards are a waste of money, better use the IGP for now and buy the card later.

yup. nice point. minimum from both side:

AMD ---> HD4650 512Mb DDR2 ---> 3k
Nvidia ---> Geforce 9500GT 512Mb DDR2 --->2.5k

Originally Posted by Raghav Talwar

OK guys, time to behave like a n00b again

What is a 785 board? 780G? 740G?

785G/780G/760G & 740G all are graphics integrated into motherboard so offer half as much graphics power as their full blown parts. & 740G is cheapest way to get DX10 (DirectX 10 technology) in AMD motherboard while being better than Intel graphics.

760G & 780G only available in DDR2 supporting motherboards mainly. so stay away from these 2. 785G is available in DDR2 & DDR3 supporting motherboards but costly. cheapest 785G motherboard is Biostar TA785G3 @ 3.8k.

[Raghav Talwar]

"half as much graphics power as their full blown parts"

So, it's cool if I don't buy a gfx card then?
Does a 740G board successfully run games like battlefield2 and battlefield 2142?

On such a board, a card can be installed later, right?
Another question I had is that how come DDR2 gfx cards run on DDR3 supporting boards?

[ajai5777]

System memory and Graphics memory is different.Even a DDR system will support A DDR5 Graphics card provided that its got a PCIex16 slot. system ram is directly accessed by the processor and Graphics ram is accessed through chipset via PCIex16

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Raghav Talwar

"half as much graphics power as their full blown parts"

So, it's cool if I don't buy a gfx card then?
Does a 740G board successfully run games like battlefield2 and battlefield 2142?

On such a board, a card can be installed later, right?
Another question I had is that how come DDR2 gfx cards run on DDR3 supporting boards?

740G is powerful graphics. well not as powerful as newly released 890GX or 880G. but still got enough guts to run game at 800X600 @ low settings. most games will run. can't pass any comment on what FPS you'll get. but its atleast better than Intel's graphics.

graphics memory used by graphics core & ram used by processor. so, no connection.

Originally Posted by ajai5777

System memory and Graphics memory is different.Even a DDR system will support A DDR5 Graphics card provided that its got a PCIex16 slot. system ram is directly accessed by the processor and Graphics ram is accessed through chipset via PCIex16

yup. a DDR system will run a GDDR5 based card, only requirement, a PCIe X 16 slot & a suitable PSU.

[Cool Buddy]

The RAM the graphics card uses is plugged or you can say built on to the graphics card itself, it has no connection to the normal RAM. That's why it is referred to as GDDR3 or GDDR5 and not just DDR.
Onboard graphics or IGP uses the system RAM. But if I'm correct, there are boards which have separate RAM for the IGP, I'm not sure of this.

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Cool Buddy

The RAM the graphics card uses is plugged or you can say built on to the graphics card itself, it has no connection to the normal RAM. That's why it is referred to as GDDR3 or GDDR5 and not just DDR.
Onboard graphics or IGP uses the system RAM. But if I'm correct, there are boards which have separate RAM for the IGP, I'm not sure of this.

yes, some boards do have but limited only to AMD. sideport memory. but what i have seen (& read lot) total graphics boost is 5%. however if the IGP is OC, the total increase in IGP muscle is well over 50%.