Upgrading an old PC

[67 others]

Question ladies and gents.

I built my computer back in 2007-08. Minor upgrades here and there. Back then I knew my parts and stuff, but I am quite out of touch with upgrades since then.

As it stands, I am finding the computer too slow for many of the things currently going. Browsers lag, Games lag(truthfully I barely play now, but I play Left for dead 2 era games), probably would benefit from a complete wipe and reinstall of the OS.

I run the usual ad aware and AVG checks to minimize junk.

On the other hand, I don't have a ton of money like I used to. Had twin daughters, bought a house, etc

I am trying to figure out if I can tweak my current PC with CPU and Ram upgrades to boost performance enough for my liking by keeping my current motherboard and Graphics card.
I don't intend to do any high end gaming anymore, although I saw project Zomboid and immediately wanted to play it. hehe

My current specs are:
600W PSU
3GB of DDR2 667 Ram(4 slots)
G-Force 8800GT graphics card

Asus PSB motherboard, intel 965 chipset, 1066/800/533mhz, LGA 775 socket, DDR2 800/667/533, Max 8GB, compatible with intel 05B/05A/06B processors

Core 2 Duo 6300 1.86GHZ

In my head, I always wanted to upgrade the CPU. Just never found time. Obviously I need more ram. Have 4 slots, only using 3 and pretty outdated ram at that.

Off the top of my head, I forget how time consuming swapping a CPU is. Is it the sort of thing that requires a complete reinstall of the OS?

I know when my motherboard failed back in the day and I upgraded, I needed to completely reinstall everything. Just can't remember if the same holds true for CPU. And do I need to upgrade the bios or anything special? or just swap out the CPU?

What are the better CPU's I can get for this motherboard? and is it worth it?

Same with better RAM. DDR2 is out of date, yet since I am using 3GB of DDR2 667, that trading up to double sticks of DDR2 800 Ram to max out at 8GB might be worth it.

I am real out of touch.

PSU has been traded out 3 times in the past 9 years.

I am looking around at what is compatible with an ASUS p5B mobo, but I feel like I may make a mistake if I don't check with people more up to date with information and familiarity.


Overall, I still have a nice Antec p182 case, tons of fans, a working 600W PSU, a working motherboard, a working 8800GT video card.....

Can I change out the CPU to a quad core, as well as boost to 8GB of DDR2 800 ram and see significant differences?

A Core 2 Quad replacement that fits the 1066 LGA 775?

I am trying not to spend too much here. So Newegg.ca or Amazon links would be swell. Does anyone have good/Bad experiences buying used on amazon?

Is it even worth it?

Click to read more...

 

[FLYLine27*]

The computer wiz guys can probably help you more here, but in my opinion the computer is already 8 years old..I'd just buy a new one. You can get some pretty good deals on computers these days if you don't mind not having the state of the art model.

 

[karnige]

I would personally get a new MB, cpu to start and use the other components slowly and phase out as you upgrade. You could even get a ddr3 MB and can handle a ton of ram and good speeds but still support your old stuff as a starter. Just me though if you don't want to spend a ton

 

[67 others]

The computer wiz guys can probably help you more here, but in my opinion the computer is already 8 years old..I'd just buy a new one. You can get some pretty good deals on computers these days if you don't mind not having the state of the art model.

No doubt.

I just look at it from the perspective of "new CPU, $200, Add Ram, $30"

Just trying to figure out if it is worth it or not.

A lot of paying for a computer is The case, PSU and video card. At least back when I built it.

Since I am not hardcore gaming anymore, the 8800GT is still better than any built integrated video card, so no need to buy a new one. PSU is under a year old, so no point buying a new one. Case is old, but the Antec p182 is one of the best cases ever made, so I suspect I will have it till I die, rotating new computers into it.

At best, I will get told to upgrade to a specific CPU and add a certain type of RAM. At worst, I get told I also need a brand new motherboard and more modern CPU/RAM, which are more expensive

 

[SniperHF]

probably would benefit from a complete wipe and reinstall of the OS.

This is definitely what you should look at first. Get yourself a Solid State Drive in the process and install on that and your computer will feel brand new again despite being pretty old at this point.

I recently got a Corsair Force LE for one of my systems and am pretty impressed with it for the money:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...233950&cm_re=240gb_ssd-_-20-233-950-_-Product

SSD + an OS reinstall would solve the majority of your desktop performance issues.

After the SSD, the rest really comes down to budget. It would be a lot easier if you had a $$ figure in mind.

Off the top of my head, I forget how time consuming swapping a CPU is. Is it the sort of thing that requires a complete reinstall of the OS?

CPU swap does not require a reinstall but like you mentioned yourself, you probably should do that anyway.

Same with better RAM. DDR2 is out of date, yet since I am using 3GB of DDR2 667, that trading up to double sticks of DDR2 800 Ram to max out at 8GB might be worth it.

I would not bother going up to 8GB, 4GB should be enough for anything that system needs to do. But If you already need a CPU and RAM, at this point I'd be looking at replacing both and getting a board.

Can I change out the CPU to a quad core, as well as boost to 8GB of DDR2 800 ram and see significant differences?

A Core 2 Quad replacement that fits the 1066 LGA 775?

And do I need to upgrade the bios or anything special? or just swap out the CPU?

What are the better CPU's I can get for this motherboard? and is it worth it?

So it depends on the CPU and what revision of the BIOS your board currently has. If you want to explore the CPU upgrade route you'll have to get the version information from your BIOS during startup and post back with the information.

You could update the BIOS but first I'd rather see where you're at now before going forward.

As far as is it worth it? Q6660's for example are dirt cheap on ebay and that would be a pretty sizable upgrade on a 1.83ghz duo.

To get a real boost in games, even in lower end ones you'll need a video card though.

 

[RandV]

You should be able to get the answers you need in the stickied PC buying thread.

I'm in the same boat as you, built my current PC back in 2008. If you want a new CPU and RAM I don't think you can get around skipping on the motherboard, these are built for specific chipsets and configurations so what you have may not be compatible with today's CPU and RAM.

That's going to be my plan at least when I upgrade: new MB, CPU, RAM, are the core components, plus probably throw in an SSD. I replaced my graphics card last year so that can always be upgraded at another time.

And yes, installing a new CPU requires a windows re-install, Windows will consider this a new computer.

 

[Belamorte]

In my opinion (and I am far from an expert), is that it is time to start over (you got nearly 10 years out of it). Depending on how much money you are willing to spend you can probably build/refurbish parts for less than $400 and be a major upgrade on what you listed.

 

[67 others]

This is definitely what you should look at first. Get yourself a Solid State Drive in the process and install on that and your computer will feel brand new again despite being pretty old at this point.

I recently got a Corsair Force LE for one of my systems and am pretty impressed with it for the money:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...233950&cm_re=240gb_ssd-_-20-233-950-_-Product

SSD + an OS reinstall would solve the majority of your desktop performance issues.

After the SSD, the rest really comes down to budget. It would be a lot easier if you had a $$ figure in mind.




CPU swap does not require a reinstall but like you mentioned yourself, you probably should do that anyway.






I would not bother going up to 8GB, 4GB should be enough for anything that system needs to do. But If you already need a CPU and RAM, at this point I'd be looking at replacing both and getting a board.




So it depends on the CPU and what revision of the BIOS your board currently has. If you want to explore the CPU upgrade route you'll have to get the version information from your BIOS during startup and post back with the information.

You could update the BIOS but first I'd rather see where you're at now before going forward.

As far as is it worth it? Q6660's for example are dirt cheap on ebay and that would be a pretty sizable upgrade on a 1.83ghz duo.

To get a real boost in games, even in lower end ones you'll need a video card though.

Been 8 years, which F key do I tap to enter BIOS? haha

SSD is an option. But my MOBO is still SATA 2, not SATA 3. Do tey have SATA 2 SSD's?

 

[SniperHF]

Been 8 years, which F key do I tap to enter BIOS? haha

SSD is an option. But my MOBO is still SATA 2, not SATA 3. Do tey have SATA 2 SSD's?

Doesn't matter, they are backward compatible. If you do decide to get an SSD you can always move it over to a new system when you decide to upgrade the rest.

Usually the BIOS is either F2 or DEL.

 

[SniperHF]

Here's a relatively cheap new stuff upgrade option you can chew on.

CPU - AMD A10-7860K
Board - AsRock FM2A68M
RAM - 8GB Kingston
SSD - Corsair Force LE 240GB

You'd actually be dropping the 8800 GT in this case and using the onboard graphics from the A10, it's faster.

$330 pre-shipping/tax.

 

[67 others]

Here's a relatively cheap new stuff upgrade option you can chew on.

CPU - AMD A10-7860K
Board - AsRock FM2A68M
RAM - 8GB Kingston
SSD - Corsair Force LE 240GB

You'd actually be dropping the 8800 GT in this case and using the onboard graphics from the A10, it's faster.

$330 pre-shipping/tax.

Thank you!

Are there any smaller storage cheaper option SSD's? I have pretty much unlimited storage with zillions of external drives.

But knowing the size of games now, I suppose this is the new raptor

 

[SniperHF]

Yeah you can get a smaller 120GB Drive but I wouldn't bother and just save for at least a 240GB. 120GB gets cramped quick, OS takes about 35 by itself.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...211983&cm_re=120gb_ssd-_-20-211-983-_-Product

You could always just install on your current HDD and get an SSD later but the SSD is the single biggest performance booster for general purpose use so I wouldn't skip it myself.

 

[67 others]

Yeah you can get a smaller 120GB Drive but I wouldn't bother and just save for at least a 240GB. 120GB gets cramped quick, OS takes about 35 by itself.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...211983&cm_re=120gb_ssd-_-20-211-983-_-Product

You could always just install on your current HDD and get an SSD later but the SSD is the single biggest performance booster for general purpose use so I wouldn't skip it myself.

I confess, when i was building my PC, Solid state drives were super expensive and a lot of people complaining they fail.

I am assuming 8 years later they are the standard and don't fail as much as standard spin drives?

Use just for programs and OS like a raptor right?

 

[SniperHF]

Use just for programs and OS like a raptor right?

Basically. Usually you can put OS + 1-2 games on there if you have a small one. But 240GB drives are getting quite a bit more affordable so you can do more stuff with them and larger drives.

They are substantially faster than any mechanical drive.

 

[67 others]

Here's a relatively cheap new stuff upgrade option you can chew on.

CPU - AMD A10-7860K
Board - AsRock FM2A68M
RAM - 8GB Kingston
SSD - Corsair Force LE 240GB

You'd actually be dropping the 8800 GT in this case and using the onboard graphics from the A10, it's faster.

$330 pre-shipping/tax.

Jesus. The onboard graphics are faster than a 8800GT now? When i bought it, it was among the top of the market haha. back then the card could be ancient, but a standalone card was always better than integrated. I guess with computers able to load up tons more than 4GB of Ram now, integrated are not so bad

I think you meant the ASRock, not the A10 right? Radeon R7/R5 integrated sounds familiar...

EDIT: Wait WTF? CPU's have integrated graphics now? Used to be the motherboard.

 

[SniperHF]

I think you meant the ASRock, not the A10 right? Radeon R7/R5 integrated sounds familiar...

It's a whole new world now

The graphics processors are not on the motherboard like the old days so I actually do mean the A10. The graphics processor is actually integrated on the CPU die. The motherboard just provides the outputs.

They are still pretty damn slow in the scheme of things but much faster than before. For example the integrated graphics from the A10 is about 33% faster than your 8800 GT.

But a low end modern card like a GTX 750 is still somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 times faster than the A10.

You can always upgrade to a new GPU down the line and stop using the onboard A10 graphics.

 

[67 others]

Here is a question for you sniper?

If I were suddenly to have time and wanted to game again. I mean more than Left for Dead 2 and other oldies, and get more modern, is this motherboard able to accommodate adding a dedicated video card?

I know for sure I will want to try Zomboid at some point haha.

I am a bit dumbstruck by the fact that both the processor and Motherboard have integrated video cards and was wondering how that works and how the computer decides which takes precedence.

In any case, I am beginning the process of transferring/copying a lot of my Main harddrive to one of my portable drives, as well as purging my final old IDE drive(Even then, was hard to find motherboards that kept a single IDE slot haha) to get ready for the SDD.

Still running Windows Vista. Unlike most, I never had any problems with it. But should I be going to Windows 8 or Windows 10 or something?

 

[67 others]

It's a whole new world now

The graphics processors are not on the motherboard like the old days so I actually do mean the A10. The graphics processor is actually integrated on the CPU die. The motherboard just provides the outputs.

They are still pretty damn slow in the scheme of things but much faster than before. For example the integrated graphics from the A10 is about 33% faster than your 8800 GT.

But a low end modern card like a GTX 750 is still somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 times faster than the A10.

You can always upgrade to a new GPU down the line and stop using the onboard A10 graphics.

heh. you responded while I was typing. Thanks man

Is there any conflict between video cards? Will I have to somehow tell the computer to use a dedicated card if I want to and ignore the integrated graphics?

 

[Osprey]

What are the better CPU's I can get for this motherboard? and is it worth it?

You can go to www.cpu-upgrade.com, put in your motherboard model and it'll list every CPU that it supports. Then, you can identify one of the fastest ones, go on eBay and search for a used one of that for cheap (probably $10-20). No, it might not be worth it--a lot of trouble to replace the CPU for negligible performance increase--but you can do it.

Same with better RAM. DDR2 is out of date, yet since I am using 3GB of DDR2 667, that trading up to double sticks of DDR2 800 Ram to max out at 8GB might be worth it.

If you do that, your best/cheapest option is to go to eBay and get a used 8GB "kit" of four 2GB sticks for ~$30, like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Crucial-8GB...CT25664AA800-M16FH-DIMM-240-pin-/322236954691

Stay away from the kits that are half the price and say "high density" and "AMD," since those won't work in your motherboard.

I am trying not to spend too much here. So Newegg.ca or Amazon links would be swell. Does anyone have good/Bad experiences buying used on amazon?

I've had good experiences buying used on Amazon. I've also had good experiences buying used on Ebay. Generally, if the seller has a good rating, don't worry.

All of the above said, you're not going to see an amazing difference upgrading only a component or two in such an old system. Something else will always bottleneck things. You're really better off upgrading a handful of core components, as SniperHF suggested. That would give you much better performance and would be a basis that you could improve upon further in the future; for example, by upgrading the graphics card or upgrading to 16GB of RAM. In other words, it would be more of an investment. Upgrading 8-year-old components with other, slightly better 8-year-old components, however, is putting your money into a bandaid. If a $50-100 bandaid is all that you can afford, oh well, but if you can afford a bit more (like the $350 package that SniperHF suggested), you'd really be a lot better off immediately and a year or two from now.

 

[SniperHF]

Is there any conflict between video cards? Will I have to somehow tell the computer to use a dedicated card if I want to and ignore the integrated graphics?

Nope, install the card and use it.

And yeah you'll need to get a newer version of Windows too. So that cost should be considered as well in your decision.

 

[67 others]

Stranger question.

What size are SSD's?
I have a feeling upon browsing them that they are significantly smaller than the old SATA Hardrives I have in my Case and that I would need to create some holder for it. The Antec p182 has many docks, but all for standard sized Hardrives.

Edit: Maybe this Icy Dock thing is the ticket

 

[SniperHF]

You'd be correct

SATA SSDs are the size of Laptop HDDs give or take. They make little trays that you can use to adapt them to a standard 3.5" bay.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994159&cm_re=ssd_tray-_-17-994-159-_-Product


Or just leave the thing flopping around. They aren't that heavy and unlike HDDs they don't have exposed parts.

 

[Osprey]

And yeah you'll need to get a newer version of Windows too. So that cost should be considered as well in your decision.

Conor, hit up www.reddit.com/r/microsoftsoftwareswap for a Windows key. They're legal, genuine keys (mostly surplus keys from volume purchases that businesses made) that'll save you a lot of money. If you want to play it safe, buy a Windows 10 Home key. If you want to take a chance and try to save a little more money, you can buy a Windows 8.1 Standard key. I've read that you can still activate Windows 10 with Windows 8.1 keys, so it may not be necessary to pay extra for a Windows 10 key. Don't hold me to that, but that's what I've read as recently as a few weeks ago. It could stop working at any time. Again, if you just want to be safe, you can buy a true Windows 10 key. Either way, get a 64-bit key.

Once you have a key, run Microsoft's Media Creation Tool to download and/or install Windows 10.

 

[XX]

Is it even worth it?

You're several generations behind at this point, so no. You're going to be looking at rolling the dice on used hardware and patching together a system that will be a lot more hassle than just saving up for a new one. Honest truth. You could build a new system that smokes that one for pretty cheap nowadays.

 

[IronMosher]

Just build a new one. That's ancient in computer terms.