Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

About to start breathing new life into an old rig of mine (definition of a budget rig). Current specs:

CPU: Intel Pentium D (2.8GHz)
RAM: 3GB DDR2 533MHz (IIRC...I'll have to look at the package to remember the PC specs)
HDD: 1x 160GB
GPU: ATi Radeon X300SE

Now, before I continue further, I'm not a heavy PC gamer, so I don't need an iX series processor, DDR3 or a massive graphics card, which is why I'm upgrading this rig. I only really play two games on a PC and that's Minecraft and EVE-Online.

Plans:

eBay hunt for a faster Pentium D or Pentium D EE (preferably 3.4GHz or higher), push the ram up to 4+GB DDR2, upgrade the PSU to a 400+W unit, update the graphics card. Current list, minus the processor:

Newegg.com - PNY 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model MD2048KD2-667
Newegg.com - PC Power and Cooling Silencer MK III 400W Modular 80PLUS Bronze Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom
Newegg.com - ASUS GT630-2GD3 GeForce GT 630 2GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Newegg.com - Western Digital WD Blue WDBAAX5000ENC-NRSN 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

I will eventually swap the boot drive to an SSD, but that's for down the line.

There are three main reasons why I don't want to build a new rig:

1) Money...busy working on a car (needs an engine and other parts)
2) Time...if I'm not working...I'm at school...if I'm doing neither...I have side projects that I'm dealing with.
3) Need...don't need an uber rig...this machine has gotten the job done for awhile until I got my laptop.

Seeing what I have listed above, and taking into consideration my 3 reasons, would those be worthwhile upgrades?

The reason why I'm upgrading is because my laptop can't handle the load of a game + screen capture. Has no problems doing one or the other, but it has a fit when both run.

EDIT...I will also be upgrading the cooling for the processor.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

It looks like you intend to spend about $300, most of it on older components. You will probably get a much better deal if you buy everything used. If you don't have a lot of time buying a desktop from ebay may be a good solution.

Another option would be to buy the AMD10 cpu with integrated graphics. You'll need to buy a new motherboard and fast RAM in that case though. The CPU is relatively slow, but probably still better than most of the old Intel CPUs that fit on your motherboard.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

The new APU's from AMD offer some serious graphics performance for integrated graphics.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

Yeah...I might just replace it with a cheap rig off of CL or eBay. I don't know though. Still want to upgrade this thing.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

Dropping any more money into that setup is just a huge waste of money.
I'd honestly rip out as much as possible and go for an APU setup. It might go slightly over-budget but it would be worlds faster.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

Not to sound dense, but could you explain a bit?

My dad might be willing to let my cannibalize the other desktop in the house for it's GFX card and monitor. 'tis a 8600GS IIRC. Yes it's dated, but it's better than my little x300. :P Plus, the monitor is much nicer than what I have.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

Over the last few years Intel and AMD have moved on-board graphics from the motherboard to the processor. Some applications can take advantage of GPUs to run much faster than they would on a regular processor. For some tasks like video processing, a modest GPU can do the work better than a CPU while using less power.

While the GPUs in AMD's APUs are poor compared to higher end GPUs on the market, they will blow your x300 and your dad's 8600gs out of the water when it comes to performance in the games you mentioned. You can run skyrim on medium setting at 1280x720 and get just under 30fps with an APU.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

Interesting...sounds like I'm just going to cannibalize a PC for now and start saving for a new rig.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

You don't even have to save much more money compared to your original plan:
CPU with integrated GPU: about 100-120$
RAM: about 30$
motherboard: about 60$

Your original plan would have looked like this:
RAM: 30$
GPU: 90$
CPU: 70$?

plus the extra stuff like HDD and PSU. You might even be able to continue using your current PSU.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

I get what you're saying. Like I said, I think I'm going to grab a few things (RAM...HDD) and just swap parts from my other machine for the time being. After that, I'll look into building something bigger and better. Gonna need the HDD anyways.

Re: Breathing New Life Into an Old Rig
 

I know someone is going to kick me for it, but here goes. Sorry for the revive...lol. Stuff I've bought so far:

2GB of DDR2...15 bucks off of a friend. Will replace with 4GB come christmas bonus time.
older Core 2 Duo...46 bucks.
AMD 7750...Free (Late B-day present)
550W PSU...Free (Late b-day present)

It's already better with the cannibalized sound card, graphics card, and monitor from the other desktop...but it's going to be substantially better with this stuff coming in. :)

And you can't really fuss that much...it's a pretty good rig for what I want to do for a few bucks. :P

Next up...4GB PC2-6400...320GB SSD...1+ TB drive....Adobe Production Premium...Windows 7.