I'm in a bit uncertain of what I should upgrade next on my system. I have started to play more games lately and the speed/graphics aren't what I want. I am only playing Fifa 07 and Call of Duty 2 mainly, but I have to use lower settings than I want.

I'm currently operating with,

Celeron D 2.8ghz

512 Mb Ram

Geforce FX 5200

Which of these would increase my perfromance the most?? I have been looking at getting an AGP geforce 7600gs, upgrading to 1gb ram and increasing the processor to Pentium 4 3.4ghz (maximum my mobo takes)

Do you think I need all 3?? or just the memory and graphics card?? I don't want to spend alot and as I don't play alot of games and can't justify spending loads.

Thought???

Probably changing or adding to these two will have the most efffect

Celeron D 2.8ghz.......might pay to buy a new mobo complete with chip

512 Mb Ram .......at least up to 1 GB

something like this may work out cheaper

Novatech Motherboard Bundle Athlon 64 3200, Heatsink and Fan, 512MB 400DDR RAM, 939 Soc Motherboard : mbb-a32615

scrap it and start again. you're flogging a dead horse.

agp is dead. no point buying old ddr mem or another old intel chip.

im scrapping mine and its a athlon x2 with 2gb and a 5900 nvidia and it wont run fsx.

I was in similar saturation 2 weeks ago. Really no point in buying a AGP card anymore. And I doubt you could find any good deal on old ram that your mobo could take.

What is your budget anyway?

Scrap it and get:

- core2duo or X2 with new Mobo

- 1 or 2GB RAM

- PCIe Graphics card from the middle of the range, eg 7600 type thing.

have you tried overclocking the chip and gfx card? may keep you going for a few months more?

I hadn't really planned on spending that much. If I had to invest in new mobo, cpu, memory and graphics then I would probably splash out and spend a bit more. I had a quick look on ebay and saw this

eBay.co.uk: INTEL CORE 2 DUO 6400, NVIDIA 7950GX2 1GB GFX, 2GB DDR2 (item 170065426796 end time 01-Jan-07 13:00:00 GMT)

I dont really need the dvd-rw, but I thought it looked a reasonable price?? What Cpu speed is it though? It might just be me being thick.

Oh dear, where did those cases come from.

If you have a decent case already, and a biggish hard disk then I would DIY. All you need is a mobo, cpu, ram and a gpu. You should be able to do far better for less than £500.

I hadn't really planned on spending that much. If I had to invest in new mobo, cpu, memory and graphics then I would probably splash out and spend a bit more. I had a quick look on ebay and saw this

eBay.co.uk: INTEL CORE 2 DUO 6400, NVIDIA 7950GX2 1GB GFX, 2GB DDR2 (item 170065426796 end time 01-Jan-07 13:00:00 GMT)

I dont really need the dvd-rw, but I thought it looked a reasonable price?? What Cpu speed is it though? It might just be me being thick.

Have a look here Computer Supplies from Novatech they do systems a lot cheaper than that this one is PC keyboard and mouse ...but no speakers or monitor so is much cheaper Computer Supplies from Novatech

I would like to spend around £500 I think. I will actually need the case, mobo, cpu, memory and graphics card. I already have a 160gb HDD, dual layer DVD-RW, TFT monitor and keyboard etc.. so wont need these.

I would like to spend around

Bare bones system

Barebone Bundle AMD X2 AM2 4200 Dual Core 1GB 667Mhz Dual Channel DDR Hiper PSU nForce 570 Motherboard : bb-x2mdb

what speed will this run at?? It says 2.2ghz but is this really 4.4ghz as its dual core??

what speed will this run at?? It says 2.2ghz but is this really 4.4ghz as its dual core??

Not entirely correct. A description from wiki (Intel Core 2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) says: "Unlike NetBurst-based processors, such as the Pentium 4 and Pentium D, Core 2 does not stress designs based on extremely high clock speeds but rather improvements in the processors usage of both available clock cycles and power. This translates into more efficient decoding stages, execution units, caches, and buses, as well as many other factors...."

This chart/website might help you to make your shopping list: Tom's Hardware Guide Processors: CPU Charts 2005/2006

FYI, I just upgraded my rig 2 weeks ago. A E6400, 7600GT, 1Gb PC6400 and C2D mobo cost 417 pounds from SCAN. Very pleased with my rig now, it makes a hell transformation from P4 2GHz & 9800Pro system.

If you go over the

Thanks for that tfboy. I already have a 250gb SATA HDD, but I currently have it as a second drive to a 8gb IDE. Never got round to re-installing everthing and swapping the drives around. Obviously when I upgrade I will set the Sata drive as the primary drive. I might go for this option but maybe spend the extra £80 and get the E6600 cpu (I asume it will go on this mobo??)

Just an idea - why not sell the system you have (base unit only, not monitor etc) and then with the extra cash from the sale you can really upgrade. DON'T FORGET TO REMOVE ALL YOUR DETAILS ETC FIRST - easiest way is to re-install windows and format the drive when you have done the suggestion below.

I'm sorry but that won't remove your data from a hard disk at all and will leave it all lying around just waiting for anyone with a small amount of knowledge to collect info.

I'd suggest using a linux live CD with 'wipe' to write random data over the drive, and you can also buy solutions to do the same thing.

I'm sorry but that won't remove your data from a hard disk at all and will leave it all lying around just waiting for anyone with a small amount of knowledge to collect info.

I'd suggest using a linux live CD with 'wipe' to write random data over the drive, and you can also buy solutions to do the same thing.

Correct, all formatting does on a HD is destroy the FAT and verify that the sectors are ok. Apart from writing the FAT the rest is reading data. All you need is an undelete utility, and a quick scan will reveal lots of data that can be recovered, even from a fresh install of windows. We have used this method at work to recover data from HD's.

I always wipe my HDD when not using them anymore. Hopefully my annual bonus in feb will cover the cost of the upgrade. At the moment I'll probably upgrade to tfboy's suggestion, but if I get more, then I'll go for a better processor and maybe more memory.

If you will wait till feb, then great, you'll get more for your money or save £30 quid to get you a new hard drive or cpu upgrade

But if you want my advice, for what it's worth, post an update here or send me a PM so I can re-evaluate stuff (not trying to be pretentious, sorry )

As always with IT, if you don't want to lose money with kit, just don't buy anything at all :(

Cheers tfboy. I used to be in the know about computers, but I haven't really spent much time with them in the last 2 years. I had never heard of core 2 or pci-express until the other day. I'll PM you when I've got the money and hopefully I can borrow some of you wisdom.

Hold you horses! And on to your wallet...If you just want to play your games now and not do a full system update I would go this route:

Buy and ATI X1950PRO AGP graphics card (approx.

Oh dear, where did those cases come from.

If I bought a case like that, then I would have to invest in some extra heavy duty bin-bags to hide the machine in

Might just get a whole new system from Dell and sell my old one. For

Just had a look at the spec of that Dell and a couple of things are worth mentioning:

- the 320GB storage is in fact 2x 160GB drives in RAID 0. Whilst it may be quick, it makes hard drive management a little trickier and it's a more "entthusiast" approach than an "every day PC user" approach.

- The combination of the two hard drives and 7900 graphics card and CPU means the little 380W PSU is going to be pretty stretched. It also means that if you want to upgrade at a later date to an even more powerful CPU / GPU / more hard drives, you may need to change the PSU. Granted, you're not going to do that tomorrow, but the system is designed for these components and you may have to change more than just one even if you want a simple one-component upgrade.

- The nVidia 7900GS graphics card is rather "detuned" so will be comparatively slower than any other 7900GS bought off the shelf (or put into a home built system). It also seems a shame to have a dual DVI graphics card with a single analogue-only 19" TFT monitor. As you said, you don't need this, and you could use it in an extended desktop with your existing monitor, but it's a shame IMHO to invest in some pretty good tech and have such a low spec monitor thrown it. Don't be fooled by 19". Whilst that's largish, it's still only 1280x1024 which makes it poor.

FYI, I put together a similar system from Scan and the price came to £840 inc VAT (including 19" LCD and XP Home licence, and a single 320GB HDD instead of 2x 160GB drives).

In summary, it's not a bad deal, but it's rather specific and may require more investment than required when you come to maintain / upgrade / change parts of it.