Help me upgrade this old rig

Looking for upgrade help.

I have $250 to spend, could push it to $300 if it'd make a big difference.

This rig was built in '07 and has a 2.66 Core 2 Duo with 2 gigs of ram and a Nvidia 9500 GT I wanna chunk. My buddy gave me a Dell Optiplex with i3 at 3.30 Ghz and 4 gigs of ram to do whatever with.

I know I pretty much need all new shit but I'm on a tight budget. I'm thinking get a compatible mobo (1155 socket) and the best graphics card I can afford otherwise and throw it in my old case with those Dell parts.

I'm not sure if my old power supply can run the latest. It's a 500w xclio goodpower with, according to newegg, 2 12v rails with 18 amps on each. I don't know what that power supply can support, I'm pretty noobish on this stuff.

Sticking with nvidia.

Help please. Thanks.
IGN: Straker_
Hey!

I would put the i3 + mobo + 4gigs in your old pc with the 500w psu and get a better video card. For below 300$ you can get a gtx660 or even a gtx760.

Your psu have 36amps for the video card (according to you) and that should be enough for those kind of cards.

Putting a Dell mtb in a standard case might not fit and you'll need to gettho rig the front panel connector.

Once this is done, I would save to get another mtb with new gen i5 or i7 and 8gigs of ram. Maybe a better psu too and better gaming case.
Believe me when i say using a cheap PSU with good parts is just begging to throw your money out the window.

You're at a bad point in computer upgrading, where upgrading your GPU will cause massive CPU bottlenecking, and replacing your CPU requires you to also replace your motherboard (And RAM if you're running DDR2).
"
Xendran wrote:
Believe me when i say using a cheap PSU with good parts is just begging to throw your money out the window.

You're at a bad point in computer upgrading, where upgrading your GPU will cause massive CPU bottlenecking, and replacing your CPU requires you to also replace your motherboard (And RAM if you're running DDR2).


You're totaly right! But right now what he's missing the most is a good graphic card. Then once he has it, replacing PSU + CPU + MTB will be necessary in the near future.

Also, verify on the Dell motherboard if it has a PCI-Express slot...
NVIDIA GPU

Standard option - 119$
Enhanced option - 139$

Intel socket 1155 MB

Biostar option, Z77 chipset - 68$
MSI option, b75 chipset - 69$


ANALYSIS:

MSI, in my humble expirience, had provided a good deal of quality for a humble price, but times are changing and what's true for Central Europe might be completely different in North America. As for the Biostar MoBo, it is the only MB on Newegg I could see with 4 memory slots and support for DDR over 1600Mhz so, even if it's a bit of a gamble, it's worth giving it a try.

With a cheaper GTX 750 graphic card and Biostar motherboard your bill totals to 187$, which gives you over 60 dollars to invest into more RAM (my suggestions are OCZ, Crucial or Mushkin) because you always need more memory. Alternatively, you could go for a small 60 GB SSD, to drastically enhance program loading times, or just buy another terabyte of good ole hard drive space.
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Last edited by Avramovic on Mar 20, 2014, 1:35:23 PM
Thanks for the detailed replies so far friends!

Here's my old PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189005

I'm not sure what you mean by cheap but it was $60 when I bought it, it hasn't given me any problems at all. It is old though.

I hope it will power this PNY GTX 660:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?gclid=CJbz_J2aor0CFbFFMgodyCcATw&Item=N82E16814133470&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-Desktop+Graphics+Cards-_-N82E16814133470&ef_id=MmdOdS1A2CkAAIND:20140320225337:s

along with Avraomovic's Biostar mobo pick:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138353

I went with that one because it sounds like I could use my old RAM with it in addition to the Dell RAM. My old RAM is 2 x 1GB of DDR2. So that'd be 6 gigs of RAM, if that's even possible... heh.

I'll save up later for more RAM and this mobo should accomodate a newer processor later too, if I should need it. My old case should be good to go, it's a big Cooler Master Mystique. Looks like a big boy's PS3. =p

Any other ideas or objections before I go ahead with the GPU and mobo?

Thanks again.
IGN: Straker_
To be honest I'd recommend picking up http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202063 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127769 unless you need to use CUDA.

That MSI 270 will outperform the 660, and is cheaper if you add the 6% discount code.
OpenCL and early access to Mantle are very nice, but of course that means no G-Sync, PhysX or CUDA.
Last edited by Xendran on Mar 20, 2014, 8:01:50 PM
I wont go with anything but nvidia. I had a Saphire ATI card that gave me so many issues then not much later completely crapped out on me. Replaced with PNY and not one issue. Been completely happy with PNY and wont buy other brands.
IGN: Straker_
You probably should have specified that before, because thats an EXTREMELY strict set of parameters that people aren't going to just guess when suggesting a GPU to you.
"
Straker_ wrote:
Looking for upgrade help.

I have $250 to spend, could push it to $300 if it'd make a big difference.

This rig was built in '07 and has a 2.66 Core 2 Duo with 2 gigs of ram and a Nvidia 9500 GT I wanna chunk. My buddy gave me a Dell Optiplex with i3 at 3.30 Ghz and 4 gigs of ram to do whatever with.

I know I pretty much need all new shit but I'm on a tight budget. I'm thinking get a compatible mobo (1155 socket) and the best graphics card I can afford otherwise and throw it in my old case with those Dell parts.

I'm not sure if my old power supply can run the latest. It's a 500w xclio goodpower with, according to newegg, 2 12v rails with 18 amps on each. I don't know what that power supply can support, I'm pretty noobish on this stuff.

Sticking with nvidia.

Help please. Thanks.


Bolded relevant text from original post. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
IGN: Straker_

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