I suck at hardware. Need help please.

Well my PC is quite old. So old i cant play most recent games on the lowest setting properly. So i thought id buy a nice graphics card. I got it this morning, put it in and hardly noticed any difference. Now with the card out of the way i need some ram which is straight forward and a nice processor. At the moment im on (please dont laugh) AMD athlon 1500+ 1.33ghz. So which processor do i need to be able to play most games like doom 3 etc alright? Since i have never changed a processor in my whole life, is it going to straight forward as plugging it in firmly or will i have to mess around with the dos etc? Also are there any tools around that i can use to see if my motherboard will be compatible? I could not find it in device management to look it up on the net.

Any information/tips would be great

ps: It has to be AMD + I dont have much money to spend, so nothing fancy...

Thanks!

 

Doom 3 is one of the most resource demanding games out there... you will need at least a Pentium 4 with 3.0ghz a very good graphics card and lots of ram (512 at least, although I would recommend 1 giga)

To be honest with you, I would sell your PC at ebay, gather up some cash, and buy a new one, patching an old computer will never work, and I'm almost sure you would also need to change your motherboard, so you might as well just get a whole new unit.

 

"So i thought id buy a nice graphics card. I got it this morning, put it in and hardly noticed any difference."

Did you install the most up-to-date driver for the card?

 

my roommate, which is sitting next to me, has played Doom 3 and says: "Your processor works just fine. When it comes to Doom 3 only two things count; RAM and graphics card. That's it."

Wether he's right or not remains to be seen

 

Yea, i was thinking about that but yet again i bought some nice dvd writers, liquid cooling etc I dont want to sell all that. Unless i sell the bits i dont need and get a custom made computer without all the stuff i alreadu have.

 

Yea i did. It runs just fine.

 

Minimum:
P4 1.5Ghz CPU (or equivalent).
384MB of RAM.
64MB graphics card (see below for chip details).
2GB of free hard drive space.

I guess yoou do need a processor after all... lol

 

What video card did you buy?

 

I had to ask. I've seen so many people buy a kick ass video card and use the driver that Windows provides....

Of all the new FPS games Doom3 is by far the biggest resource hog...without a complete overhaul (new MB, processor, video card and more memory) you'll never get to see the game in all it's glory.

I'm running it on a Athlon 64 3400+ with 4GB of ram and a Radeon Pro 256. Runs great, but when I built the system at the end of last year it wasn't exactly cheap

 

4gb of ram? WOW! I would love that! Never been a gamer, but since I do a lot of image editing sometimes my PC freezes for a while

 

Well i think i just go with a custom made pc, just without the bits i already have.

CPU


AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT 3700 (San Diego) 1MB L2 Cache (939 pin)

Memory


1024 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!

That should be alright i guess. £500

-edit- a few years ago my pc used to be the most expensive one on the market. lol my friends used to come around just to feel the "speed" of it.

Michael S.

Radeon 256 9550 (restricted pro version)

 

I'd get a barebone combo, this way you should beable to swap most of your drives over, vid card, and possibly some other components over. Building the actual computer is extremely easy, I'm certain there are people on here that would help you with it step by step

I think for any real performance gain or cpu jump you'd need a new motherboard anyways, not huge into amd myself but checking out your motherboards website should tell you what your motherboard can handle with the latest bios patch.

I have posted a barebone system below which would give you a huge bump in performance, while the cost would be minimal. I don't know the exact specifics of your system but drives should all transfer, possibly the only thing you'd lose is cooling and the ram you currently have. You could then in turn sell your cooling, ram, cpu and any other components to get a few bucks back.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=1592091

I do this constantly with my systems, upgrading them while keeping some of the components can give you much greater power with alot less to put out then buying an entirely new system which will be out of date a few months down the road anyways.

 

That looks great, thanks! Il have to see if they ship to uk or not.

 

The 9550 is a budget card so it will not be able to handle Doom 3 or any new games very well. Even with only medium settings and lower resolution you would be lucky to get over 35 FPS in Doom 3 with it.

 

We've all been there, hehe. My pc that back in the day I use to show off and amaze people with now serves as a half assed coffee table in my office

 

You can overclock it in minutes. 400Mhz+ with standard cooling.

 

The one I listed was just an example, look around a bit you may find a better deal or something that fits your need a bit better. Tiger though usually has some real good rebate type sales for barebones. I built my dads latest computer through them, the entire system minus monitor cost just under $200. Not a gaming system, but not bad for the price.

 

Yes, but even overclocked it is still too underpowered for Doom 3. Not that its a bad card or anything, but you really need something more powerful to play these newer games at high quality. Its a decent budget card though.

 

Save up for a new computer. Don't waste money on upgrades.

 

I upgrade my computers for a fraction of the cost of a brand new computer with very close to the performance of the brand new computer. Guess it depends on how many computers you have, what you use them for and if you can do the work yourself. Upgrading via a barebone correctly can give you close to the same performance as a brand new equivalent computer for a fraction of the cost.