What hardware upgrade(s) should I get?

hi mike

allthough the athlon 3500+ is quite old these days its still a capable cpu and still appears on the minimum specs of many new games... however in regards to a cpu upgrade your biggest problem is your motherboards socket designation.... the socket 939 is discontinued and allthough it will accept some dual core cpu,s the choice is very small

your graphic card is pretty good... the geforce 9600gt has a 256bit memory interface and a 1800mhz memory clock... this should be ok for games allthough at low to medium detail... and the 160gb of hard drive capacity is ok for now...however you can buy a 500gb hard drive for just £26 ( http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Dri... ) however this is sata.... for a ide drive the maximum you can get is 250gb....( http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Dri... ) which is £31

as you have mentioned a memory(ram) upgrade is a option,however older ddr based memory isnt cheap.... you can get a "Hypertec Hyperam 1GB (1x1GB) DDR PC-3200 400MHz Single Channel Memory Module" for just £23 from http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/D... ... two of these would be £46 and would replace two of your 512mb modules.... this would then give you a total of 3gb ram... and you would see a slight improvement in performance

however ive found a dual core processor for you for just £59... this may be £9 more than your budget however the improvment in performance would be excellent... the cpu is the "AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+"( http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_i... ) and this is clocked at 2.2ghz.... however this would improve most games and programs and would be a better upgrade than a extra 1gb ram module

ive also found the "ATHLON 64 FX-55" from http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ATHLON-64-FX-55-SOCKET-939-C... ... for just £55 ...... this is rated at 2.6ghz and is well known as the fastest single core processor ever made.... however compatibilty may be a issue here... allthough its socket 939 you will need to check your motherboard supports it

however with all these upgrades your still stuck with a old motherboard... so have you considered buying a motherboard bundle with a more up to date socket designation... for example for just £55 you can get the "Simply Saver Intel Celeron E1400 & ECS G31T-M7 Motherboard"( http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/it... ) ... this comprises of a intel dual core processor running at 2ghz,,, and a socket lga775 motherboard with support for sata and a pci-express x16 slot ( so you can still use your geforce 9600gt )

this would bring your pc more up to date and the celeron E1400 would be alot faster than your current athlon 3500+ ... overall performance would be massive

however save a bit more money and buy the excellent "Simply Saver AMD Phenom X4 9550 & Asus M2N68-AM Motherboard e Bundle"( http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/it... ) ... this is £94 however for that you get a quad core amd phenom.... yes four cores.... imagine going from using just one core to using 4 cores..... and the phenom is a excellent processor with bags of power

you also get a Asus M2N68-AM Motherboard with this bundle which also has a pci-express x16 slot and sata support......

so there you have it.... loads of possible upgrades however i recommend you go for the Simply Saver Intel Celeron E1400 & ECS G31T-M7 Motherboard bundle (link above) ,for £55 this is your best bet at the moment and within your budget,however if you can stretch to £94 the phenom bundle would be a amazing upgrade... and combined with your geforce 9600gt you would be able to run the latest games no problem

note : the 2 bundles i recommended require ddr2 memory... however you can buy a 2gb module to begin with from http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/it...

so there you have it mike ..... i hope this has helped,however any more questions or advice on upgrades let me know

good luck mate !

If you are gaming then al least a dual core, but not just any dual core, make sure that it has 1MB cache per core and not total. Your computer is outdated however so I would be considering a new one. I build my own and ones a quad, ones a dual and ones a single core. The most resilient is the single core but the best all rounder is the dual core 2MB cache, I can throw anything at it and even at full throttle the temp only rises by about 4-5 degrees. All my processors are AMD

Just decide what you want and then buy things a bit at a time. Building one is easy and you learn hell of a lot. Just get a guide http://bit.ly/dWm7zl

best thing get if gonna play wow for price would be an HIS H567FO1G Radeon HD 5670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

it'll be wiser buy it than older nvidia cards and it's better than the cheapest to new nvidia card since its faster than 2x cards. So spend money on the ati 5670 than at latter date upgrade your ram to 4gigs.

other than you could update to win 7 at some point but if was gonna do that it be better spend say 500 bucks buy new pc and get a like a cyberpower pc off http://www.newegg.com/ for gaming.

my specs are:

ASUS P5QL-SE motherboard

2 gb ram

intel core 2 duo e7400 2.80GHz processor

nvidia 9800 GT 512mb graphic card (PCI express also)

32 bit windows 7

and i tried games with high quality graphics and im still getting 50-60 fps...

try using this

got full fps on

assassins creed brotherhood

red alert 3

starcraft 2

and other games

or try going to systemrequirements lab.. and click can you run it?

then search for your game...

wait for the results and when finished... look at the recommended specs...

choose the recommended specs

Hi,

If you need to download World of Warcraft you can get it here for free: http://bit.ly/1p0D8cu

This game is by far the MMORPG that counts with more subscribers nowadays, keeping a World Guinness Record for the most popular game in its genre.

Enjoy it.

in order of recommendation (high to low)

> definately agree with 4gb ram upgrade...

> a second hand ATi HD5770

> 500GB HDD 7200RPM (price difference between 500GB and below is negligible)

To get a highter FPS you would be better to just get another computer. Your current one sounds to outdated to be able to handle a newer game.

nothing. your computer is horribly outdated.