Upgrading for the future :)

[SirVal]

Ok folks, got a few questions about my pc and the future upgrades i'm going to be doing.

I've got an Acer E300 desktop, AMD 3200+ @ 2.01ghz (acer won't allow overclocking ), 1gig of RAM, Leadtek Geforce 6600 256mb and a 160gb SATA 7200 RPM HDD

This is what i'm aiming to do to it:

1. Replace the PSU and Graphics card with a 530watt PSU and an ATI X1800XT 256mb

2. Take out the 2 512mb RAM sticks i have and replace the two slots with 2 1gig sticks (only 2 slots unfortunately, but 2 gig will be plenty)

3. Replace the AMD 3200+ with an AMD 4000+


The specs, when all is complete (in about 4 months) will be:

AMD 4000+ @ 2.4ghz
ATI X1800XT 256mb
2gig DDR400 RAM


I don't have that much money and this is taking everything i'm making for a while (at college also),
So how do you think this will hold up for the future?

I imagine I will replace the motherboard sometime so I can overclock, but that isn't really necessary just yet.
Will replacing the motherboard affect my HDD? because i have alot of important data on it, college work, video editing files and such.

I'm a big gamer, Battlefield 2, World of Warcraft, Counter Strike Source, HL2 and I love my games on full settings!

So anyway, my questions are set out a bit odd, but what's peoples opinions then?

Thanks

 

[Kage]

UPGRADE WITH XP:

Well first of all, if you wanted to not lose your files, upgrading is a no no anyway.

With XP, you'll find any hardware change causes the computer to not boot. You'll have to do a format after changing big parts like that.

But, before hand, you can of course back up, or simply get another drive, load XP on it, and then copy data from one to the other, and then swap back after formatting.

OTHER SPECS:

As for the rest of the specs, the 4000+ should hold up, but, I'm not sure how much of a performance boost you'll see from doing this...

Though the 2GB of RAM will surely help the most demanding games, and so will the graphics card.

CPU:

The only thing that worries me about the upgrade is the CPU in that case.

If you save up more money, you could get a dual core, which would offer some advancements over your previous set up, but then you'll ahve to change your motherboard straight away.

MOTHERBOARD:

Though saying that, since its not overclockable because the system was built by Acer, you may find (with many pre-made computers) that the motherboard isn't up to much anyway, which is the next important part of a PC besides the PSU.

I'd advise to change that anyway, which might offer more speed too, since motherboards do house performance changes from a model to another model.

I hope this helps

 

[SirVal]

Hey Kage thanks alot for all the help,
Well that's great, Acer sent me a computer with no XP disc. Classic.

Anyway, I want to upgrade, but do you think there's not much point with this pc? It's not that old, i only got in Feb. I should have gone custom built but oh well, thats my misjudgement.

Hm how do you back up 30Gb of data? :/

 

[TOWT]

Most companys (like HP) will give you a seperate partition on the HDD that has the XP program to reformat and reinstall, or they will let you burn one disk for xP

 

[Jamxx]

Correct me if I'm wrong (and don't go by just what I say), but I've heard that if you uninstall the IDE controller drivers from the Device Manager right before you take out a motherboard (it requires a reboot for the changes to take effect) then you won't have to worry about losing any data, and the hard disk will properly run with a new motherboard. I'm not sure about this, but I think I've read it somewhere. Haven't tried it personally, though.

 

[kchi55]

i'd get a new motherboard to 'future-proof' yourself a bit more.. you could look into diff socket types AM2 and LGA 775 (conroe compatible) and SLi or crossfire.. probably crossfire since you want to get the x1800 and if you choose am2 or lga775 you'll need ddr2 ram as well..btw are Acer cases mATX or ATX?

 

[BigLu]

upgrading from the 3200+ to the 4000+ won't give you much of a performance increase, especially if you overclock that 3200+. I would look into another cpu as others have said.

 

[Gamingfreak]

dont bother going for an amd build, go with intel and get urself a nice conroe cpu

 

[Lightning_Rider]

I agree with the above poster, it's really hard to buy a "future-proof" PC. But if you want to do the best you can, definitely get a Conroe CPU and maybe a new motherboard like mentioned, perhaps with Crossfire (or SLI if you change to nVidia v. card).

 

[SirVal]

So bascially get a whole new setup?

Well it's all good, my mum said she'll buy my pc off me to replace the old knacker downstairs.

I've heard about these conroe chips, they look amazing.
Then i'd get crossfire/SLi, and a board that let me have more ram
I would've gone custom built origionally but i didnt have any of the technical know-how really!

Thanks for all your opinions, this system will have to last me til the end of the year