Upgrading my gaming PC - Help needed!

crichter

Solid State Member
Messages
7
I have an alienware area 51 gaming PC that I bought just about 2 years ago. It's starting to show its age. I get poor FPS at times when trying to play some of my games. My specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
3Gb RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT


those are the parts that I want to upgrade. I am not very familiar with computer hardware and I am really hoping someone could point me in the right direction of some affordable upgrades!

thanks
 
To upgrade the processor efficiently, you'd need to also buy a new motherboard. What I recommend you do, if you're on a tight budget, is to sell this alienware tower, and couple that money with the money you already have to build a completely new rig. If you want immediate change, I can tell you that upgrading just the processor will be a waste, and same goes for the RAM. On an immediate upgrade you'd benefit heavily from a new video card.

Before we can give suggestions, I'd like to know how you want to approach this. Also, it would be greatly appreciated if you could tell us your budget.
 
I think 2 CPU's mean it's a dual core xD

If it's from 2 years ago I'm guessing it's DDR2
 
To upgrade the processor efficiently, you'd need to also buy a new motherboard. What I recommend you do, if you're on a tight budget, is to sell this alienware tower, and couple that money with the money you already have to build a completely new rig. If you want immediate change, I can tell you that upgrading just the processor will be a waste, and same goes for the RAM. On an immediate upgrade you'd benefit heavily from a new video card.

Before we can give suggestions, I'd like to know how you want to approach this. Also, it would be greatly appreciated if you could tell us your budget.

I just graduated Highschool so Im on a tight budget, I dont want to spend more than 150-160 on a new Graphics Card, if I would have to rebuild the whole PC i wouldnt want to spend anymore than 650-700( i dont really want to pick this option :p)
 
If you want to add RAM like AR suggested, I would recommend you buy 2x2GB of DDR2 1066Mhz RAM. Considering the phasing out of DDR2, 1066Mhz may be expensive, in which case 800Mhz RAM would be your next best choice.

I second AR's suggestion of the HD5770.
 
Back
Top Bottom