Upgrade Help.

Rev

I have a little cash and would like to use it to upgrade my PC.

Only looking for CPU, Mobo, memory and graphics card, I have everything else. Currently have a basic core2duo CPU (E4400 I believe).

Want the graphics card to be passively cooled as I'll be hooking the PC up to my TV to watch HD films, and because I've had a number of graphics card fans fail on me and am pretty sick of it.

Basically, looking for the best bang I can get for my buck, have about £500 to spend.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

JasX

you can get fairly competatively priced 'bare bones' PC deals from a few places -basically you get just Mobo, memory & CPU (sometimes pre assembled) and can drop in whatever graphics card you like, there is a company faily frequently posted here that does them but can't recall the name off hand... I'm sure someone will be along in a few hours with a useful link

Re noise -all the powerful graphics cards throw out alot of heat these days so you'll be looking at quite a compromise there to get a passive one -what I stumbled accross on my motherboard recently was a little 'power saving' feature ASUS do that lets you 'detune' your PC and control fans to minimum speed primarily for power saving purposes but makes the whole thing very very quiet when I have it on, might be worth looking at something like that too -even if you get a passive graphics card you'll still have the case fans going and need something to keep them in check

Linky here if you want to read more:
http://event.asus.com/epu/

Rev

JasX wrote: »

you can get fairly competatively priced 'bare bones' PC deals from a few places -basically you get just Mobo, memory & CPU (sometimes pre assembled) and can drop in whatever graphics card you like, there is a company faily frequently posted here that does them but can't recall the name off hand... I'm sure someone will be along in a few hours with a useful link

Re noise -all the powerful graphics cards throw out alot of heat these days so you'll be looking at quite a compromise there to get a passive one -what I stumbled accross on my motherboard recently was a little 'power saving' feature ASUS do that lets you 'detune' your PC and control fans to minimum speed primarily for power saving purposes but makes the whole thing very very quiet when I have it on, might be worth looking at something like that too -even if you get a passive graphics card you'll still have the case fans going and need something to keep them in check

Linky here if you want to read more:
http://event.asus.com/epu/

Thanks for the reply.

I don't game or anything so as long as the graphics card is capable of playing HD films, that's all I want.

Another reason I want passive cooling is the PC will spend the majority of it's time in the bedroom, so the less fans the better. I have some noctua case fans which are whisper quiet, and I don't want too add to the noise any since AI leave it on over night sometimes when downloading.

Surely there must be a decent silent graphics card? What with a lot of people using PC's as media players in their living rooms and not wanting much noise from them.

Rev

Anyone give me a few hints as to what I should be looking at? Quad core? i3? i5?(Doubt the budget will stretch to i7) AMD?

Where's the best place to look for barebones?

Hammyman

You don't need to upgrade the PC. The CPU you have is more than sufficient. Hell, even an Intel Atom processor will do HD.

Stick in a passively cooled ATI or nVidia graphics card.

weegie.geek

Yep, that CPU will more than handle HD, but it depends on exactly why you want to upgrade. I use a passively cooled Nvidia G210, it has HDMI and CUDA so it'll decode HD for me, taking the load off the CPU, and mine's passive.

Spend your money on storage and the quietest cooling (Corsair H50 is worth looking at for the CPU) you can find, don't bother upgrading cpu/ram/mobo if this one's fast enough for you currently.

Rev

Thanks.

I have a noctua cpu cooler, so very happy with the noise level.

Why do I want to upgrade? Basically because I'm in a position to do so right now. God knows when that'll be the case again. In the past I've only upgraded when my old PC has died a death and it's been cheaper to buy new than fix. So since I have a a bit of cash, I'd like to upgrade because I want to, not because
I have to. Future proof myself a little.

weegie.geek

Money burning a hole in your pocket, I know that feeling.

Assuming your motherboard would support it then, I'd swap that chip out for a quad core, throw in some more ram and then spend the rest on drives. When you start storing more HD movies etc you'll be glad of the space.

Rev

weegie.geek wrote: »

Money burning a hole in your pocket, I know that feeling.

Assuming your motherboard would support it then, I'd swap that chip out for a quad core, throw in some more ram and then spend the rest on drives. When you start storing more HD movies etc you'll be glad of the space.

lol, basically yes, I have the cash and want to use it to upgrade.

I already have the maximum ram and HDD's my motherboard can handle. I know I'll need more storage eventually so it would be nice to have a mobo that can handle more.

I was thinking maybe i5 of the budget will allow.

I'm gonna check out the above mentioned graphics card as that's an area I'm totally clueless in.

closed

You could buy a media player, and put £400 into the bank for when you really need it?

weegie.geek

Rev wrote: »

lol, basically yes, I have the cash and want to use it to upgrade.

I already have the maximum ram and HDD's my motherboard can handle. I know I'll need more storage eventually so it would be nice to have a mobo that can handle more.

I was thinking maybe i5 of the budget will allow.

I'm gonna check out the above mentioned graphics card as that's an area I'm totally clueless in.

PCI(e?) sata controller and a bigger case?