Upgrading PC as Chrimbo present.

Gazza1964

Hi,

We have a limited budget of £150 to spend on Christmas presents and it is going to be PC based.:j

Our current system is:

Core 2 Duo E7300 clocked to 3ghz
4gb Ram
Windows 7 Ultimate
HD Radeon 4870 1Gb
15" Very Old TFT Monitor ( was better but that went pop ! )
Motherboard - EP43-DS3 Gigabyte


This system is used for everything - gaming, browsing, office....

So far it stands up quite well with modern games - the 4870 was the best card ( bang for buck ) that I could afford when I built the system - would it have been wiser to buy a better processor and a cheaper card ? who knows - I dont think so.



Unfortunately we simply cannot afford to upgrade the whole system so I would appreciate your opinions on what I should spend £150 on..

A new monitor would seem a good idea - I could spent the whole lot on something like a Dell 23 inch such as -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005MHMFJA/ref=nosim/?!!!!!hotukdeals-21

But then I think the graphics card will struggle to push out games at high quality with the extra space to fill.

I could instead go for a 21 inch like this
http://www.ebuyer.com/388225-lg-ips224v-21-5-led-lcd-hdmi-monitor-ips224v-pn

and get a 64gb SSD aswell.

Or - should I sell on the motherboard and cpu and get this....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-204-OK

and keep my graphics card and monitor.


Thoughts please.

System

With that system/budget I would probably go for the monitor as it will make a drastic change to the appearance/usability of the machine - and then add some bits as and when you can afford to - I would image that for the majority of uses the card will be more than capable of running good resolutions

what games are you playing?

Gazza1964

Thanks.

Games wise - Battlefield 3 is the most recent title - although I thought it was a big let down - other FPS, Total War series, Oblivion - all sorts really.

I am a bit of a nerd and probably spend as much time useing Tweaksguides trying to eek out every frame and bit of eye candy I can as I do playing. Sad but true.

System

I would defintely say get the bigger monitor then, I couldn't go back to using a 15" thing!
might mean tweaking some more, but sounds like you enjoy that anyway!

Gazza1964

So do you think it would make much difference to the visual quality if I chose the 24" over the 22"

Im wondering how much more "effort" my system is going to have to make to fill the extra space

System

both the linked monitors are pushing the same (max) resolution - so neither should make your card work harder...
but what resolution are you running at the moment?

Gazza1964

At the moment 1024 X 768 - lol.

Did have a big 32" on here but when the TV broke that had to take its place then my replacement 19" CRT died and I am down to my "I know it will come in someday" old 15" tft.

System

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/176
card seems to do ok frame rate wise at high resolutions...

Neil49

Gazza1964 wrote: »

A new monitor would seem a good idea - I could spent the whole lot on something like a Dell 23 inch such as -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005MHMFJA/ref=nosim/?!!!!!hotukdeals-21

But then I think the graphics card will struggle to push out games at high quality with the extra space to fill.

Thoughts please.

I saw that Dell monitor on Hot UK Deals this morning and voted it Hot as I think it's a great price for an IPS monitor and the reviews seem to back it up.

It gets my vote.

Gazza1964

How do you feel it compares against the LG monitor that is also IPS