[Upgrade] $350-$400 Upgrade Possible? Help

[ttt777]

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum, so please bare with me for my insufficient computer knowledge.

I have been using my desktop for the past 3 years, and I just want to do some upgrades so that I can play Star Craft 2 and the new Call of Duty that is coming out in Nov.


My spec is as follows:
AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+
ASUS A7V600-X Motherboard
1 GB DDR PC3200 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
1 - 80GB SATA Hard Drive
1 – 500GB SATA Hard Drive
LG 22X SATA DVD+/RW Dual Layer
Running Windows XP Professional


So my question is, is it possible to only upgrade the motherboard, CPU, 4G RAM and a new video card within the range of $350 to $400. Since I don’t want to spend the extra money to get a whole new pc, so I guess I can save on the powersupply, harddrives, dvd writers, cases and etc. So can anyone please give me some suggestion of what to get out there on the market and able to play Star Craft 2 and the new call of duty. On side, I think windows xp won’t recognize 4GB Ram, right? So I guess I will ask my friend for a copy of windows 7 or vista.


Thanks everyone, greatly appreciate.

[glc]

You will need motherboard, CPU, ram, video card, and power supply. Keep XP. "Asking your friend" for an OS is illegal. It's going to cost you more than $400 to do it with 4gb ram, which XP will use about 3.25gb of.

Processor and motherboard - about $200
Ram - about $100
Video card - at least $150, $200+ would be better
Power supply - about $75 to $100 UNLESS you have an ATX 2.x unit with 500+ watts from a quality manufacturer.

[rwest]

Look and verify your Motherboard. Then verify your cpu.

I don't see where this MB (ASUS A7V600-X Motherboard) supports this cpu(AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+). The MB listed is a socket A, the Athlon 64 X2 processor is socket 939 and later.

Another issue is the graphics card listed. I'm pretty sure the NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS only came in pci-e. The Motherboard ASUS A7V600-X is AGP.

You may be able to upgrade your ram and get a more recent graphics card. It will depend on what mb you currently have.

[dirty elf]

windows xp uses 3.25 GIGS?? of ram?

[glc]

32 bit XP can UTILIZE about 3.25 gigs out of 4 gigs, and it won't see any more than that. The 0.75 lost gigs are used for hardware addressing.

[Khalil]

EDIT~~~~~
Here are the specs for your motherboard Newegg.com - ASUS A7V600-X 462(A) VIA KT600 ATX AMD Motherboard are you sure about your CPU and motherboard because the motherboard you say you own is a socket A and the 4400 is a socket AM2 rwest already beat me to it!

[ttt777]

Originally Posted by Khalil EDIT~~~~~ Here are the specs for your motherboard Newegg.com - ASUS A7V600-X 462(A) VIA KT600 ATX AMD Motherboard are you sure about your CPU and motherboard because the motherboard you say you own is a socket A and the 4400 is a socket AM2 rwest already beat me to it!

Yeah, that is exactly the motherboard i have. And yeah the CPU is AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+. I bought this computer 3 years ago when i first entered University for roughly $450. And now i just want to do some upgrade on it, so i can run StarCraft II without lagging.

Basically I am satisfy with this PC, since i only need to watch drama with my new 24" Samsung Monitor, surf the net and basically it.

So I thought of just adding two 1GB PC 3200 Ram to this com and just leave it that way for another 2-3 yrs or so. But if I have already spent $100 on the ram itself, i might well just spend another $300 to $500 to upgrade the entire system itself and it might last for another 5 yrs or so. So I am still really confuse of what to do next.....

[David M]

If all you are looking for is increased graphics performance for your existing computer to play a game then why not just buy a faster graphics card? If necessary then buy a more powerful PSU to power the card. You can get a pretty nice graphics card and PSU for $350 to $400.

[glc]

Something is definitely not right here. As 2 people have already said, your processor definitely cannot fit in your motherboard. Until we get this sorted out, upgrade recommendations are useless.

Athlon 64 X2's only fit in A8 boards, not A7's.

Again - the exact motherboard, CPU, and video card models please - and also the power supply!

Download this to verify your components:

http://belarc.com/free_download.html