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I'm planning to upgrade my computer soon and I need some advice on the parts that I want to upgrade. This is my current list so far:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
Galaxy Geforce 8600GT 256MB DDR3 (Overclocked)
Kingston 2GB DDR RAM 667MHz

I'll use the other parts from my current rig, so I'm not going to include them here. Is this a decent setup for a mid-range rig?

Final specifications:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6550 (2.33GHzz/1333MHz FSB/4MB Cache)
Kingston 2GB DDR2 RAM @ 667MHz
CoolerMaster Extreme Power Plus 500W PSU (RS-500-PCAR-A3)
Abit IP35P motherboard
Galaxy Geforce 9600GT OC 512MB DDR3
80GB HDD
80mm case fans (3 in total)

You should add which type of motherboard you're using as well. Unless you plan on replacing that part too it will limit what you can replace.

It may be slightly out of date Des, but I got some really good advice in my "new comp" thread (just below this one). You might want to check it out.
I ended up with a great, upper/mid range rig, in no small part thanks to the helpful suggestions I received here.

Tricky wrote:You should add which type of motherboard you're using as well. Unless you plan on replacing that part too it will limit what you can replace.

Oops, forgot to mention the motherboard for the new system. It's an ASUS M2A-VM. Plan to change to that from my current P4 system.

dragon wench wrote:It may be slightly out of date Des, but I got some really good advice in my "new comp" thread (just below this one). You might want to check it out.
I ended up with a great, upper/mid range rig, in no small part thanks to the helpful suggestions I received here.

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not aiming for a high-end system. I'm aiming at a system that can run games at mostly medium visuals (for those graphically demanding games, that is) and a decent resolution of 1024x768.

Have you thought about cooling?

Tricky wrote:Have you thought about cooling?

Cooling? Well, aside from a casing with a side fan and a few other fans plus a new Cooler Master 500W power supply, I'm just leaving the others with their stock coolers.

Wow, 500W. Unless you're building a server rack, isn't that a bit much for a power supply? I'd hate to see what the power bill amounts to.

I haven't read much about hardware since I bought my last computer though, which was around.. 2003. Yikes, that was a long time ago. I think I should have a 200-250W power supply. My old GPU probably consumes a lot more electricity than the newer ones, transistors having become a lot cooler and efficient and all that, so I don't really know if overall power consumption can compare to a modern system.

Tricky wrote:Wow, 500W. Unless you're building a server rack, isn't that a bit much for a power supply? I'd hate to see what the power bill amounts to.

Planning to but I might skip out on that one, given that I currently have a 450W PSU. The technician I spoke to a day ago told me that my PSU is fine for running that configuration I mentioned in the first post. He warned me not to add another hard drive, though.

I cannot stress this enough-

DO NOT GO CHEAP ON YOUR COOLING EQUIPMENT!!!!

Do so and be ready to spend more hours at your desk fixing stuff than you can take, until you drive youself into insanity and toss your pc out the window only to realise that its the only friend you've got left in this world and had all your personal files on it and that funny picture of when grandma was a little drunk at your 8th grade graduation party, and now that's all gone and worse yet you parked your car out in the shade under your window and now it'll cost you 2 computers worth of money to fix, but you don't have the internet anymore so now that's 4 times as much because you have to go to the DEALERSHIP!!!

So please, oh please, unless you like the incessant bleeping of an overheated CPU, spend the extra cash on some more fans, and make sure everythings compatable. Also, on a side note, please nominate this thread as "rant of the year" because you KNOW it deserves it.

Since I'm not going to do any overclocking, the stock coolers on both the CPU and the graphics card should do fine. The casing I'm going to get have three fans, one in, the other 2 are out. That [url="http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?language=en&act=detail&tbcate=22&id=3738"]PSU I mentioned[/url] have two fans as well. I'm pretty sure I've got the cooling part covered.

Also, on a side note, please nominate this thread as "rant of the year" because you KNOW it deserves it.

Why? Pray, tell me because I started this thread to seek advice and recommendations on the parts I'm planning to buy, not rant about something.

Hey man, don't be picky on where advice come's from. If you didn't chuckle at that, you obviously are from Alpha 9. Wherever that is.

I have to agree about buying quality fans, if not altogether motionless cooling. Few things are as annoying as having to repeatedly return to the shop over the course of a year to replace every last fan. My next computer will be a custom case mod, entirely passively cooled with enough fins to populate a Scandinavian country.

Update 2: On the processor front, after doing a bit more research, I might opt for a Core 2 Duo E6550 but that's as far as I'm willing to stretch my budget. As for the latter, I have found a pretty decent motherboard ([url="http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php?pMODEL_NAME=IP35P&fMTYPE=LGA775"]ABIT P35P[/url]). I was hoping for an ASUS equivalent of a P35 chipset motherboard, but since the stores in my town have very few choices, plus that board is the only P35 among the crowd, I have to opt for that as a result.

P.S. Once I get these upgrades, I will try out games like the Witcher, Gears of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas to see how well it performs.

Well, I finalised my build and here it is:

Intel Core 2 Duo 6550 (2.33GHzz/1333MHz FSB/4MB Cache)
2GB DDR2 RAM @ 667MHz
Abit IP35P motherboard
Galaxy Geforce 9600GT OC
80GB HDD
80mm case fans (3 in total)

EDIT: Forget I said anything about the power supply. I already found what I need to know. Thanks for the response.

If I might do a suggestion, maybe you want to upgrade your HDD, cause 80 gb ain't that much if you want all of those granny pictures and personal files plus your games stored on it.

Or it could be a typing mistake.

Well, I'll upgrade my Hard Disk, but that will be in the near future. Not now. I'm fine with 80GB for now.

DesR85 wrote:Well, I'll upgrade my Hard Disk, but that will be in the near future. Not now. I'm fine with 80GB for now.

And you can always consider buying external HD. Those are quite cheap nowadays, with lots of memory...

Kipi wrote:And you can always consider buying external HD. Those are quite cheap nowadays, with lots of memory...

I already have one. 60GB, by the way. I mostly use it to back up data.

DesR85 wrote:I already have one. 60GB, by the way. I mostly use it to back up data.

Yeah, it's good to backup data, photos, music and such to EHD... saves space for games...

If I do want to upgrade my hard drive how big shall it be? 160GB? 200GB?