Hey everyone. Today, a rich and not-computer-savvy friend of mine bought a new computer and decided to give me his old one for free because it had tons of spyware and viruses and his computer was slow as shit. I wiped his hard drive clean and made 3 partitions to triple boot Hackintosh, Windows 7, and Ubuntu. The processor itself is wonderful, running at 3 Ghz, but i am disappointed with the lack of RAM and a nice graphics card. Ideally, I would like to have it as a gaming computer. I am going to install 2 GB of RAM into it, but I was wondering if someone could help me pick out the right kind. My knowledge of computers is proficient, but I've never opened a computer before to put hardware in. Also, what kind of graphics card (preferably Nvidia) can I buy for it at a reasonable price and will run most games without jerkiness or freezing? I'm sorry if I seem like a noob, but some of this is a bit new to me . I want to play stuff like Starcraft 2, half life, empire earth, grand theft auto etc etc... Processor : Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 530J with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology (3GHz1, 1MB L2 Cache) Front Side Bus Speed : 800MHz Chipset : Intel® 915G Standard RAM : 512MB PC-3200 400MHz DDR (256MB x 2) (Expandable to 2GB) Hard Drive : 200GB2 7200rpm Serial ATA Graphics : Intel® 915G Integrated Graphics 224MB Max. dynamically allocated shared video memory Optical Drive : Double Layer +R DVD+R Write (2.4x MAX) DVD±RW5 -RW DVD-R Write (8x MAX), DVD-RW Write (4x MAX) +RW DVD+R Write (16x MAX), DVD+RW Write (4x MAX) CD-RW CD-R Write (32x MAX), CD-RW Write (24x MAX) Optical Drive : 40x MAX CD-ROM read Modem : V.90 compatible data/fax modem with RJ-11 interface Ethernet : 10Base-T/100Base-TX Fast Ethernet (RJ-45) Expansion Slots : Multi-Media Card Reader6 (Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO™, Memory Stick Duo™, Compact Flash® Type I and Type II, SmartMedia™, SD/MultiMediaCard™, xD Picture Card®) One PCI Express x16 slot (vacant) One PCI Express x1 slot (vacant) Expansion Bays : Two 5.25” Half-Height (occupied) One External 3.5” (occupied) Four Internal 3.5” (one occupied)
For starters, what is the make and model number of the motherboard and of the power supply unit? The case looks like a mid-tower. Can you give us its make and model number, too? Do you have a particular budget in mind or just the "good stuff without going nuts" budget? Dick
ok the motherboard is intel and the model number is D915GAG. The power supply unit? I'm not really sure where to find that xD. do you mean how the computer gets power? it's got an ac cable... Anyway, the computer model is a sony vaio VGC-RB30. I'd like to spend as little as possible, but I would like to be able to play most games on medium/high settings without slowing down significantly and effecting the gameplay. I believe for the graphics card, the computer has 2 pci-e slots and a bunch of pci slots... so I was thinking of Nvidia since i heard they are the most compatible with linux and hackintosh as well as being pretty awesome cards. I'd really love to spend no more than 100 dollars on a graphics card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150323 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146366 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008 that's probably the best you can do on a P4. any higher graphics card will be bottlenecked by the single core. and you definately will need a new power supply with the 9800GT.
Hey Guys My first post here and I really need help on upgrading the proccessor on this computer Here on the specs its the same one this guy has http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=VGCRB30 ive upgraded the grphics card to a nvidia 9400gt with pci express what exactly do i need to buy to be able to put a a intel dual core poccesor or anything better idk i also upgraded to windows 7 and the ram dont know what i need to do and i also want to remove the cd-rom drive and maybe put a bluray drive idk? plz hellp basicly i jjust want to change the whole computer and just keep the tower
^dont hijack. Start your own thread. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231047 Better quality RAM + heat spreaders for $1.00 more.
Assuming the PSU actually has a power connector for a graphics card, buy this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102824 It's much better than the 9800GT. As far as I know, ATI drivers are making reasonable progress with Linux. Given that real Macs come with ATI cards quite often, I'm sure they're reasonable for Hackintoshes as well. Or, if it absolutely has to be an nvidia, then you can still buy this for much better performance than the 9800GT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261057 Remember though, you can only use these cards if the PSU has a 6-pin PCI express power connector. Most stock systems like the one you have will not. If there is no 6-pin connector, the best you can hope for is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102854 You will be looking at a severe performance drop if you need an nvidia card with no 6-pin on it.
