Hi all I got this older motherboard and I want to upgrade some of the stuff on it. http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P4S61&s=478 At the moment it has a 350 watt power supply, the video card is the ati 1600 pro and it has 3x512mb (ddr 266). What can I do to make this computer better? I'd like to go to the computer shop more knowledgeable and knowing, or having a better idea of what to buy. Hope for some help from yous
it's for my younger brother. He's 12 so he'll mainly just use it to play games. I realize that to play games these days you need like a core 2 duo+, but he's young and he'll go through a phrase where I'll have to reformat it for him 4 times a year cause He fucked it up, lol. So this would be a good "learning" computer for him. I just want him to get the most out of it. he could probably play some newer games with everything set to low, or some older games like Neverwinter nights.
It's 478 and AGP, so it's not really a good basis for upgrading. You would be better off changing out the Motherboard and PSU as well, and going with a relatively inexpensive, but solid PCI express rig. Pentium E Dual core processors are based on the core 2 duo architecture and are super-cheap. Combine this with a basic motherboard, 2GB of relatively cheap DDR2, a quality PSU like an Antec Earthwatts and a reasonable but cheap graphics card like an HD3650, and you can have a completely transformed PC that didn't cost the earth and can actually game relatively well.
thanks for the reply. we're not considering getting another computer. Just looking to put a couple hundred bucks into it to give it a lil ummppphh. So he can mess with that for a couple years. Then when he knows his way around Windows we'll get him another computer at that time.
You can still keep the drives and the case... lol Your call on what you want to upgrade really, but to get much extra out of any one part, at least four components are going to need upgrading, due to incompatibilities with modern parts.
i would leave it alone but need to know what the system specs are as in cpu speed, cd rom, cd burner, dvd rom or dvd burner & hard drive capacity?
pentium 1.8 processor 300 gb hd (IDE) has a dvd ram on it. and as I mentioned in the first post 3x512mb (ddr 266) and an ati 1600 pro. so are you saying if i upgraded to 1 stick of ddr400 1gb, or 2 sticks of ddr 333 2gb, it wouldn't make much difference? I'm curious of this. What about the video card, is it possible to put a better card in there, what would be the best compatible card for it? Would it help a little?
leave the ram alone as you have 1.5gigs of it. go for a cpu upgrade as acording to this link for that board http://www.asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Model=P4S61&s=478 , you can run a 3.4ghz which is almost 2x faster than what is running now. videocard i might leave alone for now til you see what the speed performance is like once you do the cpu upgrade. how much ram on the videocard?
256meg of ram on the card should be alright for now at his age. just go for the cpu upgrade as that should keep him going for a couple of years depending on the games he plays with. once he gets older he might not play on the computer except for school work.
thanks everyone for your input. At the moment I'm thinking of maybe giving him my 2nd computer which I only use for burning dvd's and shrinking dvd's. It's a 2.6, and also had 1.5 gb of ram (ddr 400). If I do this, would the 1.8 be able to do the burning tasks and shrinking tasks (dvd-rb,nero recode) without any problems?
