Build a PC? Or stay with what I have?

[OneLeafLeague]

Hi guys, so I want to build myself another PC, my budget is really tight with only $300 CAD to spend and I do not want to go over that. There are a bunch of thoughts going over my brain right now so if the following article does not follow logical step by step sense, hey, at least I tried to organize them.

So here's what I already have in spare: Core 2 Duo E8400; AMD Athlon 64 x2 5000+; 4x2GB DDR2 AMD only memory; low profile cooler that is designed for the AMD processor I have which I believe is FM2; and a Dell Optiplex 745 Mini Tower with the following specs:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 @2.13GHz
Cooling: OEM Heat Sink
Motherboard: OEM Motherboard
Memory: 3.5GB DDR2 667MHz (Unsorted Brands)
Hard Drive: WD 80GB 7200RPM (I am too lazy to check the model number)
Graphics Card: Zotac GeForce GT610 DDR3 1GB Synergy Edition
Power Supply: OEM Non-branded 300W
Monitor: Acer X193W 720P
Keyboard: Azio L70 Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: ET X-08 Wireless Mouse

So here are my problems:

I did try to find some used desktops on Kijiji (which is the most used second hand sale website at my place), but people are often over valuing their products, I have seen people trying to sell pentium 4 machines for 100 bucks, and I could not talk down the price because they think I was low balling. I also want to purchase several other products as well, such as a better monitor and a TOMOKO MMC023 keyboard, which will leave me very little money to do anything with my desktop build at the end.

My first thought was to buy a new power supply, which will let me put a more powerful video card inside, but then I was like, if I want to buy better video card, probably 1/3 of my budget will go out, and I need to buy a monitor within the range of 150 CAD plus tax? It may work, but it isn't quite the way I want to go.

Then my second thought, was leave the tower as is, but change the HDD to an SSD for a faster read and write time. Again, later I did some research, and it turns out that my SATA connection is only SATA2, which will limit the speed performance by the SSD, which leads me to -- okay, that was a bust! Let's move on.

Then I came across the idea of buying a stick PC! I discarded my thought right after I had that thought...

After that, I thought that I was not going to buy any new parts, but buy a tablet! It is understandable because tablet is not only portable, but sometimes it is more useful than a laptop. Then, I started choosing my timetable for college, then I saw the "psychology" popped up in my elective options, then I know this thought was another bust. Just think how many essays I am going to write in this class! You would probably ask why would that even matter, because I can just set the laptop aside and have the monitor and keyboard set on my desk. The thing is, I need to carry my laptop to school often, so I have to construct and deconsctruct the cable mangement frequently, and that is a pain in the butt! I want to keep my cable management as much as stablized, thus not moved hopefully forever, so I have to think up something that could work the way out.

I know 300 CAD is not too much of a budget for a new PC, and it will probably suck butt at the end, so building a new PC is also one of my "considered" choices.

I find myself not including any gaming requirements in this article, mainly because I am not that much of a gamer. I play a bit of Diablo II, Counter Strike (note: not CS:GO, just CS), and League of Legends.

 

[CountMike]

Forget about that Athlon, it's useless by now by few generations.
There are very few options to upgrade on that Intel setup. If it would take some Core 2 Quad Q9xxx processor it would bring you up to usable with up to Gt 750 GPU.
SSD would help too, there's no visible difference when running it on SATA2 and it's helluva better than any HDD even at those speeds. Important thing is to find out if you can set SATA in AHCI mode in BIOS.

 

[OneLeafLeague]

Forget about that Athlon, it's useless by now by few generations.
There are very few options to upgrade on that Intel setup. If it would take some Core 2 Quad Q9xxx processor it would bring you up to usable with up to Gt 750 GPU.
SSD would help too, there's no visible difference when running it on SATA2 and it's helluva better than any HDD even at those speeds. Important thing is to find out if you can set SATA in AHCI mode in BIOS.

I have tried Core 2 Duo E8400 before (well that's why I bought it), but my motherboard just would not accept the challenge, so my best bet for that situation was to install an E6400. My motherboard's FSB is pretty much limited at 1066MHz, so unless there is a core 2 quad that can have a FSB at 1066MHz and still fits in a LGA775 socket, man I am definitely going to buy it. About the AHCI though, I think I cannot configure this in my BIOS, because I think I have tried to install some operating system (or something) on this machine and it requires AHCI mode, but I just cannot find it.

 

[CountMike]

I recently put together an old machine for a friend. gigabute ga-g41mt-s2 with Quad core I think Q6600 and DDR3, 4GB Kingston 1600MHz but works works good at 1066MHz.
I just don't know if it's worth building system like that unless you can make it dirt cheap.

 

[OneLeafLeague]

I recently put together an old machine for a friend. gigabute ga-g41mt-s2 with Quad core I think Q6600 and DDR3, 4GB Kingston 1600MHz but works works good at 1066MHz.
I just don't know if it's worth building system like that unless you can make it dirt cheap.

yea that old machine is still stronger than the one I have right now, I've also been thinking about it, I will probably switch back to the pentium D since it has more base frequency, and even though E6400 is a bit better than the Pentium D (945 I believe, 3.4GHz), but the game I play actually performs better on PD than the C2D!
Yea I did looked up Q6600, but it is 40 bucks the cheapest I can find on ebay, which is not dirt cheap, and I cannot take a bet on that because the mannual for Intel Q965 motherboard actually limits the cores to maximum C2D E6400. So what I am gonna do is probably buy a kingston 120GB SSD to increase the disk performance a bit, and upgrade the ram to 4+GB DDR2 667MHz or 4GB 800MHz, and hope for the best.