CPU Upgrade for LGA775 Desktop and possibly graphics card

[Macmyazka]

Hi, I'm curious about upgrading an older PC that I bought super cheap about 4 years ago. It's been sitting for a few years because I never got around to doing what I wanted. When I first got it, it worked fine, but after sitting on a shelf for a few years, somehow one stick of RAM went bad so I'm running it on a single 2GB DDR 800 stick right now. I just found some replacement modules on eBay relatively cheap and ordered those.

Now I figure it's time to look at a budget CPU upgrade (if possible) and maybe a graphics card that will work with it as well just to let my son do some basic Minecraft, school work/research, and to teach him a little more about computers.

I've looked up the CPU support for the Intel DQ35JO motherboard and see I have a lot of options, but I don't know what the best choice would be for a quad core...should I just do a Q6600 or something higher? Should I do a Xeon?

I don't know which BIOS I have. From run, I did dxdiag and under BIOS it just states "Default System BIOS".

Secondly, for running this machine with some very basic games or even possibly using it to stream Netflix or something of that nature, what would be a cheap graphics card that would work with whatever processor upgrade you suggest?

I should also mention that I am running Vista SP2 currently and may be upgrading that to something a little newer...probably 7. I'm not sure what OS I will run from here though. I was also considering switching to Linux possibly...that way my son and I could both learn a new OS together. Suggestions here would also be appreciated.

Here's a link to a screenshot of my system info and MB info:
https://imgur.com/a/FsLdju7

 

[nobspls]

Why is it there are some many people thinking they can get miracles to happen to 10+ year old platforms? A month a ago, my nephew returned my old Q9550 P35 build that he had been using for past 3 years. The is no more that you can do with it, it is just too far behind, games just do not play well enough on them and there is no point in getting new GPUs for this thing just to get it gimped to hell.

 

[jossrik]

For CPU, I suggest whatever is fastest for that particular motherboard, don't worry about overclocking at this point, like said, for that age, there's not much you can do to get it up to modern standards. That being said, 1050 ti would be the most I'd go with it, which will handle yer basic netflix, web pages, will probably run Minecraft... It will be gimped by the CPU, but what you're asking doesn't ask for much in the way of horsepower, and something like the 1050 ti you could use in your next build as a low budget jumping off point. Any true quad core will be decent though man... I would look into a budget AMD/Intel build. Both companies have some decent low end modern hardware which will be a lot more easy to work with as far as finding parts and such. For example, once that motherboard goes, that's pretty much the end of that build... You can find them, but they've been used for ten years... I like warranties.

 

[Colif]

its clearly not their main system, just something for son to use...

At least there are win 7 drivers for it - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/50382/Intel-Desktop-Board-DQ35JO

As for bios, try downloading Speccy on PC
install it
restart PC
now run speccy, and in File menu, choose save as text file

copy that text file to a USB and upload it to a file sharing web site on your PC and show a link here, we see what bios it thinks it has.

Or you can click on motherboard link in right hand side panel of speccy and it should tell you what BIOS it has.

Intel link above shows the bios updater as well.

 

[Macmyazka]

Why is it there are some many people thinking they can get miracles to happen to 10+ year old platforms? A month a ago, my nephew returned my old Q9550 P35 build that he had been using for past 3 years. The is no more that you can do with it, it is just too far behind, games just do not play well enough on them and there is no point in getting new GPUs for this thing just to get it gimped to hell.

Since when did I ask for miracles? I simply am looking for a quad processor and possibly cheap graphics card. Not anything new. I’m not dumping hundreds into this thing. But the price of RAM, processor, and older graphics card that is better than onboard is less than $100 total. I don’t mind sinking that into a computer for my son to use. I’m not letting him touch my build because it’s a custom workstation for SolidWorks and more.

I’m not willing to spend $300-500+ on anything else when I have a computer he can use.

I did mention that it would be used for school work and web surfing. That’s the primary goal without it bogging down. If it can handle Counter Strike or Minecraft and a little Netflix that’s a perk. I was able to play CS Source on an older, less powerful PC back in 2005. This PC is less than 10 years old and is plenty capable of light duty shit.

 

[Macmyazka]

I never mentioned graphics intensive gaming or anything else. Before you incorrectly assume something (I’m not incompetent) and why don't you ask before assuming I want something for heavy gaming...I'm not looking for GTA V or anything (newer) of that nature to run on this computer. Although, I've seen the Q9300 with GTX 960 and 8 gigs of RAM play GTA V on relatively low settings. Maintaining 25-45 frames...not great by any means, but still handling the game albeit with a bottleneck by the CPU...but again...not what I'm going for...extremely light gaming is all I want for him. Besides that we have consoles for gaming.

Be helpful or gtfo.

 

[Macmyazka]

I wasn't planning on something as new as a 1050ti but I appreciate the info and you're correct, at least it would be something I could use in the future. Thanks jossrik and Colif. When I have more time, I'll try Speccy and get that info back here.

 

[smorizio]

when you go into the bios the bios rev will be posted on that screen. depending on the bios the mb has it may limit you to how new of a gpu you can use. some newer gpu and older bios you may see the mb lock up if the bios is to old. with newer os look at the max ram the pc can run. if it can run 8g or more of ram put in 8g to start. with windows 7 and newer 4g system will not run games or aps well.