Fixing an old gaming computer

[pandaexplosion]

I've always envied my brother's computer. I've always been stuck with the crappy $400 basic word processing computer, while my brother got to play video games. About 5 years ago, he begged and pleaded with our parents to let him build his own computer. They finally gave in, and he built a pretty decent gaming rig. I remember him being able to play most games fairly easily (WoW, Guild Wars, Crysis). Then, about 2 years ago, the power supply gave out. We wanted to fix it, but cash was tight because my brother was in college. I've been eying his computer ever since it broke. Flash forward to about a month ago, and my brother just finished college, and is interning in Finland for the summer. He has a laptop, and has grown accustomed to it ever since. He decides to finally give me his old computer! I'm ecstatic! About a week ago, my dad actually got it fixed, and i gotta say... it's kinda a POS. Honestly, It's only marginally faster than my old computer, and I'm not sure how I'll be able to game with these stats.

OS: Vista
RAM: 2 GB of DDR2 , maximum capicty is 8 GB
300 GB Hard Drive
Processor: Intel Core Duo E6600
Motherboard:EVGA 122-CK-NF68
Graphics Card: Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS

Is it possible to turn this into a modern day gaming rig? Is it already a good gaming rig? I'm not incredibly computer savvy, but 2 GB of ram sounds like it's very little, the hard drive seems small, and the motherboard seems outdated. If it is possible to fix, what's a ballpark number to fix it? Thanks in advance, and tell me if you need anymore info about the computer.

 

[divJ]

whats the budget ?

 

[pandaexplosion]

$400

 

[divJ]

in $400 u could build a new budget pc. You dont need an OS... whats the chassis/case ?

 

[austing]

New (based on your budget)

OS: Windows 7 (free or very cheap)
RAM: 8 GB of DDR2 (about 140$)
300 GB Hard Drive (keep the one you have)
Processor: Intel Core Duo E6600 (keep it and over clock it)
Motherboard:EVGA 122-CK-NF68 (keep it, its a great board )
Graphics Card: Two GTX 460's in SLI (your board is SLI capable! about 240$)

Total spent: 380$

Will play: Everything (will need to overclock CPU though )

 

[austing]

Do you even know what you are saying??? a GTX 460 sli will be bottlenecked by the E6600....i gotta say...that PC is a complete POS, you better start saving money (about 800$) to get a DECENT gaming PC... if not... a console would do the job :/

Did you just say console?

I have an OC'ed 6600 to 4GHZ and two 460's and I've played BF3 on Ultra...

Also, no one needs to have an 800$ PC to be "decent" an 800$ PC is overkill for anything.

What I wanna know is, do you even know what YOUR saying?

 

[austing]

First of all its YOU'RE or YOU ARE....

an 800$ is not overkill for anything... at least not for me..hell it doesnt even meet my needs(3x 3D 1080p monitors)... anyways, its hard to put a build together with only 400$ and that build will totally suck...BUT, if you really want a PC and not a console and only have 400$ to burn... get this:
CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1GHz Dual-Core Processor ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($33.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card ($124.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling 500W ATX12V Power Supply ($55.98 @ NCIX US)
Total: $414.93 after rebates.

No one wants Directx 9 games like consoles have...

And its easy to put a PC together with 400$, just get off your high-horse because you have expendible income.

What I suggested will blow away what you just listed on one monitor..

You only need 2 cores and 4GB of RAM to play most games on a single monitor.

You should probably learn that some people have budgets and do not need to waist money on 3D technology these days. ( Your needs are 3 3D monitors? No one "needs" 3D...)

And don't be a grammarfag, this is the internet, I do what I want.

 

[macten]

What games are you wanting to play?

 

[austing]

*You're right, the parts you listed will blow mines but idk... a E6600 seems too old to me, are you sure that thing will not bottleneck 2 gtx 460s?

*4GB's are enough but RAM prices this days are very low, you can get 8GB for ~40$ so its definetly worth it

*i really like the 3D effect in movies and games, specially the Nvidia's 3D vision 2 Technology, once you try it you will never want to go back to standard 3D, and yes, i DO need 3 monitors because i cant imagine myself going back to play/work on a single 2D monitor.

-The bottleneck will not be noticable, on one screen a 60fps cap because of the processor vs a 90fps cap with an i series cpu is un noticable
If it were the other way arround, being the gpu a bottleneck, then yes it would be a problem

-8 GB's of DDR2 is still kina overkill, especially since the price I mentioned was for SLI ram that is OC'ed to 1200Mhz.

-I have had 3 2D monitors, and I do not see the alure of 3D at this moment.

 

[pandaexplosion]

The games I'm trying to play are TF2, Dark Souls, and Mount & Blade, if that matters.

 

[austing]

what I suggested will easily handle it.

 

[macten]

The games I'm trying to play are TF2, Dark Souls, and Mount & Blade, if that matters.

Yea, it matters since those are older games for the most part.

With those games I'd say throw some more RAM into the machine and see how she handles it. Work your way up from there.