old E-machines desktop upgrade?

manunknown

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Nov 22, 2014
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It is an E-machines w3615 running Vista with an intel pentium 4 processor 3.0ghz, 800 mhz fsb. A 160 gb hard drive and a maximum ram capacity of 2gb... I have an open PCI express slot but i do not know what cards are compatible with the slot, much much less whether or not i meet the power requirements for an upgrade.
Thanks to anyone who may help.
 
Solution
I would not have a problem with a graphics card upgrade; it can easily be moved to a future build.
The strongest graphics card that a 300w psu can support is a GTX750ti that is not overclocked and needs no aux 6 pin power connector.

A GT730 would be about the minimum alternative.
What to upgrade? Everything.
Even the mouse and keyboard.

Seriously. There is little you can change on that without changing everything else.
New GPU? Need a new PSU. And then the existing CPU will hold the system back. OK...change the CPU. Which means the RAM & motherboard must also change.

And if you're going through all that, get a new case, because the original eMachine case is/was crap.

So...you just designed a whole new PC.

You can, however, use that old one for other purposes. I have a similar vintage PC, which does duty as the house firewall box.
 
Yeah, all the parts have to go if you want to do anything besides brows text. Even Chrome will be too much for that CPU once you load YouTube and stuff.

It might be cool to build a kick ass machine in that case. People would think it's weak, but you'd throw them off 🙂
 
I have to be honest and say you probably wont be running any new titles on that machine no matter what card is installed. It serverly limited by the Ram and CPU. However there are a lot of great INDIE titles out now and some great ones on the way (im a huge fan). With a second hand (once upon a time) high end card you will be able play a lot of older good title games and the newer indie games. If you are certain you want to put a card in this machine more than likely you will need to upgrade the power supply (im not sure what size it currently has, you can find out by looking on the lable of the PSU). Get a second hand 9800GTX or an 8800GTX (they are dirt cheap on ebay) that would probably be the best match for that CPU (bear in mind both cards need a 450w PSU).
 


I mainly just want it to run Kerbal Space Program better than my not as old Toshiba Satellite a215-s7422 w/ 4gb of ram but only ATI x1600 integrated graphics. The tower has a 300 watt PSU as well..

*edit: a125 to a215

I found a "GIGABYTE GV-N730D3-1GI GeForce GT 730 1GB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 Video Card" (just copied the whole title in lue of ignorance) it says it requires a 300 watt power supply and meets the shader requirements for the game.. i just dont know if its still too much for my other components..

Grand total budget of $150? for wifi connectivity and graphics card....
 


From the Wiki: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/System_Specs
" Old Demo (0.13.3)

Fast Pentium 4 (>3 GHz) Fast shader model 2.0 card (3.0 or later recommended) that does not steal from system memory. Roughly an ATI Radeon 9xxx or nVidia FX/Gefore 5 series. 768 MiB of RAM

This is the absolute minimum to get a playable (if slow) game with smallish rockets, however. A faster system will greatly enhance one's experience. "


Your P4 runs it, just barely.
 


I found a "GIGABYTE GV-N730D3-1GI GeForce GT 730 1GB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 Video Card" (just copied the whole title in lue of ignorance) it says it requires a 300 watt power supply and meets the shader requirements for the game.. i just dont know if its still too much for my other components..

card is on newegg : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125681&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Desktop+Graphics+Cards-_-N82E16814125681&gclid=CjwKEAiAhcGjBRDot_fjjtPKrgsSJACNYh76p5jzkhWAqMmB21wVNcQ02eijPtqXRQd1n6AXjdrRCRoCOWrw_wcB
 
I would not have a problem with a graphics card upgrade; it can easily be moved to a future build.
The strongest graphics card that a 300w psu can support is a GTX750ti that is not overclocked and needs no aux 6 pin power connector.

A GT730 would be about the minimum alternative.
 
Solution