Upgrade Acer Aspire X1700

[techofgiel]

Hi,

My sole purpose of my future PC is to game with it. So I have the Acer aspire X1700 and my plan would be to put all of the components in a bigger case. For the graphics card I would go for a Nvidia GTX 750 TI from EVGA. And I would upgrade the RAM memory to 8 GB. The power supply is a 220 W, would that be enough? And the CPU, Intel core 2 quad Q6600 with 2.4 GHz, would this be a case of bottlenecking?

Would I by the way be able to play Just Cause 3 with this setup? I know GTA 5 should be possible but I am wondering for JC3.

With kind regards

 

[neptunus3001]

Hi,

The power supply can't handle the GTX 750 as this card has as Minimum System Power Requirement 300W. You should change the PSU but even with a 300W PSU I doubt that could work GTX 750 and Q6600.

I'm sorry.

 

[techofgiel]

Hi,

The power supply can't handle the GTX 750 as this card has as Minimum System Power Requirement 300W. You should change the PSU but even with a 300W PSU I doubt that could work GTX 750 and Q6600.

I'm sorry.

So it won't work?

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Honestly, might be best to put the acer out to pasture. That's probably close to 3-5 year old technology.

 

[techofgiel]

Honestly, might be best to put the acer out to pasture. That's probably close to 3-5 year old technology.

Yeah, I know but I haven't got lots of money and I'm just trying to find myself a machine that can run GTA 5, Watch Dogs and a couple of other games, you see..? My future plan is then to take the GPU and RAM out of that machine and place it in another one with a better processor..

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

You'd need to look at the requirements, but you could try I suppose. I would recommend a power supply more than 220 watts though. Something I saw on here yesterday got me thinking for a poor man's gaming box(I've been there), you could almost pick up one of these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883283249

Pop in a power supply and video card. Sure you would not be killing everything but if you watched for say 350 or less have a system that could play some games and not choke totally.

 

[techofgiel]

You'd need to look at the requirements, but you could try I suppose. I would recommend a power supply more than 220 watts though. Something I saw on here yesterday got me thinking for a poor man's gaming box(I've been there), you could almost pick up one of these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883283249

Pop in a power supply and video card. Sure you would not be killing everything but if you watched for say 350 or less have a system that could play some games and not choke totally.

Oh sir, I do love your solution but there is a major problem. I live in Belgium and there aren't many good computer sites to my knowledge..

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Ah. Yes, I'm from the US, so unfortunately, I can't tell you where to shop for that. I do see that some guys on here use this site, so maybe it'd be a good jumping off point?

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Also, I'm sure you have ebay over there? That may not be a bad place to look. Sometimes if you look, at least here, people are unloading used cpus, boards and video cards. For example, I've got a radeon 7950 I bought used about last year for 120 dollars US. To get a comparable card new is close to 200. Used parts can be kind of sketchy, but you might look around, you may come across some things that will get you started from where someone else is upgrading perhaps. I would caution if you go that route though, watch people's feedback very carefully. Usually if someone has a lot of high feedback ratings they won't want to sacrifice that.

 

[techofgiel]

Ah. Yes, I'm from the US, so unfortunately, I can't tell you where to shop for that. I do see that some guys on here use this site, so maybe it'd be a good jumping off point?

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/

Thank you very much!

 

[g-unit1111]

Honestly, might be best to put the acer out to pasture. That's probably close to 3-5 year old technology.

I'd want to know the size of the case as well because some cases can only accept hafl-height GPUs, and a lot of Asus and Acer especially use that form factor. It might not be possible to install a 750TI.

 

[techofgiel]

Honestly, might be best to put the acer out to pasture. That's probably close to 3-5 year old technology.

I'd want to know the size of the case as well because some cases can only accept hafl-height GPUs, and a lot of Asus and Acer especially use that form factor. It might not be possible to install a 750TI.

I don't have the case with me for the moment but I will on Sunday. I'll let you know then. Thanks in advance!

 

[rsinski]

You'd need to look at the requirements, but you could try I suppose. I would recommend a power supply more than 220 watts though. Something I saw on here yesterday got me thinking for a poor man's gaming box(I've been there), you could almost pick up one of these.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883283249

Pop in a power supply and video card. Sure you would not be killing everything but if you watched for say 350 or less have a system that could play some games and not choke totally.

 

[rsinski]

I have done exactly this with excellent results with the ACER X1700 MCP73T-AD V1.0 Motherboard. As follows:

1) A cheap Micro ATX case from newegg: about $17 on sale. A Q9650 CPU I found used on ebay for a decent price. I believe this is the fastest upgrade CPU this motherboard is capable of handing. Keep the original CPU fan. The CPU health status indicator in the BIOS says the temperature is fine with the Q9650.

2) A refurbished 400 watt PS (Diablo) :$15 on sale from newegg.

3) Keep the original 4GB memory: DDR2 400mhz ram is difficult to find and too expensive in > 4GB.

4) ZOTAC GTX 750 TI full height short length GPU from newegg : $99. Be careful connecting it there are USB connectors it will cover. Connect the USB motherboard connectors to your new case BEFORE you install the new graphics card . My case does not have cutouts for a DVD(it's a real cheapie)so I use an external USB DVD burner.

The reference for the MCP73T-AD V1.0 motherboard is easily found on the internet. It was OEM'd my many companies including emachines. You will need to remove the front panel internal metal connection box from the original Acer X1700 case for usb, firewire and audio and reconnect it according to whatver case you buy. Keep the original connection internal USB and firewire cables. I chose to leave this little metal cage outside the new case hanging in back for the additional USB connectivity.

You will now also have if you choose 2 internal HD SATA connections available : I chose 2 refurbished 2TB hard drives also from newegg: $38 each 3GBS - that's all the throughput this motherboard can handle it doesn't pay to get 6GBS drives.

I have made it a multi partition boot machine with several versions of LINUX, BSD, Windows 10, Windows 7 available via internal bootable partitions and bootable on external USB HD and flash drives.

With all this in a case with only 2 fans the internal temperature averages 87F. Much better than the original cramped case.

The performance improvement as indicated by the Heaven 4.0 free download benchmarking SW was very respectable in comparison with the stock X1700 graphics. It's not a high end 2016 gaming machine by any means but this upgrade will give you the performance for the games you desire to play.

Also in the one remaining available slot I have added USB 3.0 capability with a 7 port card from amazon: $28.

It was an interesting project if you enjoy tinkering with hardware. It keeps this 62 year old's retired former DEC employees mind active...have fun.