- Mar 21, 2012
- 178
- 0
- 10,710
Hi guys, I'm helping my brother upgrading my old system so he can use it for school and play some games, mostly FIFA 15. But I have some questions; and what's a better place to get some solid advice?
Specs of the old system:
Cooler Master Centurion 5
Zalman ZM500-HP, 500 Watt
Corsair ValueSelect, 2048 MB, DDR2, PC5300, 2x
Club3D Radeon HD3870 Overclocked ,GDDR4, PCI Express
Samsung Spinpoint P120, 250 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache
GigaByte GA-P35-DS3
Intel Core 2 Quad, Q6600, Socket 775
Date of purchase: January 2008
I figured that adding a Crucial MX 100 128 GB, upgrading the graphics card to either an GTX 750 Ti or R7 260X and possibly adding some RAM would do the trick for a reasonable price.
My questions:
The R7 260X and GTX 750 Ti offer similar performance but the Radeon card is significantly cheaper so it is definitely first choice. But the max TDP is 85 - 115W (found both values is here on Tom's) vs 60W of the GeForce. Is the over 8.5 year old 500W Zalman capable of powering the Radeon card properly? If not, I assume it can handle the GeForce.
I read some inconsistent stuff about SSD's and ACHI. Does the P35-DS3 support it? And is it really necessary for an SSD?
The P35-DS3 motherboard only supports DDR2 memory, which has become quite expensive since the arrival of DDR3 (and soon DDR4). Is it worth it upgrading to 8GB? I'm very skeptical, especially value wise.
Any advice or recommendation is very much appreciated. Please keep in mind that we are on a limited budget of around €200 and if possible, please use this website's price-watch for product recommendations. Thank you very much in advance.
Specs of the old system:
Cooler Master Centurion 5
Zalman ZM500-HP, 500 Watt
Corsair ValueSelect, 2048 MB, DDR2, PC5300, 2x
Club3D Radeon HD3870 Overclocked ,GDDR4, PCI Express
Samsung Spinpoint P120, 250 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache
GigaByte GA-P35-DS3
Intel Core 2 Quad, Q6600, Socket 775
Date of purchase: January 2008
I figured that adding a Crucial MX 100 128 GB, upgrading the graphics card to either an GTX 750 Ti or R7 260X and possibly adding some RAM would do the trick for a reasonable price.
My questions:
The R7 260X and GTX 750 Ti offer similar performance but the Radeon card is significantly cheaper so it is definitely first choice. But the max TDP is 85 - 115W (found both values is here on Tom's) vs 60W of the GeForce. Is the over 8.5 year old 500W Zalman capable of powering the Radeon card properly? If not, I assume it can handle the GeForce.
I read some inconsistent stuff about SSD's and ACHI. Does the P35-DS3 support it? And is it really necessary for an SSD?
The P35-DS3 motherboard only supports DDR2 memory, which has become quite expensive since the arrival of DDR3 (and soon DDR4). Is it worth it upgrading to 8GB? I'm very skeptical, especially value wise.
Any advice or recommendation is very much appreciated. Please keep in mind that we are on a limited budget of around €200 and if possible, please use this website's price-watch for product recommendations. Thank you very much in advance.
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