Going to upgrade my computer this weekend!!

[GP32 Kirby]

...*bump!*

Please, I'm going to upgrade it tomorrow, help me determine which upgrades are the best for me.. remember I can only buy them outta PC World only, so no suggesting products from elsewhere...

www.pcworld.co.uk

 

[skysnapper]

Oh dear... just had a quick flick through the cards availble at pc world... <_< very poor selection

no radeon 9800's - the dogs danglies of gfx cards...

No Radeon 9600 pro's or XT's - the best midrange cards..

can't believe there charging 250quid for an MSI 5600 ultra not worth more than 130 anywher ion the net you can 9800pro for that price :rolleyes:

how long you got left on your warranty ?

its pretty easy sticking a gfx card and memory in , providing you earth yourself, switch the thing off at the socket and read the instructions By the way how would they know you have put in yourself if it fuks up put the old stuff back, the monkeys at pc world are pretty clueless when it comes to pc's

if you've got money to burn the best card they've got is a LEADTEK FX5900XT at 229 though at that price its not a great buy

God! they don't even stock a proper 5900 (nvidia XT's are poorer performers than the regular cards, god car manufacturers like to confuse us! While Ati XT's are better perfomers than the regular models )

LEADTEK A310TD 256MB - £169 will probably be the best bet - then overclock the biatch

otherwise. CP 128MB 9600 RADEON 4xAGP £109 - to think you can get a pro for that price!

Buy anything apart from a 5200 or a radon 9200 probably won't be much better than what you have already got in your pc. Do yo know of hand what it is?

 

[GP32 Kirby]

Hmm.. is it really that difficult fitting in a new card or inserting RAM? I'm afraid incase somethin might happen.. but oh well, my bro (who's older than me) will probably fit the card/ram in for me.. all I gotta know is if it's better doing this than having to waste cash buying stuff outta PC World and gettin them fitted in there...

If it really is better without PC World, then fine - what is my best bet for RAM and gfx card? I want at least 512MB RAM from the upgrade, which was why I wanted two 256's at PC World.. oh well, just help me on this one..

 

[Axeman]

Right - I can tell you that I'm well qualified for giving you this info (worked for them once upon a time, as a technician)...

PC world warranties DO NOT get invalidated by you putting in upgrades or opening the machine yourself. The only difference is... if you get the upgrade puit in by them, it is added to your warranty, and if it goes wrong, you can blame them. Basically, all that happens is that if you manage to bugger up the machine whilst doing it, and they can work that out (very unlikely!), then your warranty is invalidated. Even so, in practice, I've never seen this enforced.

So, basically, dont worry - get some cheap ram and do it yourself.

Let me know the model number of your machine (e.g. packard bell 5207, emachine 330 etc), and I'll find out what type of RAM it needs.

 

[GP32 Kirby]

My model number and RAM type are already mentioned in this thread...

 

[skysnapper]

Its not very difficult but if you don't feel confident doing yourself probably be better having word with your bro and see if he'll do it for ya

See my previous post for cheap bits from www.ebuyer.co.uk

as a guide to gfx card

midrange go for a 9600pro or xt 100-150 squid

upper range radeon 9800 £206
9800pro nad xt 230 quid and up

what ever suits your budget really...

Brand doesn't matter too much as its the radeon chipset that counts. Unless you into overclocking

 

[skysnapper]

a few online stores to browse for good prices..

www.ebuyer.co.uk
www.overclockers.co.uk
www.aria.co.uk
www.komplett.co.uk

use the above myself when purchsing hardware

 

[blipped4]

To be honest if you can only get upgrades from pc world there is little point .If you wait till after christmas on the other hand there will be some good desals on at pc world.if you are looking fro upgrades your best bet is to gather up a good sum of money preferably say £400 then buy an upgrade kit,with theese you can get a real nice kit at half the price at some shops,ill dig out some of the deals for you but im sure that

www.ebuyer.com

has some good kits and you wont be hassled by not knowing if the modules will fit and work.Your best bet is to buy a kit for around £120 which will be suffice for your internet viewing and will if care is tken and please contact me.If you send me an im i will give you my email and i shall do my best to make sure you get the best upgrade for the price.

 

[GP32 Kirby]

45 quid for 256 meg of ram! lol

try www.ebuyer.co.uk 27.71 for 256 meg of the same branded kingston memory or 43.99 for 512 meg of samsung

Don't buy a fx5200 it sucks big time - terrible card. Pretty usless for playing the latest games.

With the cash you save buying the ram and its 80 quid for fx5200 from pc world get a Hightech ATI Radeon 9000 PRO for 93.36 from there.
Thats got a hell of a lot more horse power.. just google for a view reviews of the chipset and you'll see the difference


pc worlds is run by muppets

Hang on just a min... where does it say I can get a "Hightech ATI Radeon 9000 PRO" for 93.36? :huh:

 

[skysnapper]

arse your right!

Sorry may have looked at the wropng one, not fully concentrating today minging hangover

aria.co.uk do one for 102 notes but its ouf stock


Radeon 9600 PRO XT - faster than pro £111 see here http://www.simply.co.uk/?sn=2084984166 worth the extra 11 quid

some quite proces for radeons here http://www.cclcomputers.biz

 

[GP32 Kirby]

Er...

I dont see any Radeon 9600 PRO XT from the link you provided me... :blink:

 

[skysnapper]

its there go to the main website > peripherals > Graphic / Audio Movie Cards and its at the very bottom the last card listed.

 

[thecheat]

i disagree with you macs cant ruyn any other os than the mac osx

mac OSX is based on UNIX... it can also run Linux, and with VPC you can run windoze(like you'd want to)

Er.. in college we use PCs...

i feel very sorry for you, but at my high skool we use peecees too... but when I get to college (i live like 5 blocks away from the one i am applying for when i graduate), they have entire rooms of macs... heaven!!! its cool tho, cause they have a sort of comp museum in one lab, with com. PETS, mac 128ks, and more!

 

[GP32 Kirby]

Oi, I have no interest in macs whatsoever, so keep your mac fanboy posts outta some PC-upgrading thread, you're just wastin' your time and more importantly mines :angry:

 

[blipped4]

so keep your mac fanboy posts outta some PC-upgrading thread, you're just wastin' your time and more importantly mines

Thats funny "some pc- upgrading thread" the one that you started its not very nicwe sayin that really is it what the hell made you kick off?I was throughly enjoying this thread ,We just wanted to help,Its just "the cheats" opinion.


ONE THING THAT LETS THIS BOARD DOWN IS WHEN PEOPLE STATE THEIR OPINION THEY ALWAYS GO AND FLAME STRAIGHT AWAY,SO IF YOU THINK YOUR SOMETHING SPECIAL AND CAN FLAME PEOPLE FUCK OFF YOU SAD TWISTED IMMATURE TWAT!

 

[GP32 Kirby]

I wasnt flaming (or at least I didnt mean to), but who thinks that someone posting their opinion on a MAC in a PC upgrading thread would be useful?

 

[GP32 Kirby]

..Anyway, I think I'm finally gonna get my upgrades ordered today, but I'm hoping I can order both my RAM and gfx card from the one place, that way I know I'll recieve both through shipping simultaniously, instead of recieving one and then waiting for the other. I will probably get the gfx card mentioned (Radeon one, forgot it's full name) on that Simply website..

so, any idea which decent/great 512MB RAM upgrade I can get from there without blowin too much cash? (Remember I use DDR DIMM type RAM)

 

[blipped4]

Like i said if you can tell us your budget i can certainly tell you some good deals available.

 

[GP32 Kirby]

Like i said if you can tell us your budget i can certainly tell you some good deals available.

Well, I dont wanna spend anymore than £100 for my RAM upgrade, but then again I dont know how much 512MB of RAM should be, so if it's cheaper then that's good, it'll save me some cash

Remember, it has to be from www.simply.co.uk website!

 

[blipped4]

www.Simply.co.uk

128MB 266MHZ DDR PC2100 REGISTERED ECC SDRAM £69.00

(£81.08)

http://www.mpc-direct.co.uk/

Dane-Elec 128 Mb 333 (Pc2700)Price: £21.28 + 17.5% VAT


Look at the difference you could get any of the the upgrades and i would say if you want to use for the internet 128mb is ample but if you want slightly more at a faster speed it would be





256 Mb 266 Pc2100
Price: £29.79 £24.00 (£28.20)
+ 17.5% VAT


This leaves you with

£71.80

If you want to go for a better upgrade although the previous is too much really for internet browsing.

Memory


256 Mb 266
Price: £31.49 £27.23
+ 17.5% VAT





256 Mb 266 Pc210o
Price: £29.79 £24.68
+ 17.5% VAT




2x 256 Mb 333 Pc2700
Special Offer!
Price: £29.79 £24.00
+ 17.5% VAT



512 Mb 133
Price: £41.70 £35.74
+ 17.5% VAT

If you get the 256mb 266mhz ram you could also buy some extras.


64 Mb Gf2 Mx400 Agp

Our Price:£29.79 £22.13 + 17.5% VAT


Integrated transform and lighting
NVIDIA shading rasterizer
Transform/clip/light, setup, rasterize and render rate
High speed 256-bit 2D Rendering Engine and Quadpipe Rendering Engine
Eight hardware lights
HDTV video playback & video overlay
Independent hue, saturation and brightness controls in hardware
Powerful HDTV motion compensation
Full frame rate DVD up to 1080i resolution
15M Polygons per second
Memory Support 2MX32 SDRAM to 32MB
350 MHz Palette-DAC
Driver support
WHQL qualified drivers for Windows XP, 2000, NT and 9X
Linux X-server driver
VESA-DPMS 2.0 and DDC2 support


This is a very good graphx card at this price and is suitable for you motherboard.




Msi Tv@nywhere Tv Tuner Pci

Our Price:£46.81 £38.30 + 17.5% VAT

Hardware Features

◊ Invincible video quality supported by Silicon Tuner & Conexant
CX23883 audio/video decoder
◊ Enable to perform excellent adjustable IF output
◊ Offers global video standards support, including NTSC-M/N,
PAL-B/G/D/K/H/I
◊ Supports 10-bits video Analog to Digital converter
◊ Adaptive 2-D Comb Filter
◊ FM Radio Tuner built-in



Software Features

◊ MSI PVS-with MSI unique TV@nywhere function


• Free Scan
• Time-Shifting
• Scheduled Recording(MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4)
• Channel Preview
• Screen Capture
• Parent Control
• Special! MSI unparallel TV@nywhere solutions
- MPEG4 link (Support Internet TV Programs Browsing)
- Distance-less adjust server site upload bit-rate
- Distance-less adjust all settings (channels, profiles)
- Scheduled Recording (MPEG4)


◊ MSI Radio


• Real-time Recording & Playback
• Foreign Language Learning Machine
• Radio Station SearchˇXadjustable sensitivity
• Visual Effect
• Changeable Personalized Skin
• Minimizable and Always On Top
• Radio Station Memory


◊ InterVideo WinProducer/Coder


• Full version, professional Video Editing Utility.
• Full version, powerful Video Format Transferring Utility
• Multi-language Support (13 Languages)
• Special Offer! MPEG4 Video Format Transferring Support!
• Total Solution! Authoring & Burning to VCD support!
• Capturing>Editing>Authoring>Burning + Unparallel MPEG4 engine



System Requirement



Computer Intel® Pentium® II/III/4/Celeron™ processor, or compatible system
Expansion slot PCI Slot
monitor VGA support, minimum 640 x 480 resolution
Operating system Windows® 98 / ME / 2000 / XP
CD-ROM Drive 2x or up

I hope this helps.