'Upgrading' a PC

[Behemoth]

PSU's for £13 are literally time bombs waiting to go off. Remember the old q-tec supplies from back in the day ? These are in very much the same league I'm sorry to say. They earned the name q-bomb very quickly and quite deserving of this name.

[iCraig]

So now thanks to everyones help I've decided.

As a stopgap I've devised the following spec as I really can't put up with the XP3000 very much longer, the spec is as follows:

Pentium D 2.8GHz (£8.50)
Asrock 775Dual-VSTA (£20)
ATi Radeon HD3450 (£7.51)
Sumvision 450w PSU (£16) (New)
1Gb DDR400 (Already got)

This spec will be then upgraded bit by bit. First thing I will do when I get the money is get 1Gb of DDR2 6400. Then upgrade the motherboard to a Gigabyte G31 and then finally the CPU to a Celeron E3300.

Hopefully that should then tide me over and give me scope to upgrade further when funds necessitate.

[The_Wheelhouse]

So now thanks to everyones help I've decided.

Sumvision 450w PSU (£16) (New)

Hopefully that should then tide me over and give me scope to upgrade further when funds necessitate.

Please good lord don't buy that power supply, if it does last to your next upgrade it probably won't be able to cope.

Listen to what everyone has said and get a good PSU
At least get something like this, you won't regret it.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505

I know it's half your budget but IMHO the most important part as well
It doesn't even have 80+ certification, even some bestecs have that.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get the OCZ PSU from Aria as it will be cheaper:

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...roductId=39205

Also the E2140 and E2160 can be had for around £15 or less off Ebay.

TBH,the OP should have saved up some more money. £100 would have bought that a much better upgrade.

[Rob_B]

<snip>
This spec will be then upgraded bit by bit. First thing I will do when I get the money is get 1Gb of DDR2 6400. Then upgrade the motherboard to a Gigabyte G31 and then finally the CPU to a Celeron E3300.

Hopefully that should then tide me over and give me scope to upgrade further when funds necessitate.

For starters, I'll agree with everyone else do not buy the cheap PSU

1GB of RAM is really going to hinder performance no matter what CPU/etc you have, either upgrade to more DDR or wait until you can get at least 2GB of DDR2 (~ £35 at the moment)

[iCraig]

Do Novatech make good PSUs then?

[Behemoth]

A PSU with Novatech branding on it won't be any different to one with Sumvision branding on it. They are sold cheap because they are built cheap.

[Domestic_Ginger]

Novatech will just rebrand PSUs as do all the distributers. The question boils down to who actually made the PSU.

I would say no; I imagine Novatech also sell very cheap PSUs.

The 400W CtV listed is incredibly good value and is made by CWT; a very good manufacturer.

[iCraig]

Well its all built and working! Cost £58 in total.

Final spec for the time being is as follows:

Pentium D 2.8GHz
Asrock 775Dual-VSTA
ATi Radeon X1950XT
OCZ 450w PSU
2Gb DDR 667Mhz

[Rob_B]

Nice one, looks like a bargain for £58

[Behemoth]

For that money thats not half bad !!

[GT-R]

Is it just me or is that upgrade just not worth the time and effort?

Personally Id keep the xp3000 maybe add another 1gb ram, better graphics card, get the fsb up to 200 (400ddr) 2200mhz if possible and a fresh install of xp.

All in reverse order ie. xp first and ram last.

[Rob_B]

The GFX alone should help pulverise the old system. Still a low powered CPU but that's easily changed when the PC fund grows a bit more

[iCraig]

Is it just me or is that upgrade just not worth the time and effort?

Personally Id keep the xp3000 maybe add another 1gb ram, better graphics card, get the fsb up to 200 (400ddr) 2200mhz if possible and a fresh install of xp.

All in reverse order ie. xp first and ram last.

I think its worth it. Regarding the time it took less than a week to buy the bits off eBay and less than half an hour to rebuild the PC.

I now have a PC thats able to keep up with what I want it to do, with headroom to upgrade further for even less money. In a month or so the CPU will be upgraded to something alot faster I hope.

Cheers

Craig

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Like I said before the Asrock 775Dual-VSTA is limited to PCI-E 4X(generation one) so it could start to be a limitation for more recent cards.

[iCraig]

You do have a point but by the time its ready to be upgraded I'll likely be on another board.

At the moment the money front is exhausted. But I think the next things in the pipeline are a Celeron E3300 and a Gigabyte G31 Motherboard.
And with getting things like cheap DDR2 and a PCI-E GFX card already it'll be a cheaper and easier upgrade if you know what I mean.

I'm happy with what I've got at the mo, its much quicker than the XP3000 and it multitasks again