Gaming Rig using second hand parts

[Behemoth]

A work colleague today litterally dropped his PC in my lap today asking me if I cvould see if it was upgradeable, as he now wants to play games on it.

I've not powered it up yet, but I have had a good look inside the case, and I know he's got an Athlon 2 2.4 Ghz on a Socket AM2, 2 Gig of ram, some kind of Asrock mATX mobo and a very cheap generic brand 500 wat PSU. Some really old IDE drives

He wants to play Starwas The Old Republic and other games aswell I expect, as he hasn't got that much money going new is out of the question.

Things that can be reused:
Case
DVD Burner (this is SATA)
Possibly the mobo once I fire it up and run CPUZ on it
OS (he has a retail copy of XP Pro)

So essentially looking at the following:
GFX Card
RAM, CPU CPU Cooler (Maybe Mobo)
Hard drives (aren't a problem I've got 250 gig drive here I can sell him)
PSU

He did say about going Quad core and I thought perhaps maybe getting either a Q6600 or may be AM3 as I can kit him out with 4 gig of DDR3 RAM as I have that spare anyway (yes am awarte of the 32 bit limitation when using 4 gig of RAM) and perhaps for the GFX card seeing as the base spec of the abpve game says GeForce 7900 maybe a GeForce 8800 or Radeon 4870 1 Gig should sort him out nicely. If I go the Q6600 route then I will need to get him some DDR2

I priced him up a new PC a while ago but he says he really can't afford the £342 and second hand really is the best option for him.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at these parts:

1.)Athlon II X3 455

http://www.ebuyer.com/249981-amd-ath...-adx455wfgmbox

2.)MSI 870S-C45

http://www.ebuyer.com/320151-msi-870...d-870s-c45-fx-

This uses the SB850 southbridge which has 6 SATA3.0 ports. The older MSI 870-C45 uses the 770 chipset.

3.)8GB 1600MHZ DDR3

http://www.ebuyer.com/275166-crucial...kit51264ba160a

Latency is a tad high but the Athlon II X3 will run the RAM at 1333MHZ anyway and you can use lower latencies.

4.)Bitfenix Merc Alpha Case

http://www.ebuyer.com/289021-bitfeni...rc-100-kkx1-rp

This can take a long graphics card such as an HD6990.

5.)HD6770

http://www.dabs.com/products/gigabyt...?q=6770&src=16

Comes with a copy of DiRT 3.

6.)Coolermaster GX 450W 80PLUS® Power Suppply

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...acaad3-uk.html

The PSU seems to be at a very low price on Novatech and you can get cashback from TopCashBack too.

The total comes to around £276. Without the case,the cost is around £244. However,you need to check if the existing case can take an ATX motherboard. If the copy of the OS is 32 bit then 4GB makes more sense and you can get 4GB of 1.5V 1600MHZ DDR3 for around £20:

http://www.ebuyer.com/240501-g-skill...2800cl9d-4gbrl

The 1.65V DDR3 RAM is a tad cheaper.

The total cost would the be around £234 excluding the case.

[wasabi]

Radeon 5770 and 4 gig of cheapass RAM. Job jobbed. Hitting ebay that should be doable for £75 and keep the poor soul away from craptops or Xboxes.

[Iron Sights]

Heh I always get asked these sorts of questions at work, "Hey mate your good with computers here, can you......" This is the point at which you should start running .
Cats build looks sound. Also I have a HD4830 knocking about but its only 512mb.

[scaryjim]

Personally I'd get him an Athlon II X3 and a 6770 1GB. If he's sticking on XP I wouldn't bother with more RAM than he's already got. Obviously a new hard drive (but it looks like you've got that covered). And a branded, 400W max PSU - something like an earthwatts 380 would do nicely.

The CPU / GPU / PSU combination should set you back around £160 if you shop around. And of course you might be able to generate a little cash (£10 - £15?) selling off his old x2 to someone looking for an incremental upgrade to an older AM2 machine.

[Behemoth]

Some good ideas in here, really need to fire his up and see what software reports he has really.

[Pob255]

if it's an athlonII x2 rather than an athlon x2 on an am2+ board then it'll still be fine for games, a 2nd hand 4870 or similar (4890, gtx260, gtx 275, 5770 all are around the same performance wise) and a new psu and you've got a decent basic gameing platform
However the hard drive could do with being replaced the difference between an older IDE and a newer sata drive is noticeable (7200rpm sataII not a sataI drive) issue is cost.
After service pack 3 xp can still gain from going from 2gb to 3-4gb even if you cannot use it all.
If you've got ram slots free then an extra gb of ram would be good (again go 2nd hand) match speed and cas for best results.

[Zhaoman]

A second hand 5770 or 4870 or similar would do I reckon. If you're really stuck for cash you can get second hand 4850s for peanuts these days and from what I've heard it's more than enough to run SWTOR on the highest settings. The existing CPU will be a bottleneck but maybe just keep it and get a new PSU and see how it goes, my brother's playing most games fine on an Athlon X2 and a 4850. I'd also recommend replacing the HDDs, I hate old slow noisy drives with thick cables!