Time to upgrade some components

[Oberon]

Well, the current refurbishment work at my place of work has given me more hours than usual (figure that) so my payslip for this month is a bit more reasonable than usual. Therefore I'm looking to do a spot of upgrading with my CPU, and of course with the CPU I have to upgrade the mobo.

Been looking at a nice little bundle on Amazon that gives me a:
Intel Dual Core E5300 2.6GHz CPU Processor -


Gigabyte GA-G41MT-ES2L Motherboard -


4Gb (2x 2Gb) DDR3 1333MHz Memory Bundle BU001E


For about £132.95.

This is my current spec:

<<< System Summary >>>
> Manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard Company
> Mainboard : Hewleet-Packard Asterope
> Chipset : ATI RS400/RC400/RC410
> Processor : Intel Pentium 4 524 @ 3066MHz
> Physical Memory : 2048MB (2 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )
> Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series
> Hard Disk : Maxtor 6V160E0 (160GB)
> Hard Disk : Seagate ST3250823AS (250GB)
> DVD-Rom Drive : Toshiba-Samsung CD/DVDW TS-H552D
> Monitor Type : Hewlett Packard HP vs17 - 17 inches
> Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8139/810x Fast Ethernet Adapter
> Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.01.2600 Service Pack 2 (32-bit)
> DirectX : Version 9.0c (May 2010)

I might pay another forty quid and throw a 1TB SATAII HD and SATA power cable and data cable in there as well. After that, I think really it's just a little upgrade on the graphics card front, I'm looking at a HD5570 and mulling it over. It might just do it.

Thoughts?

[the_tyrant]

bad choice, you might as well just get a better CPU
I mean you upgrade choice doesn't seem to be much better than what you have now

[Castout]

My suggestion is to save for a few months. I mean you're going to use the PC for years to come so saving up for a better PC would be worth the waiting and patience.

Get an i5 and a Gigabyte Ultra Durable series for durability and long usage life.

[Skybird]

I tend to agree with tyrant and Castout. The benefit you get from this upgrade plan imo does not justify the costs, however small they are.

Save some months like I just did, and then dare a bigger jump.

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Thoughts?

if it where me?
I would as said above, save up money....put money aside with each paycheck that makes it possible.
till you can buy components that upgrades your computer to a point that it can look foward in games to come instead of just today if you catch my drift.

HunterICX

[Oberon]

Makes sense. Well, if things go according to plan (which knowing British builders they won't) I'll have another month of good pay, maybe a month and a half and then things will go back to their old self.

[Arclight]

I'd look into more mainstream components as well. Say a P45 board instead of G41, for example. But yeah, more expensive.

[Oberon]

Well, my budget range is around the £250-300 mark, I don't really want to go over that because there will be many other things vying to take my money from me in the coming two months, the other halfs birthday for one thing. Hopefully though I'll get a bit more money in eleven days when I clock up another yearly milestone. I could possibly stretch to £400 but I'd want something for it, like a CPU, RAM and Mobo bundle.

Also, how easy are CPUs to install?

[Arclight]

Drop it in the slot, lock it, apply thermal paste and install cooler.

Not difficult; applying thermal stuff can be messy/tricky (just a really thin layer needed) and mounting the cooler can be finicky (damn you, LGA775!) but wouldn't say it's difficult.