First time with a custom built computer

[MattsSoScene]

So one of my friends just moved away and he gave me his old comp which he built himself. I have never really built my own computer, or even upgraded one for that matter. I was hoping you nice people might be able to tell if A. the Computer I have is a good one, and B. what if any upgrades I should make to it. Here is what it has:

Motherboard - DFI LanParty pro875b
Sound card - Soundblaster SB0570
Graphics card - Radeon 9600se
Processor - Intel Pentium 4 2.80 ghz
200GB hard drive
2 256 mb stick of DDR ram


thanks for your help.

[quaxo]

Hmm, depends on what you want to do with it. If you just want to do productivity things (ex. surf the net, type, e-mail) then that isn't bad for that. If you're into gaming you'll probably find this system a little slow for newer games, but it will run most of them.

With regards to hardware for gaming:
Soundcard: The card you have is fine.

Graphics: The Radeon 9600se will still run most games, but it is getting a little outdated

Processor: Not bad, but not great. It meets the minimum requirements of most games, but there's not a lot of processing power behind that anymore.

Hard drive: Sufficient space for most people.

RAM: 512MB is just about sufficient to run most older games on XP, but anything newer isn't gonna run well.

[MattsSoScene]

Ok, cool *censored*. So it looks like I need more ram, better graphics card, and a better processor. Thanks for the advice.

[BC_Programmer]

if all he wanted to do was surf the net,type and e-mail he could use a 350Mhz computer. (now, I did say USE and not enjoy )

Also: I'm not sure myself, but I heard some bad things about the Radeon xxxxse cards... something about their GPU actually being from a previous generation...

isn't that SB0570 simply a "generic" type sound card? without any hardware acceleration?

I will give that computer this: it is better then mine. BLAST YOU!



I second quaxo's "kind of" recommendation for more memory. I'd aim for 1GB at least. (my thinkpad laptop has 8MB! yeah!)(not a typo, MB)

[quaxo]

That's an Audigy card with 7.1 surround based on what I looked up from that model number.

I had a Radeon 9600XT (not SE) for a long time and it was great. I don't know much about the SE models.

[homer]

the extra RAM you are wanting to buy will cost the about same as DDR2 RAM with significantly less performance, also your graphics card selection will be limited to AGP-style cards only. as for the processor, you are limited to the older socket 478 CPU's. because of the motherboard being the limiting factor, i suggest using it as is or getting a completely new computer. i do not recommend upgrading this one.

[BC_Programmer]

oh umm.... yeah! thats what I was about to say.

lol I thought that was what was listed in device manager- the SB0570. Like my old Sound card, Creative Sound Blaster PCI blah <random numbers>

I shouldn't really say I heard bad things about the cards themselves, more with the way they were marketed. basically ATI (this may or may not be true) took the GPU from the previous generations slapped it with the 9000 label, and SE to "differentiate it" as if keeping the 8000 moniker wouldn't serve that purpose.

Of course it's a good card.

Personally I'm not exactly money-concious with my computer upgrades, I had a AMD K6-2 350 Mhz for almost 6 years with XP pro and 512MB of ram and it ran quite good. I only have around 7 video cards that I bought for it, ended up not working, and I was too lazy to return (but I'm using one of them now! hoorah!).