A little help telling me how bad this computer is?

[McPimp]

Long story short, my uncle built me a computer about a year ago, and he finally got around to sending it last saturday.  The specs are as such.

> Motherboard - ASUS A8V-VM SE
> Processor - AMD 4200 X2 Dual Core
> Video Card - PNY Nvidia 7300GT
> Memory - 1GB PQI PC3200 Turbo Memory

I thought it sounded good at first, but after doing a little research, it seems like maybe it aint so great. My current computer (broken) has stock Dell 4600 mobo and processor, 2.8ghz, with 2gbs ram, and the best AGP card I could get.

It could run Crysis smooth on low settings, and Bioshock smooth on medium, so it wasn't so bad.

So I was curious, is this new computer a piece of junk that's gonna cost me a couple hundred bucks to upgrade myself?

I'm not looking for a world beater, I was just wondering if this computer would be at least equal to the Dell I had. 

[JJ 3000]

Well, if you are lucky you will be able to add the RAM from your old computer to the new one. And if your motherboard has an AGP slot you can swap in the old video card too. Go to the motherboard manufacturers website and find the manual to see if your old RAM sticks will work.

[Aegis]

I haven't looked up the individual components, but only thing that jumps out is the 1 gigabyte of RAM.

Have you tried the computer?

[McPimp]

I didn't think about adding the AGP from the old to the new, but maybe I'll do that.  The problem with adding the ram is there's only 2 slots on this new one.  I got 4 512's in the Dell, so it wouldn't help. 

I haven't tried the computer yet, I should receive it in about 5 days or so. 

Like I said, if it was at least equal to that Dell I had it wouldn't be so bad.  But If I have to spend a lot of money upgrading it, I'll be very disappointed.

[Calum]

If you had the best AGP card (the 3850) then this new computer will probably suck at gaming compared to your old one.  What card did you actually have?
The CPU on the new one is much faster though.
I would recommend a new graphics card for a start - the 7300GT was a great budget card but it won't cut it with recent games.

[McPimp]

Well I actually had a Nvidia 7600, so I guess it wasn't the best AGP card, but it was pretty good.  Yeah I read the video card was pretty bad, but I also read that the mobo was even worse and horrible for gaming.  So I figured I'd need to start off with that.

[Dias de verano]

So I was curious, is this new computer a piece of junk that's gonna cost me a couple hundred bucks to upgrade myself?

Is this a gift from your uncle? If it is, I'm sorry, but you sound like an ungrateful brat. Even if it does cost you a "couple of hundred bucks" to turn it into the kind of machine that (sound like) 14 year olds boast about to their school friends, then you got that grade of machine for $200. Not a bad deal. Sorry if I got it wrong, but that's how it came across.

[McPimp]

haha, trust me, I'm very grateful for this.  I've thanked him multiple times and realize this is a great bargain for me.  I guess I just thought I was getting something better, so I'm a bit disappointed.  I've been patiently waiting for about a year and a half for this thing, so I kinda had my hopes up. 

I'm 22, and have no friends who would give a crap how great my computer is.  I've been using that old cruddy Dell for 5 years so I'm definitely not the computer bragging type.  I apologize if I came off the wrong way, I guess I should have used a nicer word.

Like I said, I'm just trying to turn this thing into something a little better, so I could finally have a above average computer for once. 

[Dias de verano]

IMHO you have nothing to be disappointed in. What makes a computer "better"? You say you are not the "computer boasting type", but using words like "better" about computers makes me think you may have a touch of that disease. You are 22, get a job and buy a "good" computer yourself.

[McPimp]

Ok mate you win.  Sorry if I came off the wrong way.  Guess I'll search for help somewhere else.

[BC_Programmer]

It that computer is a piece of crap, what is my 350 Mhz AMD K6-2. Ahh so many memories, trying to force it play games, having to set process priorities for some games to get a decent framerate, then having the game crash and not be able to get back to the desktop thanks to the priority, Blue screens with any MIDI file.

I used that for seven years and only for the last two did I think I needed a new computer (mainly motivated by Visual Studio 2005). So then I got another "piece of junk" a Dell 4400.

This is all relative, I mean I paid almost 100 dollars for what I THOUGHT was at least a 500 mhz P2, but I start it up, and it turns out to be a crappy cyrixM-II. great, just what I need, a processor from a non-existent vendor.

If I had a computer like that, my first upgrade would be memory, and then Video card- all the games I play are much older and run in the high hundred FPS (FitzQuake,Quake 2, Doom legacy,JDoom duke3d....) so a newer Graphics card would only help with some of my newer games.

[Dias de verano]

OK maybe I came on a bit hard there, but you do not say what it is that you want to do, that your machine doesn't do very well. Without reference to that, you just sounded like you were drooling over spec sheets.

What I mean to say is that everybody's idea of what makes a "good" computer is different. I don't play --any-- games. Never have. Even so I do a bit of video encoding and it would be nice if it was -say- twice as fast as it is now. However I have a 3 GHz Pentium 4 Prescott core cpu so I am going to have to spend a lot of money to get a 2x speed improvement I think.

My idea of a "fabulous" machine would be a latest-model 3 Ghz plus quad core cpu, 4 GB or more of fast RAM, a Blu-ray burner, 2 x 1TB RAID hard drives, a 22 inch or bigger monitor, and a "stone dog" would be a 750 MHz AMD Duron with 256 MB of RAM, 20 GB hard drive, a 14 inch CRT monitor, and no burner.

I could probably make some use of a machine that fell in between those extremes, especially if it was nearer the top than the bottom.

[McPimp]

Well like I said, I might have used the wrong words to describe it.  I'm happy that I got this computer for free, but since I use my computer a lot to play some newer games, I am going to need to upgrade it to make that possible. 

Like I said, I got about 200 dollars to spend and I was wondering what kind of upgrades should I give this thing so that it could run the newest games at a respectable speed.  I don't mean maxing out Crysis or anything, but at least being able to run it on medium would be nice.  Because that Dell I had could at least run Crysis on low, and I'd like to upgrade to something that would be a little better than that. 

I'm willing to upgrade one part at a time also.  So if I need to buy a $180 motherboard first and foremost, than I'll do that, then wait to upgrade the other parts once I get some more money. 

Hopefully that makes things a little more clearer.

[Calum]

My advice to you would be to spend that $200 on a decent graphics card.
To upgrade the CPU, RAM or motherboard you will need all three at once - you have a socket 939 motherboard and CPU with DDR RAM, whereas the new boards use S775 or AM2/+ and DDR2/3 RAM.
Use the cash on a new GPU, which is the bottleneck in your system, and then if you're still not satisfied, save up and upgrade the rest of your system.
Here are three GPUS, ranked in order from lowest price/lowest performance to highest price/best performance.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127362
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102747
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133219

The first has the best price/performance ratio, and the last requires a lot of space for cooling, but is definitely the fastest.
My own choice would be the 9600GT, and then save the extra cash for future upgrades.
Hope this helps.

[McPimp]

Ok, if you say a new video card will make the biggest difference, then that's what I'll go for.  I appreciate the links and the help.