hiya

I got a credit note for a small computer shop and i might be visitng this shop soon. (its far from where i live..long story)

so i was thinking i might aswell just...use it up as its been siting on my desk for about 2-3 months doing nothing.

So i got a £75 budget on anything, (only problem is shop prices tend to be more than net prices + limited stock)

my computer at the moment aint great.

i got:

QDI K7b Mobo (supports up to 1.4ghz Thunderbird)
Duron 1.2ghz (clocked to 1308mhz)
256mb Sdram (128 X 2)
Saphire 9200se 128mb
80gig Harddrive
CD-RW
DVD-Rom

as you can see its an old PC so i wonna use this credit note to upg something.

I was thinking of a better CPU but Mobo only supports up to 1.4ghz thunderbird whcih i doubt they will have in stock and im unsure of price also would it be much faster?

Ram would also be a good choice, the mobo has 3 ram slots so i could get a 512mb/256mb stick depending on price

I would like to get a better graphics card but last time i went there a FX5200 was £75 so its a bit pricy there and i dont think i can get a better card than i got for £75



What would you do? as its like £75 lying on my desk that aint doing anything!

I suppose i could buy summit like a mouse + keyboard or printer or summit or maybe a new cheap moniter? (i dont need a sound card or speakers)

hmmmmmm descisioNs!

how about a dvd writer?

how bout this:
ASROCK K7S8X-E ~£30.00
1.8Ghz duron ~£28
256 MB DDR333 PC2700 ~ £25

with that memory you should be able to get to 2.2+ghz with a good cooler

I think a new mother board and processor. (mind you you may need to spend a little on RAM)
AMD 2400 + PC chips chep as chips mobo. that about £70
anyway, why the credit note? I may be able to secure you soem cash form it, but it depends on the reason you got it in the first place. Pm if you want..

yeah, i was thinking of getting a new mobo and procssor, or ram

but the problem is the shop is a small retail shop and is expensive because they charge shop overhead pricves on their items!

i would say, save your money and add more bucks in few months and get 2500+, with any NF2 400U mobo, people here are planning to change to 939sock with 64bit processor and still you want old xp's or duron's?

im buying a new computer soon (amd 64) and this computer is gonna go to my sister.

so i was gonna buy some cheap upg for it to boost performance.

Ah, if its going to your sister, get a new mouse and keyboard for yourself.

im going to this shop tommmorow and i really dunno what to get,

please help

Cheapest and most efficient performance booster for ANY PC is ram - upgrade it to 1GB of Sdram and she'll love you - the processor's fine and with a lump of ram hookedup to your HDD - she'll be laughin'!

Good luck

Ecosse.

I would upgrade the processor and therefore motherboard. The problem is, it will probably require DDR RAM, not SDRAM, so you may have to buy some DDR RAM out of your own pocket and spend the £75 on an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ and an Abit NF-7 V2.0. That will probably use your £75 up. Then spend your money on a single DIMM of PC2100 DDR266, probably 256MB, which you should be able to get for about £20. This represents the best performance boost for the best value. Trust me, I looked to build a new system for about 6 months before I built mine, so I know what represents good value for money. Do not just upgrade your RAM, because it will not provide such a huge performance boost as stated above by Ecosse. If you do, you will still suffer the bottlenecks because of the RAM type and processor.

Or I would do what Josh said, its good advice, take it.

Or, buy something you know will be easy to sell, sell it on and put the money towards you new system.