(02-12-2014, 11:59 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: I wouldn't be so sure about the PSU if it's that old. What model does it have?He has the RAIDMAX HYBRID 2 RX-730SS
Quote:And does the DVD burner support SATA? Probably not.Yes in fact, it is an SATA DVD burner. The hardware he has is old, but not completely outdated. It's a ASRock N68-S UCC, so obviously he's still using older DDR2 memory, running a Western Digital 1 terabyte HDD. What I'll more then likely do, is just go with a 64 gig SSD for the OS to boot off of and reuse the HDD. The Pentium g3220 just seems a tad weak, I'll more then likely plan on an i5. As for going over budget, no big deal, I was planning on just building him a whole new setup and plunk down almost a grand, but thought... eh.. think I'll think this upgrade through a bit first.
Most modern motherboards don't have IDE ports anymore.
$90 will get you a samsung 840 evo 120GB SSD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147247
$100 will get you the MSI G43 Z87 motherboard that admin was talking about: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130706
$85 will get you 8GB (2 x 4GB) of DDR3 1600 MHz ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
$70 will get you the Pentium G3220 CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116950
That's $345. Leaving you $150 for the graphics card.
The AMD R7 260X is a good option for that price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125486
Your other option is to keep the current graphics card and use the extra money on a better cpu. This will yield better performance and will enable you to play more games but will force you to use a lower resolution (the equivalent of 720p instead of 1080p + AA) and some games will run fullspeed either way. Just with better image quality on the system with the better GPU. If you did this the best cpu you could afford would be the i5 4570. The best possible cpu for dolphin right now is the i5 4670K, which would put you $20 over budget. When paired with a good $35 cooler and overclocked to 4.2GHz it would be the perfect machine for dolphin. But that would put you $55 over budget. Pair that with an R7 260X and you would have the best of both worlds. But that would put you $205 over budget. I leave the choice up to you.
I upgrade my own personal PC about once a year, and OF COURSE put ALOT more cash into it then what I do my kid's PCs. I was planning on handing down the GTX 550 Ti off to my daughter and get my son something more beefier.
He's suffered enough with that old Athlon X2/DDR2/HDD combo. His little sister got the A-6 AMD upgrade last year with 8 gigs RAM and an SSD (onboard video). She loves nothing better then tease him about how much faster her computer is then his.. She'll do things like say "LET'S SEE WHO BOOTS FIRST", then she'll push his power button and stretch out a bit, slowly walk to her room, then hit the power button on hers and scream "DONE"... OOHH he hates that!! So yeah, now it's HIS turn for the upgrade. He's been begging me for months!!