Where to for this old system?

[scourge]

Question:
Is there a better CPU / vid card combo that I could go with in this system cheaply and notice a fairly significant upgrade? or is time for a new build?

Background:
Bought an Acer T180 in 2007 for $250 and have upgraded things slow and cheap over the years. The motherboard is some kind of MCP61 variant (Geforce 6100 AM2) that I've succesfully flashed an unlocked & modified Abit BIOS on and installed a $35 AMD X2 BE2400. I noticed that AMD cool&quiet would change the CPU multiplier from the standard 11.5x to 5x or 9x so I thought maybe I could fix it a 9x even though it's not an unlocked CPU and that worked so I changed my FSB to 275 FSB instead of the standard 200 FSB. And I run a 9x CPU multi for 2475MHz and I set the HT multi at 4x for 1100MHz. My Asus Geforce 9600 GSO (also $35) is clocked to 675/950/1725 from stock 550/800/1375. It's all rock solid, but is struggling with new games.

System:
Heavily modified Acer T180. (Only the mobo is the same and I flashed it)
Antec 430W Power Supply
Generic MCP61 (Geforce 6100 AM2) mobo unlocked to support FSB up to 300MHz.
4gig PC6400 RAM (495MHz vs. stock 400MHz)
Asus Geforce 9600GSO (675/950/1725 vs. stock 550/800/1375)
AMD X2 BE2400 (275x9=2475 vs. stock 200x11.5=2300)
WD Black 1TB
SB X-Fi
Generic ATSC tuner

[GroundZero3]

What games are you talking about? Your not gonna be able to do much with this box. It's it's age

[scourge]

Runs L4D2 and farcry2 fine, but gets laggy in Ghostbusters and I want to buy Starcraft2, but haven't bothered because I don't know how well it will run. Plus there's always a new FPS I want to play like Duke Nukem.

[electric]

you should have no problem installing and running SC2 but if your
going to play online forget it. you are going to lag like hell and be booted .

[MD1032]

You need a new computer, plain and simple. I bet you could build a non-overclocking computer for $500 that would be incomparable. Once you start messing with upgrading a CPU, it's almost guaranteed that everything or almost everything is going to have to be swapped out. At that point you might as well say to heck with it and build a new one.

I built a new computer for about $400 almost a year ago and it's still running my modern games like SC2 great because it has updated hardware (Core 2 Duo, not "new" or even "good" by today's standards) and an updated operating system (Windows 7 64-bit). I only spent $75 on a graphics card...that was more than enough to allow me to run most of my games on pretty high-end graphical settings. Today with the same cash you could do even better.

[scourge]

So upgrading to an AM3 Regor core chip (3.1GHz) and a Fermi based vid card wouldn't help? I think I could do both for <$150.

[ShyguyXPC]

Unless the Motherboard is capable of Running a Socket AM3 CPU, most likely not going to happen.

Most AM3 capable boards I've seen are at least a Geforce 6150 chipset board, have never seen a 6100 capable AM3 board.

as to a Fermi Card... Which one ALL the current Geforce GT/GTS/GTX 400 and 500 series are Fermi.

you could get a GT 430 which wouldn't be really any better than your current GSO aside from DX11 support.

So what Fermi were you thinking about?

Depending on what you have to spend, I'd consider a GTS 450 at least, and even look into a new more capable AM3 Motherboard with DDR2 support, an AM3 Regor Dual core at 3Ghz or so doesn't cost a whole lot either.


is your 4GB of RAM 2 or 4 Sticks?

[scourge]

Right now, my 4gb is a 4x1 configuration, but should support 2gb chips in this mobo so 6gb or 8gb is possible. Bios Mods - The Best BIOS Update and Modification Source is where I got the unlocked Abit BIOS that I force flashed over the standard Acer T180 BIOS says the board will support PhenomI or II chips with this BIOS per the info located:

Bios Mods - The Best BIOS Update and Modification Source

OR HERE:

HP MCP61PM-HM (Nettle2) 5.27 With Unlocked Overclocking Options

And yes, was looking for deals on GTS 450.

[ShyguyXPC]

reason I asked about the RAM was that most of the cheap affordable AM3 Socket capable boards that still support DDR2 are Dual slot boards, so if you had 4 slots used, only half the RAM would work.

Honestly rather than messing with modified BIOS', I'd just get a newer Socket AM3 board, with CPU, DDR3 and a GTS 450.

Maybe even a decent case just to transplant everything in (more or less a new system and use half of your current extras in it HDDs, DVD Drives, PSU, etc)

for less than $325 after shipping (even less after rebates)

CPU Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ADX250OCGMBOX

Mobo Newegg.com - BIOSTAR A870U3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb&#47;s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

RAM Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS 4GB &#40;2 x 2GB&#41; 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 &#40;PC3 12800&#41; Desktop Memory Model CMX4GX3M2B1600C9

GPU Newegg.com - ZOTAC AMP&#33; ZT-40502-10L GeForce GTS 450 &#40;Fermi&#41; 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Case Newegg.com - Sentey Black Box Series BX2-4292 v2.1 Mid Tower Computer Case &#47; HD Audio &#47; SECC 0.7mm &#47; 4x USB &#47;E-Sata &#47; 4x 120mm Fans &#40;&#43; 3 Optional&#41; &#47; HD CAGE &#47; ATX-MATX-ITX


Anywhere from $15-50 for a New aftermarket CPU cooler if you want to throw one on for OCing, if you feel you need it.

But Migrate over all your current Drives, Cards, and OS (not sure if your running Vista, or Win7 or what, but if you needed a new OS, an OEM Win 7 64-bit costs about $100)