How can I improve my PC?

[mmmurple]

It's coming up to my birthday and I though I would splash out on a little bit of TLC for my computer.
Not really looking to play new AAA titles but maybe being able to play something newer than Age of Empires would be a nice change.
Just wondering if any of you lovely people would be kind enough to suggest graphics cards or a new cpu that might be easy to switch in.
Budget of around £200
These are the specs for my Desktop:

Processor AMD Athlon(tm) Dual Core Processor 4450e
Memory (RAM) 3.00 GB
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 3450
Gaming graphics 1535 MB Total available graphics memory
Primary hard disk 278GB Free (453GB Total)

 

[JesterRaiin]

- There's advice forum full of similar topics.
- The information you provided isn't precise - for example RAM memory has its own speed. Also, mainboard ?
- You may want to look for this guy with fox in his avatar. Judging but what he says he knows pretty much about modern tech and prices.

 

[mmmurple]

So there is. Thanks, I've been on this site for years but not really used the forums that much. Will try and see if I have more success over there.
Cheers.

 

[number2301]

What motherboard and PSU have you got? Your CPU isn't great but is similar to mine and will just about do. Your graphics card is pathetic though. If you have a PCI-E slot as opposed to AGP I'd say upgrade that.

Depending on your motherboard and PSU, a GTX460 and a Phenom x4 should be doable for that price.

 

[mmmurple]

What motherboard and PSU have you got? Your CPU isn't great but is similar to mine and will just about do. Your graphics card is pathetic though. If you have a PCI-E slot as opposed to AGP I'd say upgrade that.

Depending on your motherboard and PSU, a GTX460 and a Phenom x4 should be doable for that price.

Yeah my Graphics Card is what's failing me. I bought the PC over a year ago and managed to haggle the price down to £220 including the monitor. I'm about ready to invest around the original cost of the computer in updating it.
Thanks for your advice.

 

[Laughing Man]

£220, reality check time, you will never be able to upgrade to the levels of kit that some folk are advising on that kind of budget.

Depending on your motherboard and PSU, a GTX460 and a Phenom x4 should be doable for that price.

The mobo will have a PCI-E slot on it as the 3450 is a PCI-E card, however to get a 460GTX up and running you will need to upgrade the PSU, their is no way the PSU you have just now will run a 460GTX, it's part of the last gen cards it was power hungry, noisy and produced a lot of heat and that's before you consider the fact that you will need to upgrade your CPU to prevent bottlenecking it.

A 6790 is a more realistic option, it is much more powerful than what you have but a lot less powerful than a 460GTX, giving away maybe 20FPS in some games, however it is also a lot less power hungry, so will require a smaller PSU and a less powerful CPU. If you were going to go for higher end GPU though the 560GTXTI can be had for £30 more than the 460GTX. The 560GTX is a developed version of the 460GTX so it is smaller, less power hungry, less noisy produces less heat and is a good deal more powerful.

The CPU AMD 4450e is a AM2socket processor part of the Athlon 2 series and using the Brisbane code name. The 4450e sits towards the lower end of the range. Ill be honest the only course I could see for the CPU would be to upgrade to a more powerful version of the same chip and Athlon 2 6000+ should set you back around 70 or so quid.

After that I would say upgrade your RAM to 4gig. 4gig of DDR2 ram, Crucial Ballistix Sport for example, can be picked up for around £50

PSU something like a Corsair Builder series 430W PSU can be had for £40. More than powerful enough and rock solid, My 540 Corsair unit has seen 3 PC builds over 4 years and is now powering my Core i5, 560GTX system without issue.