My computer is about 3 or 4 years old now and it is windows Vista. My computer already has 1 graphics card (crappy one) and my computer broke down once and has since had a new motherboard installed. I want to be able to play Guild Wars 2 on ~medium settings (doesn't have to be max) and play it well even if there are 50 or so people on the screen at once. As of now my computer can just barely play it with even 4 people on screen... These are my specs:

 

So if I was to go into a store to buy parts to upgrade my computer, what should I say exactly that I need? And roughly how much would it cost? I have a friend who knows how to actually put the pieces in and my computer does have a second card slot. (I remember from the last time my friend helped me with the 1st graphic s card)

You could look into unlocking the 4th core on you processor, not sure if your MB supports it though, I'll have a look later when I'm less busy. Also overclocking it will help.

As for a graphics card what PSU do you have?

And how much RAM?

How much money are you willing to spend? Your current system is a bit outdated and that Nvidia chipset motherboard from asrock isnt any good.

I would currently buy:

 

i5-3570k 250$

cheapeast z77 mobo ~100$

amd hd 7750/7770 150-200$

any 8gb ddr3 ram kit ~50$ max

 

That would be the optimal price/performance system available at the moment in my view. Also you didn't state which graphics adapter you have and your PSU model is also unknown. You can get your gfx status from GPUZ utility, download from techpowerup.com.

That sounds a little overkill isn't it? lol

I hate computer gaming because consoles are so much easier and the only PC games I'm even going to be playing are Guild Wars 2 and the upcomming Dark Souls for PC. I was thinking $200 max if that's possible. (Would prefer lower)

 

My ram is 2.0 GB. I know, that's terrible.

I don't know how to find what my PSU is.

When is dark souls coming for PC? Just heard about it today from a friend, looks like im going to buy it. Also, Micro Center has the i5 3570k for 190 instead of 250

I think Dark Souls is comming August 24th. I played 250 hours on it for PS3. :P

Without spending too much you'd get the most benefit from buying more memory, 4GB should do, and a better graphics card (we would need the amount of wattage your PSU puts out). Check the picture below to see. To find what your PSU is just open up the case and take a look at the metal box in the corner of your tower with a lot of wires coming out of it, it should say how many watts in small or large writing.

 

Also try to see if you could work in some overclocking on your processor or ram for an extra boost, your motherboard supports it so take advantage of that.

 

Without spending too much you'd get the most benefit from buying more memory, 4GB should do, and a better graphics card (we would need the amount of wattage your PSU puts out). Check the picture below to see. To find what your PSU is just open up the case and take a look at the metal box in the corner of your tower with a lot of wires coming out of it, it should say how many watts in small or large writing.

 

Also try to see if you could work in some overclocking on your processor or ram for an extra boost, your motherboard supports it so take advantage of that.

 

 

It didn't say PSU anywhere but it said a bunch of this stuff:

 

Max Power 300W

The Combine Power On +3.3V & +5V TOTAL 150W Max

The Combine Power On +3.3V & +5V +12v1 & +12v2 TOTAL 285W Max

 

When you say better graphics card, do you mean remove my current one completely and buy a newer, better one? Or just buy a 2nd one to go with it?

It didn't say PSU anywhere but it said a bunch of this stuff:

 

Max Power 300W

The Combine Power On +3.3V & +5V TOTAL 150W Max

The Combine Power On +3.3V & +5V +12v1 & +12v2 TOTAL 285W Max

 

When you say better graphics card, do you mean remove my current one completely and buy a newer, better one? Or just buy a 2nd one to go with it?

 

That means you have a 300W (Watt) PSU, therefore all your components in the computer have to equal to 300watts or less to run otherwise there won't be enough juice to power your system. You should post all your computers specs, the easiest way to do this is to download a program called Speccy and paste what it says there.

 

When I say better graphics card I mean that you should have to buy a new, more powerful, graphics card to replace your current *crappy* one. With your motherboard a Asrocker N68-s, it is not possible to run two graphic cards at once because it only has one slot to put in a card. Letting us know your budget for upgrading would help, lets us narrow down what would be most cost-efficient for you :thumbup:

Operating System

MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2

CPU

AMD Phenom X3 8400 75 °C

Toliman 65nm Technology

RAM

2.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 267MHz (4-4-4-12)

Motherboard

ASRock N68-S (CPUSocket) 85 °C

Graphics

AL2016W (1680x1050@59Hz)

256MB GeForce 8400 GS (ASUStek Computer Inc) 52 °C

Hard Drives

313GB Western Digital WDC WD32 00AAJS-22VWA SCSI Disk Device (ATA)

Optical Drives

Optiarc DVD RW AD-7203A ATA Device

Audio

VIA High Definition Audio

 

 

The minimum specs for Guild Wars 2 are:

Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better

Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon 64 X2 or better

NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI Radeon X1800, Intel HD 3000 or better (256MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)

25 GB available HDD space

Broadband Internet connection

Keyboard and mouse

 

My maximum budget would be $200 although I'd prefer less. I know my computer sucks and is outdated so I'd rather not spend a fortune. I do want to play Guild Wars 2 though... so let me know what's what. :) Guild Wars 2 has a world vs world pvp where up to ~500 players can play at once, so it's possible to get quite a lot of players on screen at once in some situations.

Memory

Lets start first with memory, because using windows 7/vista 2GB is not going to cut it - especially for gaming. I would highly recommend that you upgrade to 4 GB of memory, but unfortunately since your motherboard only has 2 DDR2 DIMM slots you will need to buy a 2x2gb kit to replace your current 2x1gb (and you wouldn't be able to use your current 2gb). Now to buy this you have two options, DDR2 is expensive because it is now obsolete because of DDR3 (and no you cannot use DDR3) so you could buy the memory used which would be cheaper or you can buy it new but at least you'd have warranty if anything goes wrong.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122 Lifetime warranty from G Skill

 

Video Card

I'm sure anything you buy now would be a major improvement over what you have now lol. Considering that you have a 300 Watt power supply, we are going to have to look at mid range cards that hopefully won't take up too much power. If we were to buy a higher tier card then we would probably have to upgrade that PSU, which at this point would kind of be wasting money unless you bought a completely new system. These cards are generally low power consumption, I'd appreciate a second opinion on this part if 300 W would be enough for this. I would recommend the following cards

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=14-162-067&SortField=0&SummaryType=2&Pagesize=100&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1#scrollFullInfo GeForce GT 430 (Fermi)

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Galaxy-Technology-GeForce-GT240-1GB-GDDR3-PCIe-2-0-Video-Graphics-Card-/220939117951?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3370ff657f GeForce GT240

 

Important: after seeing your Speccy report i'm worried about the temperature inside your case. Without running any programs, run Speccy again and post your results again, your CPU is shown running at 75C which is pretty hot (this would be even more alarming if that was the temperature idle). Necessary action should be taken like cleaning out your computer and making sure there isn't any dust, adding more fans, and possibly replacing the thermal paste on your CPU.

To be honest I'd got with a CPU/MB overhall as spending money on DDR2 RAM is not worth it and any worthwhile GPU upgrade is going to need a new PSU which is impossible with 200$.

i3 vs Phenom x3

 

Then when you can get a new PSU + GPU (and possibly case).

Also download realtemp and see how high you CPU is getting, 70+ is worrying for idle.

How exactly do you clean out the dust? There was 4 years worth of dust in there and I was like, wow, when I opened it. So what's the trick to clean it? And I'm not sure about thermal paste, I've never heard about it before but I did google it. Not sure if my computer ever even had any before.

Compressed air is best, hoover if you're careful. Anything that doesnt create static really.

Thermal paste sits between the CPU and the heatsink, it'll have been applied when you bought the PC but it can ocasionaly dry out and stop heat being dispersed properly. There are plenty of guides on how to replace it.

Then again if the computer has 4 years worth of dust in it, chances are the thermal paste is still good if the computer wasn't overheating.

Compressed air is best, hoover if you're careful. Anything that doesnt create static really.

Thermal paste sits between the CPU and the heatsink, it'll have been applied when you bought the PC but it can ocasionaly dry out and stop heat being dispersed properly. There are plenty of guides on how to replace it.

 

 

Ok I'll clean it and then upload another Speccy. Guess it's a good thing I didn't opt to use my swiffer duster lol.

Good luck

That's better, lol.

 

Operating System

MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2

CPU

AMD Phenom X3 8400 23 °C

Toliman 65nm Technology

RAM

2.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 267MHz (4-4-4-12)

Motherboard

ASRock N68-S (CPUSocket) 39 °C

Graphics

AL2016W (1680x1050@59Hz)

256MB GeForce 8400 GS (ASUStek Computer Inc) 51 °C

Hard Drives

313GB Western Digital WDC WD32 00AAJS-22VWA SCSI Disk Device (ATA)

Optical Drives

Optiarc DVD RW AD-7203A ATA Device

Audio

VIA High Definition Audio

 

What a difference lol. :lol:

I cringed at the image of how dusty that heat sink and fan must have been to drop down the CPU temp 52°C

I can't see the image, can anyone reupload and repost it?

I can't see the image, can anyone reupload and repost it?

 

He meant mental image.

Ok, I thought it was the image I see as "Posted Image" LOL.