I was asked if I could upgrade my uncle's computer for him about a week ago. What he gave me was basically a dinosaur of a computer that was (suprisingly) capable of running World of Warcraft on extremely-low graphics with around 20 FPS. I was asked if I could upgrade this computer, and I promised I would. I started by taking the 1GB of RAM and making it 4GB, but now I am in a tough situation. I would love to buy a Radeon graphics card along with an AMD processor, but I am usure whether or not a computer like this could handle such. (Since I promised I would do this, I would be embarresed to hand it back as it is rite now.) This computer was purchased 10 years ago and I will list the specs below.

 

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)

PROCESSOR: 3.0GHz Intel Pentium 4

165GB Hard Drive - 4GB RAM

SYSTEM MODEL: Intel Corporation

DISPLAY: Intel(R) 82915G Express Chipset Family

 

If you need more information please let me know.

And what would you reccomend me doing?

 

Thanks so much in advance,

 

Ryan

Slow (by today's standards) processor, PCIe 1.0 chipset, slow RAM capabilities...I wouldn't even bother with upgrading it because modern games, especially the inn efficient WoW, will max out that CPU long before the GPU. Also I'm guessing it is a prefab computer from Dell or another OEM so upgrading the CPU is not an option, and even if you could you would have to use an Intel from a long dead socket.

TL;DR Don't bother upgrading a Jurassic dinosaur to a Cretaceous dinosaur.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

Pop this in for $30, and it will run circles around that onboard intel VGA.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102933

Update WinXP SP3 while you are at it.

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an Alpha Geek @ AMD Processors Forums | 01/21/2006 | post count 3217

 

I'm downloading SP3 for him rite now, and are you positive I could put that in this comp? If so Ill pick it up for sure. Would it just replace that Intel chipset?

 

 

It's not a store baught computer, he got it custom build from a PC shop. Still very old though, and giving it back to him without doing some changes isn't an option, but I completely understand what you mean.

Go into BIOS and change the display adapter from IGP to PCIe and it'll run on a dedicated card. With a board that old, even though PCIe versions are backward compatible with older ones, there can be incompatibilities.

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Crosshair IV Formula, Phenom II x4 965 w/ Corsair H60, 8 GiB OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600, XFX HD 7970 Ghz, 512GB Vertex 4, 256GB Vector, 240GB Agility 3, Creative X-Fi Titanium w/ Creative Gigaworks S750, SeaSonic X750, HP ZR2440w, Win 7 Ultimate x64

What make/model motherboard ?.Go to website,updating mobo drivers & bios(not beta)would improve performance.Also info on compatible upgrades.could also try Intel driver update utility.  

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i5 3570k(@4.2)./ga-z77x-ud5h-wb./hyper T4./2 x 4gb vengeance 1600 c8./sapphire 7970 3gb OC/boost v2./barracuda 7200.12 6gb/s 1tb hdd./lg bh10 blu-ray r.w../corsair hx850./antec df30./z506 spkrs./lg e2240v./win 8 pro x64(oem).