About Derik Hinz Expertise I can answer your questions regarding when, what, where and why to upgrade your computer.
I have hundreds of AMD and Intel builds to my credit and 10 years of experience. A+ certified, Microsoft Certified Professional, Applications Developer, Systems Administrator, Database Administrator, Technology Specialist (SQL Server 2005) and IT Professional (DBA).
I am very knowledge about common problems associated with builds as well as what brands of hardware are appropriate for the job. I am very familiar w/ all MS OS including server level.
Experience I used to teach high school science and I have a MS in Higher Education Administration. 10 years and hundreds of builds under my belt. 7 years of computer programming and consulting behind me. Only TWO tests short of Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.
Question I have a gateway desktop computer. It is now about 6 years old
and starting to seem like we are going to have to ditch it or
upgrade it (it won't play the new games). We have upgraded the
video card but are thinking we need to upgrade the cpu and the
motherboard as well. Its a 1.5 ghz processor currently. We have
heard that gateway uses good parts in their computers, so we
would like to keep the power supply and the hard drive. Our
goal is to have a great computer that can play any of the latest
games, while saving money over buying a whole new computer.
(our monitor is just fine). Please let me know of any
recomendations you have for what to upgrade, and what brands
or specific parts to upgrade it with. thanks a lot,
bryan
Answer Hi Bryan;
While your upgrade plan seems sound on the surface it will probably not work :( The problem is that GW and other big vendors like Dell use custom cases and power supply connections that don't usually accept the standard ATX motherboard. In my experience, a standard board rarely fits into the GW chassis and even if you are lucky enough to get one into the case, the existing power supply and on/off switches don't fit. My suggestion to you would be to not upgrade but, rather start from scratch - perhaps pull some components from your old box for the new one.
To build new you will need:
1) ATX case
2) ATX Power Supply (PSU) 400W or above - 500W if you have the high end graphics card
3) ATX motherboard
4) cpu + fan/heatsink
5) optical drive = CD or DVD
6) RAM
7) Hard drive
8) Video card
9) keyboard + mouse + speakers
10) monitor
11) operating system
I'm a BIG fan of cases and power supplies from ANTEC - they have never let me down. Your choice of motherboard depends on cpu - NForce4 Ultra or SLI for AMD based or i955X for Intel based. Your video card should be PCI-Express and be either gForce 6600GT or above or ATI X850XT or above. For a hard drive I suggest any SATA II that is 7,200 w/ an 8MB or above buffer. I've had nothing but luck with Western Digital.
That's a lot of information to digest. I suggest you read that article and swing by www.newegg.com Newegg is a very large vendor w/ a great catelouge. Take a look at parts/prices/reviews and get an idea of what you might be interested in. Once you've done that, send me another question w/ some specifics and we can go from there.
