Linda Morgan74 said:An overclocked Q6600 is barely even faster than my G1840... and you can pick one of those up for $90 bucks. Honestly, you might want to think twice before jumping into a Q6600OC upgrade... especially since the condition of that motherboard is super sketchy. Age really does play tricks on hardware.
I was stuck in the exact same spot once. I was running an E7200, but I ended up selling everything off to switch over to a G1840, and man, I have zero regrets about it.
Agreed, better to ditch a decade-old platform entirely rather than sink more money into it.
That Celeron was pretty garbage even when it was brand new, so I guess it’s even worse now that it’s basically ancient history 😁 At least dual-core processors are the bare minimum if you want anything to run smoothly.
Also, 1GB of RAM just isn't cutting it anymore; modern apps eat up way too much memory (even just a browser or basic websites).
Since that motherboard won't support any dual-core CPUs, upgrading probably doesn't make much sense.
You could check the hard drive like they suggested, or maybe just roll back to something like Windows XP or a lightweight Linux build to squeeze a bit more life out of it, but eventually, you're probably gonna need to buy something newer anyway.
If you're looking to pick up any hardware, just drop the whole Intel vs AMD and Nvidia vs ATI debate right now. Just buy whatever gives you the most bang for your buck based on what you were planning to spend.
A few weeks back, Nvidia and AMD rolled out their latest cards—Nvidia dropped the 1080 and 1070, while AMD brought out the RX 470. So, we're looking at Nvidia's 10 series and AMD's 4 series as the current heavy hitters.
Right now, these cards sit in the high-end tier, or maybe just upper mid-range if we're talking about the AMD side. The RX 470 seems like it might have a great value proposition, but since it's brand new here in the States, prices are still pretty inflated (just like Nvidia and basically anything else that hits the shelves fresh).
Eventually, they’ll release some lower-end options from these series, prices will dip, and things will settle down. If you aren't in a huge rush, I guess it might be smarter to just wait a bit.
DirectX 12 is launching alongside these new series, and honestly, AMD seems to have a slight edge there for the time being. As for drivers, AMD has actually stepped up their game lately; they're releasing updates more often and they're becoming decent enough. You probably don't need to lose sleep over 4K yet either, because it'll likely be another few years before that really becomes a mainstream thing.
Skylake handles HEVC hardware decoding, so you probably don't even need a dedicated GPU. From what I've been reading online, it seems to work pretty smoothly:
Nah, you'll have plenty of room and decent airflow in that case. The i5 doesn't pull much power and stays pretty cool, so I guess the stock cooler should be fine enough.
@Paul Thompson37/">@@Paul Thompson37 if I were you, I'd just grab that NVIDIA GT 730. You can find a brand new one with a warranty for basically nothing, even if it's way weaker than the 560. If you go used, you're stuck with zero protection, but this way you get a decent card and at least a few months of peace of mind with that warranty.
@Paul Thompson37/">@@Paul Thompson37 anything that puts an image on the screen works, though integrated graphics might do the trick if you're lucky. If you’re thinking about stepping it up a bit so you can actually run some games—I guess it depends on what kind of budget we're talking about, and whether you want to go new or scavenge for used parts.
Yeah, the real headache starts when those capacitors lose their capacity and the voltage goes all wonky. You usually see it most with CD/DVD drives—they start acting glitchy and resetting constantly—and I've definitely noticed disks getting hit with bad sectors when that happens. What leaked out is probably just electrolyte; if something actually cracked, it likely wouldn't even turn on. I'd say just retire that thing ASAP...
If you have a buddy who knows his way around a soldering iron, he could probably swap out all those capacitors for maybe $8. Then you might actually be able to limp along with that Fortron unit for a bit longer—assuming it even turns on anymore, I guess.
I don't know, smells like a dying power supply to me if it’s an older unit. Capacitors tend to lose their juice over time, which leads to this kind of nonsense (happened to me a few times, actually). Especially since you mentioned it gets more stable the longer it runs—that's a classic sign of a capacitor heating up and temporarily regaining some capacity. Maybe try swapping in a different PSU, or you could just crack this one open and see if any capacitors look bloated.
Is that EVGA unit actually new? That power supply is at least 8 years old 😁 I have no idea where you found it listed as new... It’s a decent enough unit, I guess, but if it's been sitting around for that many years (and used), the capacitors inside might be pretty much shot by now.
wiredotter14 said:fadedorca66, the jump from 4 to 8GB is basically doubling the capacity, so you'll see it. But going from 8 to 12? They won't feel a damn thing. Besides, this setup actually gives him proper dual channel instead of some weird "overflow" mess like he'd get otherwise.
So those $33 extra GBs are basically just... well, more memory. Maybe they won't feel it right now, but who knows what happens in a year or two? I guess it also sets them up better if they ever decide to bump it up to 16GB later on. Moving from single to dual channel isn't always a massive jump, but having more headroom might help eventually—or even just in a few specific games right now.
But hey, it's the OP's call, I was just throwing out an idea.
I say she should just toss in another 8GB stick and bump it up to 12GB. Having extra RAM never hurt anyone, I guess, and $33besides, memory is pretty cheap these days anyway . As for SanDisk or any other overpriced brand—it’ll probably work fine. Unless you just have terrible luck, 😁