upgradeing computer

I was thinking about upgrading my sister's pc for her b-day and have come to guru's of the Technicians Corner for support

Right now I have a AMD A64 4200+ AM2 Dual Core processor from my old comp I was gonna give her, but if you guys and girls could list some cheep ways of upgrading then it be much appreciative. I would like to note I don't want to build a machine that would run crysis at 60 fps but just an average fast computer that would help my sister do what she needs to do

Here are her PC Specs

Mainboard: Asus A7N8X-LA
Chipset: nVidia nForce 2 IGP
Processor: AMD Athlon XP @ 2083 MHz
Physical Memory : 1536 MB
Video Card: Nvidia Corp GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU
OS: Windows XP

I'd say.. go ahead and give her that processor, get her an 8600GT (IF that board has PCI express, it's about 130$ US). That should really be fine if she's not playing Crysis, and it won't break the bank.

She is till in the agp so that card isn't gonna work. Thanks for answering tho.

Ooh, I think you can get a 6800GT and that'd be alright for AGP. But if you upgrade to a PCI-Express x16 mobo for like 50-70$, pretty cheap, and then you can have that 8600GT. So you'll be sitting around 200$ now, which Isn't so bad considering that a lot of MP3 players nowdays cost 200-250+.

thanks for the input brianna I might just do that

How much are you willing to pay to upgrade her computer? It would really help us if you told us.

What Brianna said. But take into account that a 7900 or 7950 could stomp on an 8600 for the same price or less, but 7s don't support DX10. I'd recommend doing research on them because they have more ups and downs than what I've just said.

As for the CPU, I honestly would not know how an AMD 64 X2 +4200 performs because I've never owned an AMD processor of that sort... Get more opinions on the CPU.

Well I don't really know how much money I want to spend atm, I was just thinking a small tune up here and there wouldn't be to much. Had the processor just laying around so it should work wonders and then just a ram stick and a new graphics card. So I guess around $250 depending on what I'm after.

For a nice, cheap Guild Wars option, I'd go with this Radeon X1650 Pro AGP. They are going to be very similar, and pretty cheap. The giant cooler on this would be very quiet too (that's its whole purpose in life lol). It also won't use lots of power so you can run it with whatever power supply her comp has already.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161032

Your processor won't work on her motherboard. She has a Socket A (754), you have a Socket 939 or AM2 (depending on how old the processor is). If you plan to give her the processor, you'll need to pony up for a motherboard and probably a video card. However, if the Athlon 64 is of the socket 939 type, you'll be able to use the same memory. If not, you'll also need to get DDR2 memory. And probably a new power supply that has a 24-pin motherboard connetor.

The change from 754 to 939 was pretty major. Maybe it would be easier to get her a barebones computer and a new processor.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCateg...bone-Computers

Socket A is actually Socket 462. Socket 754 is the single-channel RAM socket for Athlon 64 CPUs. Socket 939 is dual-channel DDR1, while Socket AM2 is dual channel DDR2. Both for Athlon 64 CPUs.

She would need an Athlon XP CPU. I wouldn't bother upgrading the CPU at all. But a new vid card would do wonders for Guild Wars. Her current CPU is totally capable of this game and WoW, for example. The GeForce 4 MX IGP is what's holding her back. The vid card I linked to would be several times faster than a GF4 MX and have some nice new visual features to impress with.

The 1.5 GB of RAM she has is excellent too.

Thanks for the replies everyone

I find barebones more expensive than acauly buying the case,mobo and psu..