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Support / Best course of action?
« on: June 28, 2013, 03:28:56 pm »
Alright, nerds, I need your brain power.
For the most part, I can hold my own when it comes to tech, but I'm not above asking for second (and third) opinions. With computer building, there are usually a dozen different roads to the same place. So here I am.
I built this bad boy (his name is Seamus) over 4 years ago, and until this year, was able to run anything I wanted on highest graphics without breaking a sweat. But Seamus is starting to feel his age, and with some of the new(ish) games (SWTOR for one, the new Final Fantasy for another), he's starting to burn pretty hot (you can hear the video card's fan working overtime).
I would really love to throw together a shiny new rig, but what I want is not in the budget right now. I'm definitely saving for it, but at the moment, I want to make what I have work for at least the rest of the year.
Below is my current set up. What I'm asking: What's the best course of action to get Seamus at least back in the game with the least input cost?
**GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+ Motherboard (Link)
**AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.7 GHz Dual-Core Processor (Link)
**GE Force 9800 GT Video Card (Link)
**Power Supply is built into the case (Link)
**160 GB Hard Drive (Will be getting a 500GB from a friend)
**2GB DDR2 240pin RAM (Have 2 sticks of 4GB that won't take, I get one long beep for a video card error, but mobo has no onboard video so I can't bypass)
**Windows XP (Will be getting Windows 7 shortly)
For the most part, I can hold my own when it comes to tech, but I'm not above asking for second (and third) opinions. With computer building, there are usually a dozen different roads to the same place. So here I am.
I built this bad boy (his name is Seamus) over 4 years ago, and until this year, was able to run anything I wanted on highest graphics without breaking a sweat. But Seamus is starting to feel his age, and with some of the new(ish) games (SWTOR for one, the new Final Fantasy for another), he's starting to burn pretty hot (you can hear the video card's fan working overtime).
I would really love to throw together a shiny new rig, but what I want is not in the budget right now. I'm definitely saving for it, but at the moment, I want to make what I have work for at least the rest of the year.
Below is my current set up. What I'm asking: What's the best course of action to get Seamus at least back in the game with the least input cost?
**GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+ Motherboard (Link)
**AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.7 GHz Dual-Core Processor (Link)
**GE Force 9800 GT Video Card (Link)
**Power Supply is built into the case (Link)
**160 GB Hard Drive (Will be getting a 500GB from a friend)
**2GB DDR2 240pin RAM (Have 2 sticks of 4GB that won't take, I get one long beep for a video card error, but mobo has no onboard video so I can't bypass)
**Windows XP (Will be getting Windows 7 shortly)