Decision suggestions needed: Looking to upgrade a computer part or maybe parts.

[benjamine6]

Okey, Today was my fifteenth birthday, And i have 50 bucks to spend of birthday money. I made up a choice of fate game or something like that you would call, And the choice i landed on was "Ultimate". So i would like to upgrade one of my computer parts for under 50 bucks. I'd appreciate it if i could get some suggestions on the part to upgrade.

 

SPECS

Windows 10 Insider Preview 10130

HARD DRIVE: 600 GB

RAM: 8GB (Upgradable to 16GB)

VIDEO CARD: Nvidia Geforce GT 440

MOTHERBOARD: Asrock M3A770DE

PROCESSOR: AMD Phenom II X3 B75 (With hidden fourth core unlocked)

 

So, Could i get atleast one of these specifications upgraded a little further for under 50 bucks? I prefer to look for my stuff on eBay, btw.

 

Thanks,

Benjamine6

[zhangm Supervisor]

Moved to Hardware Hangout.

[The Evil Overlord]

Your hardware is decent, I'd suggest an upgraded video card, but you most likely will not get one for that kind of money,

My advice, buy something for else for $50, Anything you like really.

 

 

A 3 gig tri (quad) core pc with 8gb ram and a gt440 will chug along quite nicely and even game (albeit, at lower settings)

[Praetor]

50 bucks to make an upgrade.... for what purpose?

 

that's good enough for Office and web surfing (does anybody still says web surfing this days?). For modern games, not so much.

[DevTech]

You could get an SSD drive of some sort for that money-a small drive could be used to store most used programs and page file or use it as boot drive for a 10147 clean install?

[benjamine6]

Well, I'll guess i'll hold off on upgrades till christmastime.

[trag3dy]

You didn't say what kind of peripherals you have. Maybe you could look into getting a new mouse or keyboard. Those are always fun.

[DevTech]

A GT 730 might be 50% faster for $50 which will not be noticed since it won't run much either.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500355

 

These guys have fun benchmarking the low end GPU's:

 

http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=94462

 

They benched the slower 2 gig 730, but not the faster 1 gig version, so in that sense you could have $50 worth of benchmark fun....

[Seahorsepip Veteran]

I also had a gt440, upgraded to gtx660 for 50bucks and never looked back at the gt440. Gta 5 runs waaaay smoother now.

A GT 730 might be 50% faster for $50 which will not be noticed since it won't run much either.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500355

 

These guys have fun benchmarking the low end GPU's:

 

http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=94462

 

They benched the slower 2 gig 730, but not the faster 1 gig version, so in that sense you could have $50 worth of benchmark fun....

never buy a 1gb videocard, you will always be low on video memory with the latest games. A videocard should have a minimum of 1.5gb of videomemory, 2gb is more then sufficient to play things on high settings and 3gb or even 4gb is kinda overkill depending on your screen resolution and the games you play.

[DevTech]

I also had a gt440, upgraded to gtx660 for 50bucks and never looked back at the gt440. Gta 5 runs waaaay smoother now.

never buy a 1gb videocard, you will always be low on video memory with the latest games. A videocard should have a minimum of 1.5gb of videomemory, 2gb is more then sufficient to play things on high settings and 3gb or even 4gb is kinda overkill depending on your screen resolution and the games you play.

 

He has a max of $50 to spend and I couldn't see anything like a GTX 660 around for $50

 

So with the types of things a 730 could do, 2 gig would be overkill and it's a moot point anyways because in that model the 2 gig option is a scam to sell the cheaper GPU - the better GPU is on cards with only 1 gig...

 

The low end video card market is a nightmare to navigate where higher model numbers often mean less performance and cards with the same general model number (such as 730) ship in misleading variations.