Help on upgrade conundrum for parents PC

The situation is that I bought my dad a pretty good little rig back in early 2009 and I am hoping to get the most miles for each dollar and each hour (less modding, etc). I really like the size and features of this thing and if possible I am trying to keep as much in it stock as possible.
Here are the specs:
It is an Acer Aspire AX1700-1710A =
Intel Celeron E1400 Dual core
3GB ram filling 2/2 DDR2 240pin slots 667/800 speed compatible according to Acer suppoort documents
Max ram capacity = 4GB according to Acer support website
Mobo chipset = NVIDIA® GeForce® 7100 and nForce® 630i
I/O Controllers =NVIDIA NForce MCP61 692 BGA + SIO ITE8718F
1x PCI Express® 2.0 x16 slot = Radeon HD 5570 1GB DDR3 (no upgrade here just saying what's filing this slot)
1x PCI Express® 2.0 x1 slot = OEM wireless a/b/g/n card
Seagate 7200.11 320GB 7200RPM HDD
LiteOn PS-5221-06 220W PSU (0 as in zilch molex or other power connectors)

Here are a few pictures of it:

The system is running Vista Home Premium 32bit from the factory and it is getting sloooooooooooow. No it has never been defragged and has had only a mild cleanup on background processes. I am hoping to get a little more responsiveness especially in the realm of multitasking. Acer says the board can handle a 95W Core 2 Quad CPU with 1333 or 1066 fsb and anything slower basically. It currently doesn't have dual channel going because of 2 different sized dims and I was hoping to do that as the first upgrade but I don't have any extra DDR2 lying around so before I buy anything I want to evaluate what is really worth it. I am trying to figure out if I can stay with stock mobo and everything else and just do "bolt ons" so to speak:
Core 2 Quad Q8400/Q9400 CPU
or
Core 2 Duo E8500 CPU
4GB DDR2-800 dual channel kit (needs to be little to have ~3mm or less heatspreader height = Crucial Ballistix sport I'm thinking
possibly an SSD later, but this mobo only has 2 sata ports and no IDE = 1 for DVD 1 for HDD/SSD
Using ebay and newegg the estimate for price on CPU and ram = $135 + $60 repectively = ~$200

VS

Only other option would be to reuse the stock chassis and upgrade to something like a mITX H61/H67 mobo and pop in an i3 (if it'll fit with the case's weird setup. Using newegg.com to ballpark a figure since I already have 4GB of DDR3 laying around:
Core i3-2105 = $135 + Highly rated ASUS P8H61-I (REV 3.0) mITX mobo $80 = ~$220

What do you guys think? Thanks again for any advice you can give.

New CPU isn't going to do anything for you. You say it's never been defragged or cleaned up since 2009? Time to bomb that OS, man.

Wipe that clean, install Win7 and maybe an SSD. THAT will be the biggest upgrade you could do. Everything else will be trivial comparatively.

_________________
Intel i7-950 | 6GB Crucial Smart Tracer | nVidia/eVGA GTX-570 SOC | Asus Rampage III Gene | Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SSD | OCZ 700watt ModXtreme | DangerDen Custom Tower 16

[LG]Zlog wrote:

New CPU isn't going to do anything for you. You say it's never been defragged or cleaned up since 2009? Time to bomb that OS, man.

Wipe that clean, install Win7 and maybe an SSD. THAT will be the biggest upgrade you could do. Everything else will be trivial comparatively.

This, your parents arent going to push this system more than a dual core. Get an SSD... It's a HUGEEE upgrade. The 2100 is a great option if you're looking for a new i3. I use it in my lan gaming rig and it smokes AMD hex cores in gaming performance. But seriously. SSD.

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Danger Den Lan Tower 450, GIGABYTE GA-Z77N, Intel i3 2100, 8gb Corsair Vengeance, Crucial M4 60GB, Western Digital 1tb Black, ZOTAC GTX 560ti, Silverstone 450W SFX.

I have a buddy who just dropped an SSD into his ancient gaming rig (RAMBUS RAM - that old). It's literally like a new computer. Games he couldn't quite play at full settings now run great - mainly because the swap performance is increased like ten fold, but still....

SSD all the way. Probably cheapest route too.

_________________
Intel i7-950 | 6GB Crucial Smart Tracer | nVidia/eVGA GTX-570 SOC | Asus Rampage III Gene | Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SSD | OCZ 700watt ModXtreme | DangerDen Custom Tower 16

[LG]Zlog wrote:

I have a buddy who just dropped an SSD into his ancient gaming rig (RAMBUS RAM - that old). It's literally like a new computer. Games he couldn't quite play at full settings now run great - mainly because the swap performance is increased like ten fold, but still....

SSD all the way. Probably cheapest route too.

The problem with this is that it only has 2 SATA ports = $100 for a 60GB SSD but then I have no other storage. I guess I can buy an external enclosure for the current HDD. I am still not liking how slow this processor is so I may still upgrade it and the ram, too. We will see. Thanks for the input.

decripple wrote:

[LG]Zlog wrote:

I have a buddy who just dropped an SSD into his ancient gaming rig (RAMBUS RAM - that old). It's literally like a new computer. Games he couldn't quite play at full settings now run great - mainly because the swap performance is increased like ten fold, but still....

SSD all the way. Probably cheapest route too.

The problem with this is that it only has 2 SATA ports = $100 for a 60GB SSD but then I have no other storage. I guess I can buy an external enclosure for the current HDD. I am still not liking how slow this processor is so I may still upgrade it and the ram, too. We will see. Thanks for the input.

Any open slots? Add an inexpensive SATA controller. I'm interested in this as my wife's machine is getting a little long in the tooth as well.

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PDXLAN 14, 14.5, 15, 16, 16.5, 17, 18, 18.5, 19, 20, VectorLAN, 20.5, 21 (no VectorLAN II, no 22 damn it!)
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Geektopia 2012
Let there be LAN 4

How much storage do you really need? I still haven't put a storage drive back into my main gaming PC and 128GB is plenty for several games (including WoW which is a monster).

I don't see how people run out of space lol

I guess it helps that I have a 10TB NAS in the garage...

_________________
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[LG]Zlog wrote:

How much storage do you really need? I still haven't put a storage drive back into my main gaming PC and 128GB is plenty for several games (including WoW which is a monster).

I don't see how people run out of space lol

I guess it helps that I have a 10TB NAS in the garage...

Ya think??? Laughing

_________________
Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste delicious with SALSA-Q. But then, doesn't everything????
PDXLAN 14, 14.5, 15, 16, 16.5, 17, 18, 18.5, 19, 20, VectorLAN, 20.5, 21 (no VectorLAN II, no 22 damn it!)
GNW LAN 6, 7, 8, 9, SSL, Lanapalooza 2012, (Lanapalooza 2013)
Geektopia 2012
Let there be LAN 4

Honestly SSD would be a huge upgrade, Core2 duo's are not bad procs, They're great procs. toss a 64gb ssd in there and use their old HDD as storage. Biggest upgrade for the buck imo.

_________________
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EQWoody wrote:

Honestly SSD would be a huge upgrade, Core2 duo's are not bad procs, They're great procs. toss a 64gb ssd in there and use their old HDD as storage. Biggest upgrade for the buck imo.

I know Core 2 Duos aren't bad but this has a 2.0GHz Celery with 512KB shared L2 cache and I need to both upgrade responsiveness in windows AND games/intensive apps.
To clarify I want this PC to be able to play BF3 on minimum settings (with or without upgrading from HD 5570 in it)
Also, will going dual channel on the ram not be worth it (also it would be adding another 1GB)?

Thanks again everyone.

Hmm... this is a tough one. I can appreciate folks who try to keep older hardware going and also people who know how to work with what they have.

That being said, it's a real toss up on whether you should abandon this whole rig and start over or try to get BF3 running on minimum settings and lower resolution (which BTW will work okay but WILL annoy you from time to time when you get crushed in-game simply because your enemy will have better framerates than you do).

The Core 2 Duo can be had pretty cheaply at this point. Heck, I've got an E6750 laying around. But, I'll share some recent experience and hopefully you can decide.

I've got a couple of rigs... my wife plays SWTOR and Dungeon Defenders on a 720P display (yah its a TV). Anywho... her rig USED to have these specs:

Core 2 Duo E6750
Intel DX48BT2 (Bonetrail 2)
4GB DDR3
ATI Radeon 5830
Hard drives/fans/yadda yadda....

I installed BF3 on it because from time to time my kids monopolize my machine and instead of ruling with a completely iron fist I thought I could just jump on the wife's rig for a bit and do some BF3. The setup you saw above was HORRIBLE. Mind you I tried to run the game in medium/high at 1366x768 but it was awful. A LOT of chugging, lag, paging, hitches... you name it. I was largely unplayable. So bad I never bothered to turn it down to low. So at the very least I'm certain the rig in this thread won't do medium and might have problems running the game on low.

I've recently built a LAN rig (which I ended up selling to a friend) which ran BF3 rather well on what I considered to be cheap hardware. I used an AMD Phenom Quad Core CPU that I got on the 'egg for $100.00 coupled with a mini-itx board I had laying around and 4GB of DDR3 that I also had in my HTPC. I ordered a 5770 on special from newegg as well. This rig plays BF3 at 1080 on medium/high settings at around 40-60 frames depending on what's happening in game. I was pretty surprised at how well it ran. The friend I sold it to was also pleased with the performance of the rig and has been enjoying his new AMD quad.

In many things in life repairing and preserving your stuff makes TOTAL sense, saves you money, and if you're a greenie you can feel good about preventing an addition to the landfill. But, IMO, computers are often times not one of those "investments". But, if you keep scrounging or if you know people who like to unload stuff on the cheap then you can find deals and scrape together something decent.

There are people on these forums who have a lot of what they consider junk that you could use. I bet if you reached out in the wanted forums you could find some goods to upgrade your current rig. That being said - I've got a Core 2 Duo E6750 that I'd let go super cheap, DDR3 is super cheap right now (like DIRT cheap) and you can still get 775 boards on newegg for under $60.00.

That's my two cents.

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PotShotScott wrote:

Hmm... this is a tough one. I can appreciate folks who try to keep older hardware going and also people who know how to work with what they have.

That being said, it's a real toss up on whether you should abandon this whole rig and start over or try to get BF3 running on minimum settings and lower resolution (which BTW will work okay but WILL annoy you from time to time when you get crushed in-game simply because your enemy will have better framerates than you do).

The Core 2 Duo can be had pretty cheaply at this point. Heck, I've got an E6750 laying around. But, I'll share some recent experience and hopefully you can decide.

I've got a couple of rigs... my wife plays SWTOR and Dungeon Defenders on a 720P display (yah its a TV). Anywho... her rig USED to have these specs:

Core 2 Duo E6750
Intel DX48BT2 (Bonetrail 2)
4GB DDR3
ATI Radeon 5830
Hard drives/fans/yadda yadda....

I installed BF3 on it because from time to time my kids monopolize my machine and instead of ruling with a completely iron fist I thought I could just jump on the wife's rig for a bit and do some BF3. The setup you saw above was HORRIBLE. Mind you I tried to run the game in medium/high at 1366x768 but it was awful. A LOT of chugging, lag, paging, hitches... you name it. I was largely unplayable. So bad I never bothered to turn it down to low. So at the very least I'm certain the rig in this thread won't do medium and might have problems running the game on low.

I've recently built a LAN rig (which I ended up selling to a friend) which ran BF3 rather well on what I considered to be cheap hardware. I used an AMD Phenom Quad Core CPU that I got on the 'egg for $100.00 coupled with a mini-itx board I had laying around and 4GB of DDR3 that I also had in my HTPC. I ordered a 5770 on special from newegg as well. This rig plays BF3 at 1080 on medium/high settings at around 40-60 frames depending on what's happening in game. I was pretty surprised at how well it ran. The friend I sold it to was also pleased with the performance of the rig and has been enjoying his new AMD quad.

In many things in life repairing and preserving your stuff makes TOTAL sense, saves you money, and if you're a greenie you can feel good about preventing an addition to the landfill. But, IMO, computers are often times not one of those "investments". But, if you keep scrounging or if you know people who like to unload stuff on the cheap then you can find deals and scrape together something decent.

There are people on these forums who have a lot of what they consider junk that you could use. I bet if you reached out in the wanted forums you could find some goods to upgrade your current rig. That being said - I've got a Core 2 Duo E6750 that I'd let go super cheap, DDR3 is super cheap right now (like DIRT cheap) and you can still get 775 boards on newegg for under $60.00.

That's my two cents.

Thanks, helps a lot actually.

I am thinking that an upgrade to 4GB of ram ($60 or less) a Core 2 Quad Q8400 (2.66 GHz) from ebay is ~$130 but I am hoping to find elsewhere for MUCH cheaper and a 64GB SSD for about $85 on sale is what I am hoping to do I think thanks for all the input everyone the SSD comments really helped me choose that for the responsiveness part of things and I will start buying parts over the next month or so.

I'm telling you, windows responsiveness is affected by two things: Disk I/O (Hard drive speed) and how much crud is built up in it.

The fresh install and an SSD would accomplish the huge boost you're looking for at the lowest price IMO.

Either way, props to you for thinking it out. A lot of people don't and they just throw away a perfectly upgrade-able system.

_________________
Intel i7-950 | 6GB Crucial Smart Tracer | nVidia/eVGA GTX-570 SOC | Asus Rampage III Gene | Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SSD | OCZ 700watt ModXtreme | DangerDen Custom Tower 16