hiya there im aura_ enchanted. for those of you who dont now me im great with beat up old pc's and am going to give some solid advice on how to breath new life into that system before you start double timing it down to bestbuy or w/e you get a newer pc from when yours runs aground.
first lets talks gpu's as i find this is the most touchy subject i will probably cover here and wish to get the awkwardness out of the way. first let me explian something to everyone who reads this. a pci and agp x8 slot arent trash you just dont like to look for older parts with limited selections. thats it period.. as cards are still being made for them and they can still do alot for what are now.. low prices.
pci graphics cards are the oldest in this subject matter, theyve been with us along time but before you go and toss that old amd motherboard because it has a pci card slot its got life in it and you can make it work.. what more astounding is that you can make it work well O.o ati's latest stab at these slots was the hd 2000 series and though they are becoming hard to find they are still out there. back in the day my old hd 2400 pro (the lowliest of these cards) prooved itself to me when it managed to punch out dawn of war 2 (thats right a game 4 years after its time) 0n medium with playable frame rates on my natural resolution (of 1024 x 768)! and whats even more amaing is that this isnt even the best pci card you can get. nivida has tried to contemporize them with the nivida 9000 series. now to most the 9000 series ati cards are simply the 8000 series with new stickers. but for a man with a pci slot to fill its solid gold! there bone to the dog the 9500gt is still a fully functional gaming card with plenty of life in it. in fact you can play titles including velvet assassin, arkham asylum and demigod on medium to high! and your buddy said it was garbadge.. look at that i just saved you MINIMUM $50.
agp cards are also becoming a dying breed but these two have lots of life. nivida has given up 100% on these cards as has ati however this does not mean cards dont exist. right before ati decided to cut the agp lose they gave it an hd 3000 series as a lifeline. the hd 3450, 3650, and 3850 all have an agp card edition. the hd 3850 is a breath taking card and can be used to handle some serious firepower games. and before you goahead and say well.. the pci card options werent THAT impressive prepare to be impressed the hd 3850 can handle crysis! on high! better THAN most newer mid ranged cards from both ati and nivida on everyone flavor of the month pci-express x16. now tell me have i stirred you wrong yet?
next i will discuss cpu. so.. your buddy laughs at you when he discovers your ahem "gaming rig" has a pentium 4. well its time to shut him up good. intel you see left a trail of bread crumbs to follow out of the dismal pentium X. it began with the pentium D the FIRST true dual core cpu. these pack the same firepower as a pentium 4 and for roughly the same priace as one but here the big bonus. UNLIKE the pentium 4 and the pentium D's succerros intel celeron and dual core. IT WONT catch and bottleneck (or limit parts) of a brand new variety. an hd 4850 and hd4770 from ati in fact wont even catch on a pentium d.. thats a HUGE list of cards between your old pentium D's glory days before the bully that was pentium dual-core and core 2 showed up to trample his parade. and GUESS WHAT? AGAIN no motherboards get hurt in the making of this overhaul.
finally i will discuss hard drives. older hard drives are well.. inferior i wont hide it no one else will here. they just dont have the steam of a new one. and the gap is WIDENING by LOTS. bt they arent 100% junk yet. i dont have any evidence or url's for this but a few days ago on an old "call for help" re-run they demoed a hard drive data safe. you placed in old or new hard drives with removable hotswap cases (about $10) and then placed them into this big old megalith of a tower and they essentially became a stationary hard drive.. hive and because they work through firewire versus other less secure lines they will be spared should your pc come under assault from botnets viruses or whatever insane coding comes your way.
this concludes the beginning to this guide on how to squeeze that little bit of more life out of that pc your buddies call "old" and what your fellow gamespot goer call 'trash".
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