Computer as wedding present, need advice

[imported_msatchmo]

I was recently best man in my friends wedding and as a gift I decided to upgrade his (and his new wifes computers). They are both avid gamers (World of Warcraft) and they are running on some pretty ancient machines.

The following are what they are running (i built them the athlon 2500 box about 1 1/2 years ago to replace something really bad...)

Computer 1
----------------
Athlon 2500 XP+
512 ram (DDR2700?) 256x2
Nvidia FX5200 128meg video card

(this computer isn't TOO bad)

Computer 2
-----------------
Athlon T-bird 1000mhz (1ghz)...
512 ram PC133 (1 stick)
Radeon 7500 64meg (64bit)


Now here is my delima, how to upgrade these computers and not break my bank doing it. We are all young and I don't have a massive wad of cash to upgrade these computers. So here is my idea:

I have an old Radeon 9800 Pro 128meg laying around... i will just give them this (it won't work in the T-bird because the motherboard only supports 1x or 2x agp)

I will get computer #2 a new motherboard/cpu (which also means new powersupply and since the case is a pos a new case as well..)

I have 1 gig of old PC2100/2700 ram laying around (256x4) I will try to mix and match as much as I can to optimize both computers.

Computer #1 has 3 ram slots on the motherboard

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Here is what I mapped out on newegg and my plans:

Computer #1
------------------
Simply add 1 of the 256 DDR2700 sticks I have to up it's ram to 768. This will help it a little bit, it really isn't all that slow at playing wow anyways and extra ram never hurts (256x3)

Computer #2
------------------
I found the asrock board 939pin that supports 1 agp and 1 pci-e card. I'll get that and put my 9800 Pro in there.

I'm also going to get an AMD 64 3200+ for $99. Then i'll take the 3 remaining sticks of ram I have (256x3) to give the system a total of 768megs of ram.

End results:


Computer #1
----------------
Athlon 2500 XP
768 megs of ram (256x3 DDR2700)
Nvidia FX5200 128meg

Computer #2
---------------
A64 3200+
768 megs of ram (256x3 DDR2700)
Radeon 9800 Pro 128meg
New case
New CD/DVD burner (their old one is a 2x samsung that can't read 1/2 the discs they buy... YES 2x!!!!!!)

To do this will cost me about $220 + the Gig of ram and 9800 pro that I will give them.



This sound alright? I know it's kind of ghetto on the ram and probably messes up the 'dual channel' for both computers. Trust me i'd rather just get them each a 1 gig kit of DDR 3200 ram but that would be another $160+ and I'm already way over what I would typically give as a wedding present.

Thoughts/ideas?

Btw my friend is getting computer #2 ;-) his wife uses computer #1 ;-)

 

[Harvey]

Computer 1

DDR RAM is cheap. Adding 256 MB won't help that much. If the board has only three RAM slots, you may be able to sell the existing 2 x 256 MB sticks and get 2 or 3 x 512 MB or some other combo that won't exceed your budget.

Computer 2

The old system worth more that way than the sum of the parts, and SD-RAM is far too expensive to add more to it. Sell it as a whole, working machine, and use the money to buy the parts you need for a reasonably priced new set of components.

Good luck.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: msatchmo
I was recently best man in my friends wedding and as a gift I decided to upgrade his (and his new wifes computers).

Computer #1
------------------
Simply add 1 of the 256 DDR2700 sticks I have to up it's ram to 768. This will help it a little bit, it really isn't all that slow at playing wow anyways and extra ram never hurts (256x3)

Computer #2
------------------
I found the asrock board 939pin that supports 1 agp and 1 pci-e card. I'll get that and put my 9800 Pro in there.

I'm also going to get an AMD 64 3200+ for $99. Then i'll take the 3 remaining sticks of ram I have (256x3) to give the system a total of 768megs of ram.

Thoughts/ideas?

Neither.

Take whatever money you have budgeted and buy him the largest monitor you can. He's married now and will need the large screen for online porn now that his nightlife will consist of "Not tonight honey, I have a headache."

 

[LOUISSSSS]

eh neither of those 2 computers look to well. giving used parts doesn't look too good on your part. save some money and get them something else as a wedding gift... it would be very hard to upgrade both of those computers without getting all new parts

 

[Tsuwamono]

well you said they play wow? get a new GPU.. i assume they have AGP. Getting them an AGP GPU and maybe a bit of ram would be great for em if they are gamers