My friend bought the machine from woot yesterday.

[2dt Drifter]

As title says, my friend sent me a message saying he got this machine from the woot deal and if it's any good (below are specs, I bolded the more important components). He is not much of a PC gamer but loves his iphone and music. I told him for what he will be doing with it, it should be fine (and to keep it clean) as it comes with Windows 7 and has a little potential to be upgraded. He is willing to throw some money at it as he got it for pretty cheap. Im thinking the first thing is a video card, not a 5870 per se but something that will be good in this system considering it only has an IGP. Thoughts? ideas?

Processor
Sempron LE-1200 (S) 2.1 GHz (45W) 1600 MT/s (mega transfers/second)
Socket AM2
Chipset
GeForce 6150SE nForce 430
Motherboard
Manufacturer: Pegatron
Motherboard Name: M2N68-LA
HP/Compaq motherboard name: Narra5-GL6
Power supply
250W
Memory
Memory Installed: 3GB
Maximum allowed: 4 GB (2 x 2 GB)
Speed supported: PC2-6400 MB/sec
Type: 240 pin, DDR2 SDRAM
Hard drive
320 GB SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec) 7200 rpm
SuperMulti DVD Burner with LightScribe Technology drive
Formats/Disc types Write speeds
DVD+R SL up to 16x
DVD+R DL up to 12x
DVD+RW SL up to 8x
DVD+RW DL not supported
DVD-R SL up to 16x
DVD-R DL up to 12x
DVD-RW SL up to 6x
DVD-RW DL not supported
DVD-RAM up to 12x
CDR up to 40X
CDRW up to 32X
Modem
PCIe internal modem
Video Graphics
Integrated on motherboard (see motherboard and chipset)
Sound/Audio
High Definition 6-channel audio ALC 888S chipset
Network (LAN)
Integrated 10/100 Base-T networking interface
Memory card reader
Compact Flash I
Compact Flash II
IBM Microdrive
Secure Digital (SD)
mini-SD
MultiMediaCard (MMC)
Reduced size MultiMediaCard (RS-MMC)
MultiMediaCard Plus (MMC plus)
MultiMediaCard Mobile (MMC mobile)
Memory Stick
Memory Stick Pro
Memory Stick Duo
Memory Stick Pro Duo
SmartMedia
xD Picture Card (xD = extreme digital)
External I/O ports
15-in-1 (4 slot) One
USB Two
Headphone One
Microphone One
I/O ports on the back panel
PS/2 (keyboard, mouse) Two
VGA One
USB Four
LAN One
Audio (line in, line out, microphone) One Each
Expansion slots
PCI One (One available)
PCI Express x16 One (One available)
PCI Express x1 One (One available)
Drive bays
5.25" Two (One available)
3.5" Three (Two available)

 

[CurseTheSky]

An HD 5750 is probably enough for everything he'll do, unless he's into the latest and greatest FPS games and whatnot. It might even be overkill.

Edit: that's assuming this has a PCI-E x16 slot. And even if it does, it's probably PCI-E 1.0 or 1.1.

 

[eklock2000]

How good of a deal depends on how much he paid for it?

Price?

 

[Qbah]

If he wants to watch HD movies on it, tell him to get a HD4350 or G210. The IGP should be fine for Web browsing though. However, the Radeon or GeForce will tremendously help with YouTube HD material (flash in general too) - Flash 10.1 (still in preview status) supports hardware acceleration. There's a nice article here on AnandTech about it. His current PSU will be sufficient for either a HD4350 or G210.

If he wants to game, he will need a new PSU, CPU and GPU

EDIT: HD5750? People... He has a single core Sempron in there and a 250W PSU!

 

[soccerballtux]

How good of a deal depends on how much he paid for it?

Price?

two chars

 

[CurseTheSky]

EDIT: HD5750? People... He has a single core Sempron in there and a 250W PSU!

Hah, that's what I get for reading over it quickly. After spending some more time with the original post, an HD 4350 sounds right up his alley.

 

[2dt Drifter]

If he wants to watch HD movies on it, tell him to get a HD4350 or G210. The IGP should be fine for Web browsing though. However, the Radeon or GeForce will tremendously help with YouTube HD material (flash in general too) - the Flash 10.1 (still in preview status) supports hardware acceleration. There's a nice article here on AnandTech about it. His current PSU will be sufficient for either a HD4350 or G210.

If he wants to game, he will need a new PSU, CPU and GPU

EDIT: HD5750? People... He has a single core Sempron in there and a 250W PSU!

Good call on the 4350. I think that would be sufficient for his needs right now. If he wants to beef it up more, any AM2 cpu should be ok with a PSU upgrade. I told him he doesn't have to do it all at once. We'll see if it fits his current needs and upgrade it accordingly. I think the VC should be a "must" on this machine regardless of his computer usage.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, how much did that rig cost?

I got in on the $190 deal at TigerDirect, for an emachines, with a 1.6Ghz C2D Celeron single-core, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, DVD burner. Unsure of power supply, probably 300W, although it could be 250W. GeForce 7050 integrated graphics, which is a little better than 6150 integrated but not much. Neither one of those support flash acceleration.

I figure I can drop in an E5200 dual-core for $50 more, and make a decent dual-core desktop, and I can always drop in a PCI-E graphics card too, although a gaming card will require a PSU upgrade.

 

[2dt Drifter]

$280 i think? came with a k/m and windows 7. I told him it wasn't a good buy at first considering I could build him a stronger machine for 300 but it wouldn't have Windows 7.

 

[Modelworks]

I would check the power supply when he gets it before ordering anything. Often these low end systems say 250W power supply, but that is right before it goes up in smoke, instead they average around 165W for constant output.

Usually these systems are best left as they come. I have found it cost more to upgrade them to be like a higher end system than it does to just build the other system from the start.