Curse

Ariena Najea · Dec 26, 2008, 06:03 PM // 18:03

I am considering building a new computer, and currently have a $350-$400 budget. I recognize that having a budget of $500 would allow me to get a much better machine so I'm curious what my current computer may fetch for some small business or home use.

Here are the stats:

HP Pavilion Desktop
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 3800+ 2.00GHz
1Gb of RAM
256Mb integrated Nvidia Video
250Gb Hard Disk 7200RPM
DVD Burner with Lightscribe
7 USB Ports (front + back) and 2 Firewire/1394
7-in-1 Card Reader

It's still stock from when I purchased it retail. Before selling, I'd reformat and install a clean copy of Windows XP Pro, Microsoft Office 2007, Symantec (I know it's bad but I have it free), Spybot/Ad-Aware, and Firefox 3. Obviously it's bad for gaming (runs Warcraft 3 and previous such games well, GW decently at poor resolution, but fails at anything more) but I think I might be able to get a decent amount of money from someone looking to buy a new home machine or a small business owner. I additionally have a 17" LCD monitor (not widescreen) with built-in-speakers that came with the machine. I am planning to buy a Samsung 19"/22" monitor in the near future and can thus sell this old matching monitor.

What kind of price should I aim for when selling this, post-reformat with the software and monitor included? My current uninformed estimate is $150-$200 for the package. Also, if you can suggest any free or inexpensive ways I can increase the value of the machine, please post those as well.

Lord Of Blame · Dec 26, 2008, 07:34 PM // 19:34

Sounds like a resonable price. You could put another 1g of ram in it pretty cheap, and that may help you get a little more.

snaek · Dec 26, 2008, 08:17 PM // 20:17

if ur budget is $350-400

imo, jus keep that pc
upgrade to 4gb ram and a $100-200 vid card

im not sure if its gonna be worth upgrading from a dual core to another dual core cpu
(which is prolly wut u'll end up wit on a $500 budget)

wut kind of mobo do u have?

Brianna · Dec 26, 2008, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Yes it is definitely worth upgrading to a new Dual Core, it would make a lot more of a difference.

Processor: AMD 5600+ 2.9ghz, 65nm. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103234

Motherboard: ASUS M3A78 Pro AM2+/AM2 780G http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131325

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 32mb Cache 7,200RPM 3.0gb/s http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320

RAM: Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 (PC6400) 2x2GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145184

PSU: Corsair 650W, 80%+ Certified, Single rail, 52 amps. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005

Video Card:ATI Radeon 4850: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161235

Case: Your preference really.

Total: 529$, you could always tone it down some and shave off that 30$ over your 500$ goal, and if you don't like ATI then you can get something the same from Nvidia for about the same price.

Anyway that was just a quick search of decent parts that would put together a really nice gaming rig for cheap, so you have an idea about it then. But yeah try and sell that computer, I'd say 150-200 is a reasonable price I suppose.

Ariena Najea · Dec 26, 2008, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Thank you all for the replies.

I don't think upgrading is feasible on this machine, everything is proprietary and I'm certain the power supply is insufficient for adding newer stuff. Adding more RAM is something I'll look into, I haven't checked to see how many slots I have but I suspect it currently uses 2 dimms.

Also, if I decide not to get a new monitor and keep the 17" described, I plan to sell the tower alone for $100-$150 by valuing the monitor around $50. Is this a reasonable assessment?

Elder III · Dec 27, 2008, 12:22 AM // 00:22

you might be better off to save the optical drive and hard drive off of the old pc and then not have to buy them for your new pc....

jonnieboi05 · Dec 27, 2008, 01:41 AM // 01:41

mmm i recommend brianna's advise. s/he helped me when i was choosing a rig and since then i've come quite a way comes to being knowledgable w/ CPU specs. one caution, though. when buying your new system be sure to hold back the urge to want to add more and more and more to it. this happened to me when my original budget was set at $1500 and i ended up spending like $1900 xD)