[Dr. John13]

I want to buy some games but all it shows your rig doesn't supports it. In your opinion what are the recommended parts for Win 7?

My budget's around 100$ - 200$ (Actually, I converted into INR so the real amount would be Rs 5000 - Rs 10000)

[Exxon]

There's no way you can buy a decent PC for $200, that has got to be atleast $400 --> 20.000.000 Rs

This post has been edited by Exxon on Thursday, Mar 15 2012, 18:36

[yojo2]

I think it would be a better idea to upgrade current rig (unless it's very outdated).

[Wolf68k]

QUOTE (yojo2 @ Thursday, Mar 15 2012, 12:55)

I think it would be a better idea to upgrade current rig (unless it's very outdated).

Agreed.
We need to know what you have now so we know how old your current parts are. It's possible you'll either need a whole new rig or just a simple upgrade.
Also it'll be helpful to us if you can link to some sites local to you were you might be buying the parts so we can help find the things you'll need to meet your budget.

[YankeesPwnMets]

Windows 7 alone is $100, a decent CPU like the i3 is around $120... those two parts alone already exceed your budget.

Either save up at least $500 to do gaming ($400 for regular work but no gaming) or if your PC is young enough, you can try to upgrade it.

[Slamman]

I hear ya, that's why I'm looking for $250 to $300 for my i3 setup I mentioned, using a Biostar mATX and 1156 socket, DDR3 I got a deal on and already upgraded, but I needed the 500GB HDD, I got my 500GB drives before the flood, so you're paying a small fortune for those as well, I paid about $40 for mine!! No sh*t

You REALLY don't need to spend $400USD for a non-gaming computer of any type. I'm strongly opposed to that idea, since I pull it off all the time, I'm living proof you don't need to waste money for non-gaming

This post has been edited by Slamman on Friday, Mar 16 2012, 02:59

[YankeesPwnMets]

Work PCs are based off of storage, since most working people would want as much storage as possible. A 1TB drive can easily hit $150 nowadays because of a flood. When 500GB HDD WD Caviar Blues were $40, then maybe it would be possible. Fitting a large hard drive is hard in a budget machine and then floods don't make it any easier.

[Slamman]

I disagree about not adding more memory as well, memory and CPU cores will play more of a factor as time goes by, everything the computer is doing requires memory, the CACHE of a CPU is memory, albeit small by anyone's standard, it's still aiding every bit of processing the computer is tasked with. The cores and two threads per core, in the HTT Intel design all play more of a part, it's why the AMD64 enjoyed a long shelf life, when introduced, there was really a lack of applications to exploit it. So.... It is always down to matching software with hardware that is the difference from one user to the next

[Dr. John13]

I need a Video Card mainly. My CPU's fraps are so slow because of my Intel ® HD Graphics.

Can I get a Pixel Shader 2.0 (or better) within my budget.

[finn4life]

QUOTE (Dr. John13 @ Friday, Mar 16 2012, 21:29)

I need a Video Card mainly. My CPU's fraps are so slow because of my Intel ® HD Graphics. Can I get a Pixel Shader 2.0 (or better) within my budget.

You will definitely have pixel shader 2.0 or better.
That's not what you look for in a good card though, you want to look for clock speed, Memory size (You will want 512mb +) memory type and the other things you can compare, the card with the higher numbers (Across the board) is better.

You might want to look into second hand graphics cards, what are your computer specifications?

[Slamman]

Shader Model 2.0 is covered with the GMA950 chipset, you can run DirectX 9 games on that, as you have higher model HD Intel, I imagine it's GPU on the CPU then? Not Northbridge? You will need 3 or higher, 4 is the highest I think, if memory serves

[Dr. John13]

CPU: Intel ® Core ™ i3 CPU M370 @2.40GHz 2.40GHz

RAM: 4.0 GB (3.8 GB useable)

[Slamman]

Mine's the 550 Core i3. I got a MCE for free the past week, it's got a Pentium D at 2.8Ghz, It's dual core, 775 socket, I ran my Install Windows 7 or Vista Ultimate on it with that System Rating score you find in Control Panel, It's MS's plan to institute a software rating scale you can run on whatever rig you have using Windows, giving a base score up to 7.9 on the highest end. Mine came in at 4.6 with that Pentium D being the low end of the base score, the HDD was the second lowest. Considering using their app built into Windows, every time you upgrade, rerun that Win test, it will readjust your baseline score and show the weakest component in your build. It's free!

[Dr. John13]

Processor: 6.7
RAM: 5.9
Graphics: 4.5
Gaming Graphics: 5.1
Primary Hard disk: 5. 8

MY PC's overall performance is 4.5 (because of that sh*tty Video card.) Which part does the fraps depend? I should upgrade it too.

[Wolf68k]

I think FRAPS depends on the CPU more than anything, but I could be wrong. However when FRAPS goes to record, no matter how good your system is, your framerates will drop to some degree.
This is another reason that on those rare cases I personally need to record game footage I use Xfire

[Slamman]

For some odd reason, the base-score for Aero can at times be lower then the score for 3D graphics, you'd assume games, however, Windows 8 seems to be making some more use of Direct X, 11 now. We'll see Ivy Bridge actually supporting the latest Intel API

[YankeesPwnMets]

QUOTE (Dr. John13 @ Saturday, Mar 17 2012, 00:02)

CPU: Intel ® Core ™ i3 CPU M370 @2.40GHz 2.40GHz RAM: 4.0 GB (3.8 GB useable)

Forget about upgrading now.. its a laptop.

Save several hundred more so that at least we get some room to work with. I don't know who in the world told you that you could get a computer for $100-$200.....

[Slamman]

As said a number of times before, you CAN upgrade a laptop, but it's limited

[Dr. John13]

That f*cked up Disk Defragmenter is not working at all. I get 8% fragmented in (C:) and 10% fragmented in (SYSTEM:). If I upgrade my PC, maybe I won't get any fragmantion problem. I use Disk Cleanup frequently but still my PC runs like hell.

[Wolf68k]

If you're running Win7 just let it run the Disk Defrag at a scheduled time. Also 8% isn't anything to worry about. 25% is barely anything to worry about. At 50% or more then you can start worrying and let it defrag before you do anything else. I wouldn't worry about the System partition at all.

You can upgrade any system nice ways to Sunday and it'll get fragmented at some point and need to be defragged.