It was inevitable, after 3 1/2 years of having pretty much the same computer, I decided that this weekend was going to be the time to finally upgrade my computer.
Previous specs were:
-AMD Athlon64 3500+
-Gigabyte K8 Triton Motherboard
-4x512MB DDR2(?) RAM
-Gigabyte Nvidea 9800GT
-2x160GB, 1x320GB & 1x640GB HDDs
-DVD Burner
-Netgear Wireless Network Card
-Fusion HDTV Pro Card
-Themaltake Soprano Case
-Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate (RC)
Now as it stands, its:
-AMD AM3 Phenom II x4 965 3.4Ghz
-Gigabyte GA-MA785GT
-2x2GB DDR3 RAM
-Gigabyte Nvidea 9800GT
-1x160GB, 1x320GB & 1x640GB 1x1.5TB HDDs
-DVD Burner
-Netgear Wireless Network Card
-Fusion HDTV Pro Card
-Thermaltake V9 Case
-Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate (RC) (Still to reformat and go to Win7 64-bit Home Premium)
Here's how the upgrade went...
Went to MSY in Plympton and bought all the gear necessary... cost me about $800.
New case sitting ready to go
New motherboard ready to go in
After having some issues removing the standard plug stencil panel, finally got the motherboard in
CPU and heatsink ready to go in
CPU set into the socket
After stuffing around with the heatsink, finally got it on properly
Memory ready to go in, haven't had one with a heatsink before
And sitting nicely on the board
This is where I finshed off on Saturday night, all the connectors attached
Sunday arvo I disconnected my current case and was ready to raid the remaining parts from it
Then put all the hard drives into their respective bays
Video card was a bit dusty, so a bit of cleaning got rid of most of the dust
Had to get rid of one of the HDDs as the motherboard only has room for one IDE drive
Then transferred over the graphics card, TV card and wireless network card
Next was transferring the PSU, but the secondary cable (no idea what it's called) wasn't long enough, so I got my brother's old PSU and put that in instead.
Then proceeded to installing the DVD drive
Still have somewhat of a mess in regards to HDD cables, but it's a lot better than it was before
Then closed up the case and it's ready to go!
Funnily enough, Windows proceeded to boot up with my old Win7 RC install, and after some driver installation and a restart, it was all working fine I would have thought a complete reformat would have been necessary, but no, Windows 7 seems to really be that good!
CPU is running at a constant 38-40C, which I believe is a good temperature to sit at.
Now all I got left is to set up my old case for the parents, which only requires the removed hard drive, a new video card and some basic claening, as well as installing my old copy of Vista.
Below are the WEI scores:
Previous specs:
Internim specs:
So far the system's been very fast with all the Windows 7 functions, but a complete reformat on a SATA drive will really show off the system's shine.