Computers & Electronics

Looking for upgrade recommendations

  • Last Updated:
  • Oct 18th, 2011 12:56 pm
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Sr. Member
Feb 14, 2005
825 posts
40 upvotes
Toronto

Looking for upgrade recommendations

I am looking for advice on an upgrade path/refresh for my two PC systems.

System #1 (Media Center PC)
HP Pavilion Media Center m9150f
Specs
OS: Windows 7 Pro 32-bit

System #2 (Office PC)
Custom built by me long time ago
Specs:
Case: Antec Sonata II quiet mid tower (380W PS)
Mobo: Asus K8V (AMD S754-socket, AGP)
Processor: Athlon 64 3000+ (2GHz)
RAM: 1GB (2x512MB)
Graphics: ATI All-In-Wonder X800 XL (256MB AGP)
Audio: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz 5.1 card
HDD1: 120GB SATA
HDD2: 300GB SATA
Monitor: Gateway 20" LCD
Keyboard/mouse: Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3000
--------------------
System #1 is being used as a media center in my living room connected to my 42" LCD TV and Monsson MH-505 5.1 speaker system. It is really the main PC in the apartment used primarily for browsing, Skype, downloading, playing 1080p content etc. It is awkward to use for photo editing or office work because it's hard to do that from the couch. :)

System #2 is being used for office type work: scanning, printing, documents, and painfully slow photo editing.

Recently, I have more desire to do some photo editing, which the System #2 cannot do well with its specs. So, I am looking for the cheapest way to accomplish this.

Objectives:
1. Have one good (not latest and greatest) photo editing system that could run Adobe Lightroom/PS
2. Spend no more than $100 cash on top of selling any hardware that I have.
3. Get rid of one (or both) PC towers
4. Keep some ability to play driving games if desired (WRC 2 rally game looks interesting)
5. Although I am not afraid of opening the case, I prefer to buy pre-built since I don't have as much time to research components, plus I'm looking to buy used.

Ideally, I would like to have a nettop or SFF HTPC in the living room that would perform just as well as the Media Center I have now for the tasks I mentioned above. Even more ideal would be getting rid of the "office" system and replace it with a used All-in-One PC.

So, the best solution I could come up with so far is this:
- Use System #1 paired with the Gateway LCD for my photo editing (I know Q6600 with 3GB ram is not super nor is the LCD. But it should be ok, right?)
- Sell the old system (what do you think I can get for it?) and use the money plus $100 cash to buy a used nettop/htpc for the living room (The graphics card in #1 is slower than in #2, but if I decide to play some games, I hope I can upgrade that 8500GT to something decent for say $50?)

Also, I was looking at some used All-in-One PCs (like Acer Aspire Z5700) lately to replace the System #2 and have a clean desktop area with some dual-core firepower, but the onboard graphics would leave no hope of playing any games. I'm still not sure that this is an issue for me given that I haven't played any PC games in 3-4 years.

OK, I'll stop here and listen to some advice/suggestions.

Thank you.
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