How can I make my pc decent

[u/BadalHoMa]

My pc is absolutely worst. It has the worst specs. It is really old and I wanna upgrade it and at least make it decent. I don't know much about pc components.

My specs are ;

Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz 2.79 GHz

Installed RAM : 4.00 GB

Storage : 112 GB SSD ADATA SU650

Graphics Card : Intel(R) G41 Express Chipset (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM 1.1) (64 MB)

System Type : 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

You can see that my pc is absolutely chopped, So what are the things I should upgrade to make it decent ..

Edit: I saw yall's comment most of you guys suggested to sell it so I guess im gonna sell it

Also suggest me best pc I can build for 500$-700$

[u/sch1zo_39]

In all honesty, sell this build. Build a new one from ground up.

[u/BadalHoMa → u/sch1zo_39]

How much can I sell it for?

[u/-Darth_Smaug- → u/BadalHoMa]

maybe 20$?

idk

[u/Budget-Pea8291 → u/BadalHoMa]

Put it out for $30 and lower the price until someone buys it

[u/BadalHoMa → u/Budget-Pea8291]

Facebook Marketplace??

[u/SadParty5662]

My covered wagon is chopped. Which parts to make it a race car?

[u/roleplayfun667 → u/SadParty5662]

Add about 749 more horses to the wagon and it should be good. 👍

[u/-Darth_Smaug- → u/roleplayfun667]

haha 😂

[u/XsNR → u/roleplayfun667]

Don't forget to shove a cold thruster up each of their ass too.

[u/M4rshmall0wMan]

sees title

“Haha, I bet OP has an RTX 2060 or something.”

reads entire post

“Oh…”

[u/Sigil09]

Theres nothing to upgrade. Get a new one

[u/Dufsao189]

Usually I'd say "throw an SSD at it and instalk linux if its still bad" but yeah, you're chopped

Even a cheap modern PC will run circles around that PC bro..

[u/Seven-Arazmus → u/Dufsao189]

I wouldnt say chopped. I think minced is a better word.....puree'd.

[u/Kinslayer_89]

New everything.

[u/DickFagballson]

Your PC is from 2008. Looks like someone added a cheap SSD about 10 years or so ago. You're going to need to completely start over.

[u/sod16]

Brah you could’ve had a kid when that came out and they’d be old enough to get a job and buy you a new one 😭

FYI a five-year-old Galaxy S21 has more processing power than that.

[u/SweetBacon923]

Sell it 

[u/Seven-Arazmus]

Upgrade nothing. Get rid of that and start fresh.

[u/RenDarkness]

bro at this point you need to upgrade everything lol

[u/DarthVince]

There’s literally nothing you can do. Nothing you try to install will help the situation. It’s like asking how to upgrade a 1996 Dodge Neon so it performs better.

[u/stompah2020 → u/DarthVince]

At least that you can swap in a drivetrain from a wrecked SRT4...

Adding a 5090 won't help this one.

[u/Glittering_Bar_9497]

Are you in the U.S. and what’s your upgrade budget? Best bet is to use it as a back up, but what games do you want to play and what resolution you looking for?

[u/Shaggy_One]

r/LowSpecGamer might be able to help you find a use for the computer, but as others said, modern demanding games just aren't gonna happen on that.

[u/Peetz0r]

You can't upgrade a 2008 computer into a 2026 computer. But unlike everyone else, I don't think that means there's nothing you can do.

First things first, if you actually want a 2026 computer, and you have the budget to do so, then follow everyones advice and get something new. Or maybe something used from the past few years.

But let's say your budget doesn't allow for anything new, and you still want to upgrade your 2008 computer into a capable 2015 computer. That's definitely possible, and probably relatively cheap. You're going to have to learn a bit more about your PC first though.

TL;DR

1. Find out what mainboard you have, see what kinds of memory and gpu upgrades it could support. For now I'm going to assume a best case scenario.
2. Figure out if your power supply can handle a midrange dedicated GPU. If not, plan for a PSU upgrade as well.
3. Find a used dedicated GPU, possibly an AMD Radeon 470 or 570, or maybe an Nvidia GTX 1060 or 1070.
4. Add at least 8 GB of memory, so you end up with 12 or maybe 16 GB in total.
5. If you want to install more than 1 game at a time, you probably want to add a bigger SSD, at least 512 GB.
6. None of the above will get you Windows 11 support. Since Windows 10 is end of life, I'd strongly recommend switching to Linux. Having a second ssd makes this a bit easier. Many games, especially older or indie titles, run perfectly fine on either OS.

If you can manage to do all of the above for less than, say, $500, then that's probably the cheapest way to get more life out of your current PC. It'll allow you to play many AAA-titles from 10~15 years ago, and many indie titles from any era including today.

[u/tailslol]

core 2 duo? welp in this case you need a new pc since yours is more than 16y old, maybe 20...

be glad this thing is still alive, you could give a beer to that one.

it will probably run better on linux or if you want to stay on windows, windows 8.1 with classic shell (some call this windows 9)

[u/999-999-969-999-999]

That spec would make a great retro gaming machine running Batocera. You should have no trouble emulating:

Flawless / Up to 60fps: All retro 8-bit and 16-bit systems (NES, SNES, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Boy, TurboGrafx-16), Arcade (FBA/MAME for older classics), PlayStation 1, and Nintendo 64.

Decent / Playable: PlayStation Portable (PSP) at native or 2x resolution, Dreamcast, and GameCube/Wii (many games will run well, though heavier titles might suffer from stuttering or require tweaking down settings).

I run these without problem on an Atom processor with 2GB RAM and an external USB HDD. It works well and all are very playable!

[u/KyeeLim]

you can install Windows 7 on it and it may run well

[u/-Darth_Smaug- → u/KyeeLim]

"well" is pushing it still

[u/Turgius_Lupus]

Install Xubuntu.

Get a decent period cheap AMD graphics card, like around the max of right before Quad cute became minimum, they can be rather cheap now used. Maybe see if the board will take more and upgrade.

Enjoy playing games released before 2012, many of which are superior to those released today provided they can run on Lunix.

I finally jumped from a Athalon X2 system, with. 8900 GT with 4Gigs of Ram and XP due to Pillars of Eternity requiring 4 gigs of Ram, game ran till you reached Guilded Vail. But it ran games up to 2012ish reasonably well. Skyrim and SWTOR was the finale huzzah.

[u/Takeasmoke]

i had similar setup just e5700 and 6 GB RAM, gave cpu+board+ram to friend who collects old CPUs ... back in 2016.

[u/DanDanDannn]

Can't really upgrade that PC for much, it's wildly outdated.

Here's what I would do for a new build with upgrade path, assuming $500-700 budget, and I'll do with MicroCenter and without:

With MC:

• Ryzen 5 5600X3D bundle ($299.99), gives you CPU, RAM, Mobo

• Save the 112GB SSD, assuming it's still working and use it as the boot drive, maybe one game

• Add 1 TB HDD (Used, $10-20 on eBay/FB)

• Zalman Cubix-G case ($35 on Newegg)

• NVIDIA 3070 ($225-275 on FB, ~$275 on eBay)

• Cheapest 650W PSU ($45 on Newegg, I've gotten 80+ gold for $20 new if you hunt for it)

Total: ~$670

If you can't find a 3070 in that budget, drop the MC bundle down to the Ryzen 5 5500F for $230

Non MicroCenter, obviously Newegg/eBay/FB has to be more active)

• Ryzen 5 5500 bundles range from $235-325 on recently sold on eBay

• the rest is mostly the same.

Worst case, buy an Optiplex 5070 with an 8-pin power cable and throw a 2060 super in there ($150 on eBay), total PC would probably be less than $400 and be able to play Fortnite, Minecraft, PUBG, etc.

Use the monitor, keyboard, mouse you already have, look for SSD upgrades and time and budget permit.

Edit: honestly, the YouTube channel Toasty Bros does a ton of budget PC builds for specific games, they're good guides for these kind of budgets.

[u/Itzz_Abhi_]

And there's me with a second gen i5 🫩🙏

[u/-Darth_Smaug-]

as others have said, sell this mummified corpse and get a cheap dell optiplex or some other used pc. make sure the processor is at least intel 4th gen (i5 or i7), & its power supply has enough wattage and connector for a separate graphics card.

add in a cheap rx 6600/rtx 2060 for basic ray-tracing and upscaling support. (or whatever gpu u can afford)

make sure the pc has an ssd for windows as well as at least 12GB ram (dual channel).

should be pretty affordable and let u play most games released till a few years ago.

[u/Garretingsponge]

$50: Q9650 ebay (maximum support) *ebay

$20: 16GB DDR3 1866MT/s memory (maximum support) *ebay

$400: RTX 3080 (non Ti) 10GB (maximum performance without diminishing return) *ebay

Free.99: Upgrade BIOS

$20: New cpu fan thermalright or coolermaster (resets thermal performance) *amazon

$10: New thermal paste, your choice (same as cooler) *amazon

$40: New entry level case like the coolermaster elite 300 series *amazon

$30: New 120mm case fans for case (prioritize budget fans for this build as it is completely outdated) *amazon

Total: $570

All this without e-wasting it and buying completely new system for $1700 or more.

To give you an idea of how far base components can go in 2026 you can blitz this video to get a good idea of what old hardware can do today.

https://youtu.be/lqO8hsFwe4s?si=MiPALrf5BJme-bEC

[u/-Darth_Smaug- → u/Garretingsponge]

rtx 3080 with q9650....

👏

[u/Garretingsponge → u/-Darth_Smaug-]

Must've missed this part

*Also suggest me best pc I can build for 500$-700$*

Will a 3080 on a maxed out 20 year-old platform game, yes. Will the 3080 be starved, yes. Can you do better for $500, uh no. OP is lucky that parts are at least available used to even attempt at upgrades. In this market people are insane to recommend buying a new computer as though things aren't 300-400% higher than a year ago. A new entry level PC today is at least $1100 which is 2x above the budget posted.

Not everyone is asking to game on the latest AAA release with a PS2 potato PC. Some just play fortnite performance mode or roblox in which all runs on tablets these days.

[u/-Darth_Smaug- → u/Garretingsponge]

dude shut up with ur stupidity.

i already gave him significantly better advice in another comment. buy a cheap dell optiplex or something with decent wattage psu. get a used gpu. get an ssd.

BOOM! pc completed. all within 500. PLEASE STOP GIVING STUPID ADVICE ARROGANTLY.

[u/Garretingsponge → u/-Darth_Smaug-]

Projection!

[u/According_Ratio2010 → u/Garretingsponge]

Mixing 3080 with core 2 duo or quad is one of the stupidest ideas i have ever heard.

[u/stompah2020 → u/Garretingsponge]

I wonder if you can find someone selling a DDR4 system with no GPU/SSD for $100-200 and then do as you suggest. I think that would be better than throwing $100 into a DDR3 system.

[u/Every_Preparation_56]

tjere is nothing to upgrade, you can't make up a mummy to look like a teenager again. Put Batocera on it and plug it into a TV or give it away.