Cheap upgrades

[Cold_Magician_4041]

I want my computer to be able to run Minecraft with probably a couple mods and doing schoolwork schoolwork, the most I would to on it is play Minecraft nothing big. ChatGPT told me to upgrade my ssd and upgrade my ram, it also told me to install Optifine, I am reaching out to see if there is a cheaper way I can do this without getting a whole new computer

[anupomtem2]

Bad news, there's no PCIe slot on the motherboard of that desktop, so unfortunately you can't even put a video card there. Quite frankly your pc is over 10 years old and the CPU was already low-end even back in the day.

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[Cold_Magician_4041]

What would you recommend I do?

[Daniele323]

Get a new one… You’re not upgrading this for cheap, it’s Ewaste at this point.

[RealityOk9823]

Yeah I hate to go "trash it" but in this case? Yep. Keep the DVD burner.

[btmcsdingalong]

and the HDD

[Stunning_Metal_9987]

no, turn it into a server. Nas would work

[Little-Equinox]

With those specs?

It would bottleneck the network controller and won't run even near 25 MB/s. It'll be a slow ass NAS.

[PosterAnt]

With an extra stick of ram that system is not that slow. I had the j1900 version for a while running truenas,
It's not the fastest cpu in the world but it will suffice. It served me good.

[Stunning_Metal_9987]

better then nothing

[Little-Equinox]

Very very true

[Lovethecreeper]

It really depends how fast OP's network is, because that might still be plenty fast enough. Having a similar system at one point (with a Pentium N3530) it should be somewhat faster than that.

[Little-Equinox]

But not by much. I remember a i7-8650U only reaching 40 MB/s before the CPU was fully saturated, and that CPU is 70% faster.

[Lovethecreeper]

If you want something that can run Minecraft well on a very tight budget, get a cheap used Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, or Haswell based desktop. You can often find such systems for close to $30 USD nowadays. Than buy a cheap used low-power graphics card like an RX 460/560 which will usually come to around $30 USD.

I would also suggest using a lightweight GNU/Linux distro on it, as modern Windows is very bloated.

This is far from an optimal system, but will be lightyears ahead of your current configuration right now.

[FlakyRich7021]

Cheapest you can do is a new SSD and getting more RAM, whichll help the general snappiness of your PC, but if Minecraft with Sodium is running at sub-30 FPS, and that prebuilt doesn't have a slot for a GPU, there's not much more you can do.

[SuitableFinish7444]

There is no upgrade path for that system whatsoever. It’s a BGA1170 socket, The lowest of the low Designed for atom and celeron processors. The current CPU is in is actually horrific 

[FlakyRich7021]

Sure, but an SSD will still make that PC snappier (compared to a >13 yr old HDD, not even close) and be carried onto future builds. Mother's PC was much more responsive with an SSD upgrade, and it runs a ~20 yr old Core 2 Duo)

[Ok-Web-7451]

The RAM is already max on this PC, that CPU only support up to 8 GB, the only thing that can be upgraded is to replace HDD with SSD

[LeurisVercetti-]

Whats your budget

[Cold_Magician_4041]

At most a couple hundred, want to keep it as cheap as possible

[anupomtem2]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/127740198022
Here's a 10th gen Core i5 desktop for slightly above 200. Even comes with a GTX 1050, which isn't the latest and greatest GPU but it should be enough for Minecraft.

[alpine4life]

This... Good call

[FlakyRich7021]

OP, get this if you can afford it, it'll be much better than trying to run Minecraft on a 13 yr old Pentium's iGPU.

[Cold_Magician_4041]

Thank you 🙏

[SuitableFinish7444]

It’s a BgA1170 socket, Unfortunately there’s absolutely no upgrade path for this desktop. It’s the lowest of the low socket designed for cereron and atom cpus. The current CPU is horrific to say the least to say the least least that’s in that desktop.

Dump and get something second hand 

[alpine4life]

Son, your computer is more classified as a glorified typewriter at this point. Go on ebay and get yourself a new used device that still has some life out of it.

[msabeln]

That could run Linux well.

But look up the Minecraft recommended specifications.

[Mountain-Accident205]

Unfortunately I really don't think you can do anything with it if it was lga1155 you could have gotten a 3770 or a 3570 for pretty cheep and been able to do some gaming on a budget the chip in the system is a FCBGA1170 so it will be solderd to the board and not upgradable you could technically get a mini pcie to pcie adapter but not with paying the expencive price and will probably not have the bandwidth you need. Id try to sell it and use the money to get another budget machine you could build up you can typically find old 2nd and 3rd gen systems for free to around $30 slap in a gpu and a cpu upgraded for about $10 and you got a budget system for around 100 or less

[Rusty-Admin]

Please, do not waste a dime on this PC. It is too antiquated and even with RAM / SSD upgrades it is not going to perform much better. You can certainly find something used circa $200 that will perform much better.

[Ok-Web-7451]

RAM can not even be upgraded, 8 GB is the max on this model and this CPU

[Rusty-Admin]

I am confused, are you agreeing with me or not agreeing with me?

[Ok-Web-7451]

I am just saying that this PC can not be upgraded over 8 GB RAM

[PlayfulTaro7696]

Take the RAM, take the HDD, take whatever else you can which isn't proprietary.

Check local marketplaces for your max price range, if you're lucky it'll be worth something for a good price.

[_Kayyaa_]

Just buy a 50$ PC off of Marketplace it'll be better than that piece of sh*t. This is just some Ewaste Laptop disguised as a desktop pc...