I resurrected an old ASUS CM550 prebuilt from way back in 2009 with the best parts...

[Josh Swanger]

I resurrected an old ASUS CM550 prebuilt from way back in 2009 with the best parts eBay could provide. Heres the original to new stats side by side. Total build cost: $85.

Old/New
Processor: Pentium 4(?) E5300/Xeon X5460 (BSEL Modded 771 chip)
Motherboard: ASUS P5QL VM EPU/Same w/ BIOS microcode edit
RAM: 3×2 Nanya 800mhz DDR2/2×2 Nanya 800mhz + 2×2 Mushkin Silverline 800mhz DDR2
Video Card: nVidia GT 630/Possible future GTX 1050Ti
Drives: 2× 700GB Seagate 7200rpm HDD/Added Kingston SSDNow 120GB for Windows 7

The case and PSU are stock, and the 300w supply is running everything, barely. I added a couple 120mm fans to cool a little better, but I plan on getting a new (cheap) case, stronger PSU, AIO cooler for my ancient but potently overlockable CPU, and a reasonable graphics card that won't be super bottlenecked by the older tech. Either a 1050ti or a 750ti I think.

I haven't quite got all of the bugs worked out yet, the RAM is only running at 667mhz and I'm getting a BIOS message about not being able to unleash the full power of the proccessor, other than that its a night and day difference. I don't know if its still possible to upgrade it to Windows 10, but I've got all of the original install disks and the sticker on the side of the machine.

 

[Ryan Goodall]

Is the BIOS upgraded to the newest, it might help with the modded Xeon hiccup

 

[Ryan Micallef]

I'm doing the same thing but with a X5460 with a big ass e-bay cooler , 4GB of RAM cause my old Mobo from 2009 is limited to 4GB and a GTX 760. Should be pretty good for a secondary PC.

 

[Ryan Micallef]

Check out this fan, it's only $13 and it should be alright for getting a decent OC.

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