time for an upgrade

[justinroth]

So I am picking up a 3rd part time job and hoping to get a new machine, or at least a new MOBO, case, RAM and Windows 7.
My current computer specs:
XP
INTEL SSD
1GB geforce GT430
Rosewill 450 Watt Modular PS
3 gigs ram
Intel core2 6400 2.13 Ghz


I am mainly concerned with running 2010 and 2012 well, not so much worried about T:ANE yet. I plan on moving the trainz dedicated SSD to the new machine. My questions are: Can I reuse the power supply? I know I will need a new video card, the 430 works pretty hard but I am sure I could get something better for a reasonable price but it may require more power. I would love to keep using XP but the memory cap sucks so I figured windows 7 was the way to go. I would also like to spend between $350-$500. It also seems my acer widescreen monitor supports max res of 1440 by 900...is this limiting ? Would a new video card demand higher res?

Any thoughts, recommendations or opinions are appreciated!

 

[LNERlover5]

Assuming the PSU isn't of age, 450 watts is quite enough considering modern hardware is very power efficient. You should see significant improvements from jumping to a modern Haswell based Intel CPU, for example, I upgraded my younger brother from an Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 to a Pentium G3220, the difference was like night and day as far as performance is concerned. Swap the Geforce GT430 for something like a Radeon R9 270X or Geforce GTX 750Ti or greater, you will significant improvements here. The 3Gb of RAM is probably DDR2 since it's on the LGA775 platform, so jumping to 8Gb of DDR3 wouldn't hurt either.

Your monitor is not a bottleneck, 1440x900 is just the maximum resolution it supports, upgrading it is up to you.

 

[justinroth]

The psu is relatively new. I remember reading that trainz does not utilize multiple cores....was wondering if there is truth behind this?

 

[whitepass]

TS12 well use 2 cores only, TANE well use all cores and better.