PC upgrade - HELP!

[SpankyML]

Hi All,
Last month's issue of Max PC discussed upgrading your old PC. I have a Dell XPS gen 2 and wanted to get some help on upgrades.
Currently have:
1. Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
(I've seen 3.8GHz on ebay for $150.00 - new with heat sink and cpu paste)

2. Memory Slot 1 [CHANNEL A DIMM 0] 512Mb
Memory Slot 2 [CHANNEL B DIMM 0] 512Mb
Memory Slot 3 [CHANNEL A DIMM 1] 512Mb
Memory Slot 4 [CHANNEL B DIMM 1] 512Mb
*confused about voltage??? seen some 1G sticks on newegg.com for nice price and looking to upgrade to 4G

3. I have an NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 512Mb which works fine.

So, I'm really looking at upgrading my CPU and RAM. Any ideas as to what I should be looking for so everything "get's along"?

Thanks
Spanky

[juneau]

No offence but you really need to start from scratch. There is no point at all in buying into old tech as you will not be happy with the end result.

CPU
Motherboard
RAM

This is what you need tbh. And to be blunt you could really do with a new graphics card too. What are you wanting out of this upgrade? Better all round performance in windows or gaming?

Let us know budgets etc and then we can begin.

[SpankyML]

COD 4 plays fair at 1024 x 740, but I just read the article and was wondering if a "Budget" upgrade on a CPU and RAM would help at all. I've been collecting parts to build a new computer (2 DVD drives/RAPTOR 150 Gig HD @ 10,000 RPM/Cosmos S case with 1000 watts of POWER) but still lacking the Mobo, RAM, CPU, Sound Card and Video card(s)...I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from. $300.00 (now) or $1,700.00 (later). Hell, after typing all this and pondering the idea...my games play fine as is, should probably keep "slowly" collecting parts for a far superior gaming machine. Thanks for the response, it gave me time to think

[WalkinTarget]

Those articles are my favorite from Max PC. They did one a few years ago that brought in a lot of letters, both positive and negative, to the mag. I love reading about what can be done, so I would actually prefer that to be a bi-annual article at least.

Spanky, I have to agree with Juneau on this one. That Dell is one of the older units with a (possibly) proprietary power supply. Dell had the cajones to say that the ATX PSU spec was in fact flawed and they were using a different wiring setup for the ATX 20 pin main power lead.
Plug that Dell PSU into a new board and watch the smoke come out !! So Dell (just back in February) admitted that they were causing confusion, not to mention fried hardware upgrades, and has gone back to the standard spec for their PSU units.

Firstly, your Intel chip is single core (Hyperhreading doesn't count) and that is going to be a bottleneck. You would actually be a prime candidate to look at the Asrock 4Core SATA2 board which offers both an AGP and a PCIe slot (albeit at only 4x instead of 16x).

With DDR2 so cheap, you can put together the following:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...4COREDUAL-VSTA

Board: - $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157115
Chip: - $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116052
RAM: - $45
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231098

Now that leaves you with your existing 7600 card, which will work fine in the Asrock board. If it becomes your next bottleneck, you can find a cheap 8800GTS such as this:
http://fxvideocards.com/ZOTAC-GeForc...d-p-16284.html

Thats based on the older G80 core for the 8800GTS, but its $129 SHIPPED, and you cannot beat that deal on that type of card. Total upgrade (the PSU is still our big question mark at this point) is $185 for the board, chip and RAM. Add the video card to the mix and you are a shade over $300 invested. Sell off your existing gear to recoup some of that money and you can see this is a nice plan.

[WalkinTarget]

Having posted all of that above, I will say point blank that falling upon the right deal at the right time is EVERYTHING !! Just last week, Fry's Electronics was selling Abit IP-35 boards for ...

$9.99 !!!!!

Add the Q9450 chip to this from Microcenter for $300 and some cheap but good RAM (2gb for $40 after rebate) and you just bought a quad chip, board and RAM for $350 !! Most of those deals last all of 8 hours, but when it does work out, it saves significant cash on your end.

[SpankyML]

THANKS! The only cost to you for the grafix card is "Free Consultation" when I begin to build my computer.

Thanks for the info.
Spanky

[WalkinTarget]

No Problemo, Spank ! Its what I do for a hobby for over 12 years now. I've been building my own since '97 and I've seen stuff come and go, from MCA and VLB to to 30 pin SIMM chips and 'upgrades' to a 40mb hard drive !
We have quite a knowledgeable bunch around here, and I love contributing what I can when I can, and to help out anyone who needs it.

You posted while I was typing mine out with the links, so after seeing what you already have, we should scrap the Asrock and e2180, as they seem well below what your grand plan should involve. I wish I had a hot deal on a board to pass along, but alas nothing worth noting at this point. I'd still recommend an Abit IP35/e8400 combo for you, as that is the current price/performance king and will do a bang-up job playing CoD4 maxed out.

[juneau]

Having posted all of that above, I will say point blank that falling upon the right deal at the right time is EVERYTHING !! Just last week, Fry's Electronics was selling Abit IP-35 boards for ...

$9.99 !!!!!

Add the Q9450 chip to this from Microcenter for $300 and some cheap but good RAM (2gb for $40 after rebate) and you just bought a quad chip, board and RAM for $350 !! Most of those deals last all of 8 hours, but when it does work out, it saves significant cash on your end.

Woah! Buy it buy it!

I think you should just wait and build your new PC later instead of upgrading your current with slow parts that won't really make any noticeable difference.

1000W PSU? You going to be running the rest of your room from that?

[ryanbatc]

No offence but you really need to start from scratch. There is no point at all in buying into old tech as you will not be happy with the end result.

+1