Upgrade or buy new?

[BoomShaker]

Hey Folks,

Been reading for a while but finally decided to jump in and ask a question.

I have a Dell pc about three years old, I can still for the most part play any game on it. But I see most of the newer games are probably gonna require a faster or bigger this and that in your pc in order to run it.

My question is when your gonna upgrade your pc a little bit what are the key things to make sure you buy and whats useless to buy?

Meaning should I upgrade the Ram, Processor, vid card, Mb's, speed, what?

I was thinking of giving Dell a call but I am sure I can find these things that you list for me cheaper on the net somewhere correct. (any links?)

thanks, have been reading for a while and you guys certainly know your stuff

[SoloCamo]

Welcome to TechIMO!

What are the specs?

[RamonGTP]

If it is 3 years old and you want to be able to play the newest games I wouldn't bother with upgrades regardless of what your specs are.

You'll be stuck with AGP and today's GOOD AGP cards are few and far between in addition to being more expensive and slightly less powerfull than their equivilent PCIe counterparts.

The socket on your board is likely and older one and so upgrading the CPU would be limited as well and may be even furhter limited by the type of board/chipset you're using.

I say go for a new machine.

[BoomShaker]

SoloC,

SO I dont miss anything and give you all the info, where is the easiest place on my pc to look and get all the specs? (sorry i work in a hospital and am totally brain dead today) haha

[SeanC]

In general, Processor and Video are what people upgrade. Depending on the amount of RAM you have, adding to it can help as well.

We can give you more detailed suggestions once we have the specs of the system you're talking about.

And Welcome.

[BoomShaker]

Thanks for the welcomes and replies folks, soon as I get home I'll post the specs. I have always played games on my pc. Never did get into the whole playstation and xbox junk.

[osprey4]

It would help if you posted the model. I'm guessing a Dimension 4550 or 4600?

[qx9r7man]

A bit of advice, If the computer is doing what you want it to do, then keep it. Only buy upgrades that can be reused. When it doesn't serve its purpose, strip out anything useable, and buy the best you can afford.

[||Console||]

and as far as games go in todays games VId cards are the king not so much cpu . But with the deals going on right now I would say upgrade
there are lots of cheep combos right now on Conroes and cheep mbs if you dont oc the cheep mb wont hurt you . I seen a deal for a e6400 and a Mb for 199usd that would be a nice upgrade for sure

[RamonGTP]

I guess it would depend on what you consider upgrading versus buying new, versus building your own.

If you go for a nice combo package (motherboard and CPU) you may need different RAM. If you wnat to play games, you'll almost definatly need a new video card. Chances are that the CPU/board will not fit in the dell case so you'd need a new case too. I see that as less of an upgrade and closer to building your own new PC.

[BoomShaker]

ok, here is what i have now, if i missed something let me know,

Dell Dimensions (DIM)4550
Pentium(R) 4CPU 2.53GHZ
512RAM
Display Adapter : Nvidia GeForce4 MX 420

I have played games like Doom, Farcry, Advanced BattleGrounds, Bladerunner (very old) games that have like 3 cd's to download off of and didnt have a problem. Then I tried to play Pariah, yeah I know it's a bit old haha but I never played it before. Again, 3 cd's to download. Everything but the words popped up on my screen. I couldnt make out the words. They came up as blank boxes. I thought I had a defect so I sent for another replacement. Samething happened. So that's what lead me to upgrade a bit.

Any thoughts? (any good websites for buying some software a good prices?)

[RamonGTP]

You may think the likes of Doom and FarCry worked fine on your PC, but trust me they didn't. You did not even get near the full effect that those games are capable of with your current hardware. If you were to replay those games on a more powerfull machine it would be like playing a totally different game.

That CPU is a socket 478. That right there limits your upgrade potential to Socket 478 processors. It is also a 533MHz fsb chip so depending on the board, you might not be able to use 800MHz CPU's.

You also need more RAM. 512MB is not going to cut it for games.

The video card is another big concern, not cut out for gaming whatsoever. That would need to be changed.

The real question is, what exactly do you want? Do you want a gaming machine or do you want a basic workstation that can play the occassional game and low to medium settings?

If you want a gaming machine, you'd pretty much need to buy a new machine or upgrade the board, memory, CPU, video card and the case, basically building a new machine.

If the ladder is what you're looking for you can get away with adding another 512MB of ram and upgrading the video card.

[EXreaction]

Yes, what are you wanting to do with this. More specifics are better than less.

[BoomShaker]

Pretty much thats it fellows, just gaming. I am looking at a bunch of new games getting ready to hit the market and I know with what I have I won't either get the full affect or be able to keep up with it. So gaming is all I really need it for. If I can buy another one(for gaming), or have another built just for gaming it would be a good move I am assume. Right?

[EXreaction]

How much can you spend? A nice gaming setup would probably cost you about $400 - $500(estimate).

That would be with a AMD 3200+, 1GB of ram, an X850XT, a new mobo, case, and powersupply.

[quickoldcar]

I was asked by a few people in the past to upgrade their dell machines. Basically you are wasting your time trying to upgrade those pos's. It will never be a good gaming machine and thats it. I'd leave it just the way it is and keep as a spare...or run a game server from it. The main item that will stop you in upgrading this is the power supply. You ever see their prices for the "dell" power supplies? And how big are they only? So with that being said even if wanted to just upgrade a video card you will definately need a more powerful power supply for it. Sure you can add more memory. That won't help unless you actually ran out of memory during gameplay. I even looked into putting different motherboards into the dells. My conclusion was that they are the same parts on the boards with few changes. There are only a few that can actually fit in those cases that are worth getting anyway. I'm really not a pentium fan myself....and yes i had a few including the 3.2. They are all slugs to me and very slow.
My suggestion is to build or buy yourself an AMD socket 939 as they are the most common at present time and will be affordable. DFI Lanparty is a sweet motherboard. You can get yourself 2 cheaper vid cards and run sli if wanted. Or is even capable running 16x in one slot. For the memory the mushkin redline is all anyone should be using. If they aren't they got ripped off or need a different memory.
Most importantly when buying or building a computer be sure to look into the specs of the power supplies. They are not all the same even if they both say 600watt sli. You also need good amps on the rails.

Here's my recommendation:
MB....my personal pick
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136166
single core cpu..this will be more than enough for most people http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16819103529R
Dual core cpu....new games will be made for dual core..up to you
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103544
Memory...there is no better
http://cgi.ebay.com/MUSHKIN-REDLINE-...QQcmdZViewItem
They also make a faster timings 2-2-2 but harder to find
Video Card....There are so many...but here's 2 ok ones.. get 256 bit interface
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814241013
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16814170088R
Heatsink..yes big and works...surprisingly is quiet
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835106061
Power supply
affordable
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103931
little more
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104014
harddrive...get 2 if can..are cheap enough
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144701

Get any Full tower of your liking...with whats listed here you will have one good gaming comp for sure......I built a few and are rockets.

[osprey4]

Display Adapter : Nvidia GeForce4 MX 420

That's your problem right there. Even a Ti4200 would be a huge improvement.

My suggestion? Keep this machine, upgrade the video card, save your pennies for a Core 2 Duo next year after the prices stabilize.

[BoomShaker]

Awesome info fellas!

[carl33p]

Here's my recommendation:
MB....my personal pick
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136166
single core cpu..this will be more than enough for most people http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16819103529R
Dual core cpu....new games will be made for dual core..up to you
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103544
Memory...there is no better
http://cgi.ebay.com/MUSHKIN-REDLINE-...QQcmdZViewItem
They also make a faster timings 2-2-2 but harder to find
Video Card....There are so many...but here's 2 ok ones.. get 256 bit interface
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814241013
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16814170088R
Heatsink..yes big and works...surprisingly is quiet
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835106061
Power supply
affordable
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103931
little more
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817104014
harddrive...get 2 if can..are cheap enough
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144701

Get any Full tower of your liking...with whats listed here you will have one good gaming comp for sure......I built a few and are rockets.

No offense, this would be a good PC. But budget wise...this is BAD.

If your going to spend this much, opting for Core 2 Duo or AM2 is a must. Why would you suggest an SLI board, and an ATI card? Most of these items are just plain overpriced, and not the best bang for your dollar.

To the OP, if you want to go about getting a new PC, give us a budget.

[BoomShaker]

Budget is somewhere between 500-1000 bucks,(if I go the new pc route) I have a daughter going to college next year so i cant spend to much LOL