I made the mistake of buying the Dell 2400. Well, actually my parents bought it for me(I'm first year university). I managed to convince them to get the pentium and the bigger ram but not a better comp. They'd be pissed if I went out and bought a new comp so I could play games. Would it be worth it to just buy a PCI card to play the older games with(GTA3 BF1942 NFSUetc)? If so which card should i get. If not how much work and money will be involved in getting the new mother board and power supply. I know my dad got suckered into buying a new power supply from dell for almost $300. Thanks - Rob
This all depends on how high of a resolution you want to play at. Up to 800x600, you could probably swing it with a Radeon 9000/9200 PCI card. If you're intrested in doing 1024x768 and want to look into newer stuff like D00M 3 and Far Cry (at any res really), that's going to warrant more cash spent as you'll need to go to an AGP (or you might look at a PCI Express card even---it's not supported by your motherboard). Another thing you'll want to think about is how much you'll be playing them. If it's occasionally, I can't say I'd recommend spending $500-1k upgrading to run a GeForce 6800 Ultra and the CPU/mobo/PSU/Ram to go with it. And of course, how much you're willing to spend. What we're looking at is a major chunk of the major system components needing to be replaced, which, even going with more frugal options, is still going to cost a healthy sum.
Yeah dell suck ass i got one like 3 mounths ago and know i want to hope it up but i cant. I got in it 3.0ghz ht 1.5GB of Ram 80GB hard drive Cd-RW Radeo 9800 Pro 128 Creative sound blaster card It is a Demsions 4600 But i got a deal on it with a Free 17inch flat panel display Free speakers with sub And a Printer Scanner Also a 3yr wanranty For A PRICE OF $1400.00 I bought it because look at what i got for 1400 dollars it sucked me in to the deal. I use it for playing all my fun games and i take it to turements for Counter Strike
I have been reading up and i would like to know if this would be a wise way to go for upgrading my dell. Asus mobo, P4R800-VM-UAYZ, and a ATI 9600 pro video card, for the PSU im not too sure which one cause i have no idea how much power i need. For ram and CPU i think i can keep what i got with my dell. All those things come to a bit more than $400(cdn). Which seems like a decent amout(under $500 was what i was looking for)
What type of Dell do you own. I like to call myself a Dell tech because i have learned so much about dells over the last year. My freind works for them as a tech so he explained things to me about them so what type of dell to u own.
dell 2400, (see first post) with 2.80 pentium 4 533 fsb, 512 ddr ram(not sure what speed),ata/100 hd...
What you want looks like it should work you might run into some compatible issuse thoe some dell like mine dont like other parts that you add to them. Power supplies for example dells are made to only work with the amount of power that you can add their own stuff into. The power supply that comes with it dose the job. My freind burnt out his dell when he add a new power supply to it and the computer was gone like that. But what you have should be ok just dont put a new power supply in that is over what dell gave you or no more then what you think you will uses. That is my advice but if you are putting i an new board then you can go with any thing you want.
Yup. The Dell power supplies are proprietary, so you can't use them on non-Dell motherboards. I don't know how good of a power supply, but this case is really cheap. Basically, as I understand it, your add-in cards and drives should be okay, but the motherboard upgrade will require at least a new power supply, unless you happen to find burning electronics pleasurable.
I have a nvidia geforce 4 mx 128mb, they are fairly cheap <£40, and run all the games i've thrown at it (maybe not best settings) including doom 3 That card seems pretty popular here, not sure how much/available it is in the U.S however
Yeah if you want a new power supply you are going to have to get a new motherboard. The same gose if you want a new motherboard you cant run the dell power on that board. Dell systems have things in the motherboard software that reconize only Dell parts. It has something to do with code or something i cant figure it out but i just got a new Dell from my freind it is not realy new but i has a P4 and a 2.4ghz in it so im going to mess around with it and the board and see what i can so to get around the problem i will let you guys know what i find out.
