Gaming Upgrading Dell Dimension 9150

Agjsdfd

My title
OP
Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,205
Trophies
0
Age
114
Location
Arctica
XP
255
Country
Scorpei said:
Raki said:
well this is a good question to ask because I have a PC with similar specs
BTX mainboard (w/ intel p945 chipset)
3 GHz Pentium D
1 GB DDR2 533 MHz (the MB should be able to handle up to 667 MHz...dunno why they just built in 533 MHz RAM)
Geforce 6700XL (slightly faster than a 6600GT)
400 W PSU

I'm considering upgrading the video card and the RAM, but as cheap as possible and it should fit this BTX housing
Ur PSU would as stated probably need a little update. As for your ram you could add another gig or 2 (though 2 will probably rip it out of dual channel, depending on the setup you have now), going 667 probably isn't worth it though, I'd just get a cheaper stick of 1gb 553 (assuming you have 1 in there right now) and be done with it. Those should go quite cheap. As for the videocard, it's more up to budget then anything else. A 4850 should probably be pretty sweet in there, more could still add value but I'm not sure at what point it will outperform your ram / cpu so that it will simply be idling while waiting for them.

As for building in 553 instead of 667, it's cheaper
wink.gif
.
Isnt 400W PSU enough to run INNO3D Nvidia Geforce 9500GT? DDR2 Version
 

Scorpei

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2006
Messages
1,295
Trophies
0
Website
scorpei.com
XP
263
Country
Netherlands
For a 9500GT, depending on whatever you have in there aside from that, it could be enough... not too sure though (also depends on the efficiency of the PSU). I do wonder how much of an upgrade it is (it's a big one over the 6700 granted
tongue.gif
).
 

Scorpei

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2006
Messages
1,295
Trophies
0
Website
scorpei.com
XP
263
Country
Netherlands
playallday said:
This (CA) or this (USA) should be good for you guys.
1 +12V line :S? 35A is nice but still detracting the CPU from it...... I dunno. If you (ever) want to add a heftier card you might end up replacing the PSU again. Things I never cut costs on: PSU, motherboard (& mem), case. Most other things are quite replaceable and drop in price quite dramatically (the motherboards can too however I tend to enjoy richtly layed out motherboards
smile.gif
). PSUs for me have lasted for at least 2 computers.
 

Agjsdfd

My title
OP
Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,205
Trophies
0
Age
114
Location
Arctica
XP
255
Country
Scorpei said:
For a 9500GT, depending on whatever you have in there aside from that, it could be enough... not too sure though (also depends on the efficiency of the PSU). I do wonder how much of an upgrade it is (it's a big one over the 6700 granted
tongue.gif
).
LOL, not really a major upgrade
tongue.gif
.
I dont play games on PC. But as far as I read from the reviews, with 9500GT you get 24 FPS on crysis.

Also I am taking out the TV tuner card. Had 1TB HDD, taking out 500. So it doesnt really have hardcore parts
laugh.gif
 

Joe88

[λ]
Global Moderator
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
12,736
Trophies
2
Age
36
XP
7,399
Country
United States
Kamui said:
I dont play games on PC. But as far as I read from the reviews, with 9500GT you get 24 FPS on crysis.
not sure what review was that, must have been at a very low res though
I just skimmed some benchmarks and on average its get 4-9 FPS
 

Agjsdfd

My title
OP
Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,205
Trophies
0
Age
114
Location
Arctica
XP
255
Country
Joe88 said:
Kamui said:
I dont play games on PC. But as far as I read from the reviews, with 9500GT you get 24 FPS on crysis.
not sure what review was that, must have been at a very low res though
I just skimmed some benchmarks and on average its get 4-9 FPS
on 1024x768? Shit... Perhaps I read about the GDDR3 version o.o!!?
 

Raki

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2008
Messages
554
Trophies
0
XP
98
Country
Gambia, The
hm crysis played fine (something around 25 - 30 FPS) on everything low and resolution on 1280*1024 (native screen resolution)

And I don't think my PSU is a very good one...the first one just died (but was under garanty)
And aren't the Pentium D Processors quite powerhungry?
 

Agjsdfd

My title
OP
Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,205
Trophies
0
Age
114
Location
Arctica
XP
255
Country
Raki said:
hm crysis played fine (something around 25 - 30 FPS) on everything low and resolution on 1280*1024 (native screen resolution)

And I don't think my PSU is a very good one...the first one just died (but was under garanty)
And aren't the Pentium D Processors quite powerhungry?
Cool thats what I meant. Its playable(graphics look OK) as far as I can see from the 9500 GT reviews on youtube.
I just ordered 2 gig ddr2 667mhz ram and the 9500GT DDR2. Should arrive on saturday
smile.gif

Thanks, will report if it doesnt work.
 

Raki

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2008
Messages
554
Trophies
0
XP
98
Country
Gambia, The
Raki said:
hm crysis played fine (something around 25 - 30 FPS) on everything low and resolution on 1280*1024 (native screen resolution)

And I don't think my PSU is a very good one...the first one just died (but was under garanty)
And aren't the Pentium D Processors quite powerhungry?


well this is with the 6700XL...a 9500GT should perform better
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,282
Country
United Kingdom
As you directed a reply at me it would be rude not to respond.
Regarding UT3, I think the last UT game I played was actually the first (although that may well have been 7 months ago as it works well on our machines/network) so I am out on that front although a quick search says it is fairly lightweight compared to what is out now.

Your budget is fairly tight to do all you want.

Re ram. 32 bit operating systems only get along well (stuff like PAE: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...PAE/PAEdrv.mspx exists but let us not get into that).
On top of this your graphics card and various other devices sit so your 4 gigs is less the graphics cards (which sits around 768 or more these days for a good one).
While ram may be cheap the money you will kill on it can just as easily go for the next model up on the graphics card, a new drive (you will not really use the ram but you will use the space).
You will probably get more speed from installing a second drive and using that for speed purposes rather than the token speed from the ram.
Again I have 2 gigs (no virtual memory/page file at all), I run a fairly lean version of XP but use it for high end games, video encoding and CAD and aside from memory leaks I barely touch the limit.

PSU: I am not the greatest fan of Tom's Hardware but it seems they did a decent test on the subject of graphics and PSU:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/geforce-rade...view-31495.html
The usual advice of do not just buy a cheap one stands though.

Graphics: I am stuck in the past somewhat (my 7900gs plays all the latest games well enough for me) although I am still struggling to consider the 8XXX a worthy successor and with the 9XXX series being little more than a rebadged 8XXX series.
 

Joe88

[λ]
Global Moderator
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
12,736
Trophies
2
Age
36
XP
7,399
Country
United States
FAST6191 said:
Graphics: I am stuck in the past somewhat (my 7900gs plays all the latest games well enough for me) although I am still struggling to consider the 8XXX a worthy successor and with the 9XXX series being little more than a rebadged 8XXX series.
you could always go 260GTX Core216

though the 300GTX series should be announced soon with smaller die sizes
 

Agjsdfd

My title
OP
Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
1,205
Trophies
0
Age
114
Location
Arctica
XP
255
Country
Thanks for your suggestions FAST. As for now, I will go for simpler parts. I will do major upgrades(rebuild) of my pc in a few months(quicker than I planned).
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: Sorry for accidentally bending over