help my dad

[robbo]

hi there

my dad has got 4 year old del dimension 4550 with gee force mx420. all his grandchildren keep coming round and want to play fairly up to date games.

pentium 4 running 2.8 Ghz. 512mb of ram and 80 Gb hard drive.


he wants an upgrade to graphics card but does not want to spend a lot of money.

any ideas? is upgrading cost effective?

thanks

robbo.

[blueball]

Like everything in life it will be a compromise between how much you want to spend and how much performance improvement you get. I assume the system is AGP?
The fastest AGP card available is the Gainward 7800GS

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=392225

It is actually a wolf insheeps clothing as it is a 7900GT on an AGP board - I put one in my daughters PC and it absolutely flies.

The drawback is the cost (£230) and he may not wish to pay that much.

[stytagm]

Yeah definately. That processor has still got some life in it and a new graphics card (and maybe some extra memory) would make a big difference.

You'll never be able to play the very latest games with all the candy, but it'll keep going a year or two longer.

I'm assuming that your current card is a Geforce 4200, so it'll be AGP. Ask here or look in the bargains forums and the guys will point you to a good value card. A quick search on Ebuyer, Scan or Aria for AGP cards will turn up lots. like this But other guys on here will be able to point you to the really good cards for the money.

When you've made a few more posts (50 - but don't spam to get there) you can look in the For Sale forum. There are serious Technophiles on Hexus who are offloading very nice graphics cards as antiques, and they're friendlier and (in my opinion) safer than Ebay. Just read the rules / guidelines first.

[Robbie G]

9800 Pro imo. £20 from ebay, will make a nice difference.

Edit - maybe more than £20 but still cheap as dirt.

[G4Z]

Thats probably a p4 Celeron 2.8ghz...

Id swap that and add some RAM to make is a gig and buy a decent mid range or second hand graphics card. You could probably do it for under £200.

[blueball]

Thats probably a p4 Celeron 2.8ghz...

nope:

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...cs.htm#1101572

but agree on the more memory idea

[BlindMelon7]

The others are right. RAM would make a lot of difference. As for the graphics, isn't the 7800gt really expensive for what it is? Considering its basicly a 7900 which costs about £120.

[Odc]

Upgrading your RAM to 1gb and buying a modern graphics card will make a huge difference in the performance of the games. Shouldn't be too expensive, maybe £100 - 200.

[G4Z]

nope:

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...cs.htm#1101572

but agree on the more memory idea

That is fortunate, that chip should be perfectly capable of running newer games if a new card and a bit of extra RAM are added.

[blueball]

As for the graphics, isn't the 7800gt really expensive for what it is? Considering its basicly a 7900 which costs about £120.

Yup, it is expensive, but, if you want to get as much as possible out of an AGP system then that is the fastest card you can get. Going PCIe would mean a new mobo, new CPU, new RAM, possibly new PSU.

Of course he could buy a whole new Dell for a few hundred quid

[blueball]

That is fortunate, that chip should be perfectly capable of running newer games if a new card and a bit of extra RAM are added.

Yup, my daughter is running Oblivion on a P4 2.8 Northwood with a 7900GS card (the Gainward one) and its very smooth.

[teachmech]

A 7600GT would be good enough for most games and not an overkill for the rest of the system.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=462642

£128.97

Check to see if any of the memory slots are empty if they are buy 512Mb to give 1 GB but they are both probably full so you will need to remove one. If so buy 1GB.

Hope this helps

[bledd]

the best agp card you can get is this one..

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...agx_2d004_2dgc

out in november

i reckon you should go for a 9800pro or something similar 2nd hand, up the ram to 1gb and you'll be laughing

-make sure its got an AGP port!

[Tarffie]

9800 Pro or 66/6800GT and another 512mb would be good methinks. No point getting anything faster and more expensive if it's only for the grandkids.

[unreal]

I'm thinking his Dell PSU can't handle anything that big?

[robbo]

hi everyone.

thanks for advice.

i am still confused as to if my dads machine can run all of the cards, and how easy is it to
a. change graphics card.
b. increase memory.

bearing in mind i am a newbie

robbo

keeping it real