Dell Dimension 4600 Upgrading for Photo Editing

Thanks for the info! By upgrading the memory, do you mean replacing it with Corsairs or something similar at higher MHz, or going into the BIOS and upping the speed (and voltage) of the existing 8GB DDR2 beyond the stock 800MHz (and hoping I don't fry them)? ..or did you mean adding more RAM, although I thought 8GB would be ample, even though theoretically you can use up to 16GB on a quad I think..

I don't know if the Q9550 will be EO or C1 stepping.. although not sure I'll even try to clock anything up - apparently the stock cooling isn't the best for overclocking.

By disk set, do you mean the o/s? They better bloody supply it - although maybe OEM so I can't use it elsewhere. This will be the 3rd Dell I've bought new, and they always supplied o/s CDs and drivers in the past.. Is that what you're talking about? This PC comes with Vista Home Premium x64, although I have unrestricted full installation CD's for Vista Home Basic 32bit, XPpro (which I currently prefer to anything else), and even 2000pro, 2000server and 2000advanced server.

Only getting integrated sound for now - I didn't want to commit to a sound card that I couldn't use if I decided to revert to XPpro.

Appreciate the advice

I mean to upgrade the size of each module... if 512 MB, upgrade to 1 GB... if two 256 MB modules, upgrade to two 1 GB modules... if 2 GB now, upgrade to 4 GB while memory is available and cheaply. Most suppliers are dumping extra memory to adjust to the market... Once inventory is in balance, the prices will likely go up a lot.

Ah I see, and good point. I'm not actually sure of the current makeup, but I *think* it will be 4 x 2GB..

Looking at crucial.com, they say the stock XPS 630 has 4 slots and a max 2GB per slot, so looks like I'll be at max anyway - I'm presuming it's 4 x 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 (800MHz), even though the Vista Home Premium 64bit o/s *can* work with up to 16GB. I guess I could replace them with 4 x 2GB DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066MHz) though.. would it be worth the effort for ~$150?

By disk set you meant the o/s and drivers, yes?

*edit* - apparently unless I clock the Q9550 CPU of 1333FSB up to over 1600, it won't make much difference using 800MHz RAM or 1066. Additionally, if I downgrade the o/s to XP (32bit), then anything over 4GB RAM does not get utilized by the o/s anyway, so looks like I'll be good on the 8GB 800MHz RAM they are supplying with the PC already.

*further edit* - ok damn. Apparently the 'stock' motherboard is a proprietary 650i, which has 2 graphics PCI slots, but each only has 8 lanes. That's fine for SLI with say GT8800 which max around 80GB/s, but the GTX280 is a single card which really needs 16 lanes, so the card is going to be effectively bottlenecked to around 80GB/s, instead of the 115-160GB/s the GTX280 can handle.. that's just silly. What a waste of resources. Wonder if Dell will let me upgrade to 750i motherboard for cheap (has a 16 lane PCI slot)...

And even furthermore, the mobo can't handle PC2-8500 RAM; apparently PC2-6400 is the max, but they can be clocked up to 1066 on stock setup anyway (according to Dell), so it looks like I am definitely at the max as far as RAM goes.