Little help with some questions....

[slo0pyj0e]

Hello everyone,

I am wanting to add more memory, a video card, and a new hard drive to my computer but I'm not sure of how much my mother board will hold and why kind of memory, video card, and hard drive would be the best for me. I use my computer a lot for gaming, browsing the web and for music. I want the best possible speed for my computer. I believe I have have all the specs on my computer listed in my specs.

I'm not looking to spend a great amount of money for this project. I just want my computer to run healthy. My hard drive is old and more than half way full. My brother tells me that it is slower than 7200rpm. What ever that my be. I don't want to spend more that 120$ on ram, 150$ on HD, and 200$ on Video Card. I would like to keep the prices well below the price limit but I'm prepared to spend up too the price limit.

What do you guys think? Can you help me out?

 

[bradthegreat]

Well, here is the product spec page for your computer, I believe:
http://docs.us.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/opgx270/en/ug/specs.htm

You game on this PC? What kind of gaming do you do? I can't handle anything less that 1GB of RAM for gaming...anyways...

Go to newegg.com and use the menus to drill down your search. Just keep clicking what your mobo supports so you can see what you're looking at - I'm feeling lazy or I 'd do it right now. You should be able to get an idea of prices...

One other thing you may have to consider - power supply. Depending on how big/what brand you have in there right now, buying all these upgrades could get your hardware nuked in a hurry. You have to see if it will support all the stuff you want. I know there's sites out there for this - maybe someone else can suggest one...

 

[Daveskater]

Go to this website and put the specs in, then add about 30% to the results. This is then the minimum power of your power supply that you will want

Here are some links for parts for you:

RAM

Hard Drive

Graphics Card

All within your specified budget but there are cheaper versions of everything if you want to spend a bit less

That's a pretty high end graphics card so i expect you will need a new power supply as well, your dell one will probably be 250 or 300W and that card will probably need (i'm trying to find out for sure but it's tricky ) around 400W or so. I ran the PSU Calculator (had to guess a part or two and it came back as 213W, but you will definitely want more than this with the parts i have linked you to.

 

[Cinders]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231047
Memory $105.00 Good tight timmings and inexpensive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148230
Hard Drive $58.00 Five year warranty, but I'm not sure your motherboard will detect all of the drive space.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161071
Video Card $181.00 $161.00 after rebate Strong video card with 512MB DDR3

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007
Power Supply $90.00 $50.00 after rebate Good PSU and a rebate

All well within your budget I might add.

 

[Daveskater]

Only thing with that hard drive is that it is OEM so will come with no screws, cables, etc but if you don't need them then it would be fine

 

[slo0pyj0e]

Thanks very much guys...I just bought the ram and HD off of newegg. I will wait for the VS. Oh and bradthegreat, I play counter strike source and 1.5 alot. Thats about the only two games...

 

[you use a 286]

get a new mobo

 

[bradthegreat]

yeah, I agree - your system is a bit aged...hopefully all the upgrades work for you and you can milk it along for a bit longer. I know any new games probably wouldn't work on it as they require a lot of system resources. Good luck

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

IMO, you should build a new system from scratch. Here are my recommendations for one.
Intel Dual Core E2140 CPU + ASUS P5B Motherboard combo - $100.75 (use the drop-down menu to select the P5B)
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail - $49.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive OEM WD5000AAKS - $95.99
Corsair 450VX 450W PSU - $59.99
MSI RX3850-T2D256E OC Radeon HD 3850 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail - $169.99

Grand Total = $475.96 without shipping. You'll have an excellent PC that will be able to play most games at high detail settings. It's a bit over-budget (about $20 or so more) but is definitely worth it. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

EDIT: Just saw you already bought some of the parts. No bother. It'll help someone else probably.

 

[slo0pyj0e]

IMO, you should build a new system from scratch. Here are my recommendations for one.
Intel Dual Core E2140 CPU + ASUS P5B Motherboard combo - $100.75 (use the drop-down menu to select the P5B)
G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail - $49.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive OEM WD5000AAKS - $95.99
Corsair 450VX 450W PSU - $59.99
MSI RX3850-T2D256E OC Radeon HD 3850 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail - $169.99

Grand Total = $475.96 without shipping. You'll have an excellent PC that will be able to play most games at high detail settings. It's a bit over-budget (about $20 or so more) but is definitely worth it. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

EDIT: Just saw you already bought some of the parts. No bother. It'll help someone else probably.

So....all these parts are compatible with one another and will fit into my case?

 

[samjohnson]

Yes they are all compatible but you will want to get another case. They one you have now will allow no cooling. You will want to get one that will allow fans.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811208019

This one would do fine. There is a ton of cases out there so just browse newegg for them and find which one you like the best.