DELL vs. my old Pentium III System

[riverwind]

HELP WANTED Insights -DELL vs. my old Pentium III System

I'm in a bit of a dilemma right now...I was having some problems with my old system which is a:
-Pentium III 800 MHz
-Memory: 256MB
-Windows XP Pro
-ATI Rage 128 GL AGP graphics card

and in the mean time had to order a Dell:

-Dimension E310 Series, Intel Pentium 4 Processor 521 (2.80GHz) and 1MB cache
-1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
-Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelator 900

but I now got my old system up and running and I'm wondering if I should just upgrade the RAM to 512MB (old Rambus style), update my video card and send the DELL back for a refund????...., although the bus speed is only 100 on the Rambus...and in the meantime, save up for a better system..

I had to kinda jump into something because my wife needs the home computer for school/work daily and I was in need of something quick and inexpensive (paid ~$550 w/ 19 analog flat screen, 80GB HD)

I don't do too much intense gaming, mostly mess with movies/music although I did just pick up Half-Life 2 Episode 1 and I'm pretty sure my old ATI Rage 128 GL AGP graphics card isn't going to cut it and I'm wondering about the Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelator 900 that comes with the Dell..

any thoughts/ insights into this issue???

 

[swker98]

any intergrated gfx are jsut crap and will not run most new games and if they do they will probibly be laggy, im not to sure on the rage but if its agp you can upgrade for under 100 dollors to play half life 2 on a decent setting, about the rambus it can be quite expensive to upgrade over 60 bucks per 256mb or more so i would look on ebay for it as many reatilas tdo not sell it any more, you can build yourself a decent system for about 700 dollors so i vote to save your $$ and build a completly new system

 

[iss]

The old style rambus that your system requires is getting hard to find and is expensive. ( your old P3 uses the 45ns rambus and most the rambus that is available is the newer 40ns. And you cannot mix 45ns and 40ns.)

 

[AMDIsTheBest010]

that new Dell E310 will be a big improvements over your current PIII, even though it only has integrated graphics, you can upgrade those, i think it has an available PCI x16 slot. but the E310 is sweet, my friend has one, and the P4 with HyperThreading makes it even better. He has WinXP Media Center Edition 2004 w/update 2 and 512MB DDR2 RAM, and it starts up faster and beat my PC which has 1GB DDR RAM in benchmark tests.

I would keep the Dell, but then again its your money not mine.

...AMD

 

[riverwind]

Yeah, that's kinda what I what I thought on the intergrated gfx. And I have been noticing how expensive that rambus stuff is...I'm glad you (iss) mentioned about the difference between the new rambus and the older stuff.. I probably would have made the mistake of buying the old newer RAM and being stuck with it.

Thank you both for the input! it looks like I'll just save up a little and build..

any quick recommendations on what mobo to go with and for that matter other specs to go with???

 

[riverwind]

I appreciate the feedback AMD!!

 

[AMDIsTheBest010]

your quite welcome

...AMD

 

[iss]

I agree I would go ahead with the Dell. the integrated graphics is probably more powerful than the Rage 128 yu have now. and if the dell has an available upgrade slot that is even better. I still have my old Dell 733mhz with 512 rambus up and running. and I can assure you that the new dell with the fatser P4 processor, 800 mhz FSB and the much faster DDR is going to be a huge improvement.