Dell Dimension 8400 upgrade possibilities for AH?

[mbailey]

Hello folks  

Just a quick question, I had a cousin give my son a Dimension 8400 (free) Its been all cleaned out and reformatted. I would like to tweek it a bit for him, but am unsure what i could do. Im not sure if its a PCI or a PCI E. I would like to get it up and running for him and be able to play the game decently ( i know shadows etc wouldnt be possible ) but would like to get him some upgrades that would at least get him some solid FR, maybe be able to use ground vis w/o the mini freezes etc. Im not worried about dumping a couple of bucks into it as the system itself cost me nothing.

Any suggestions?

[TequilaChaser]

Good Morning mbailey,

check out this link to the DeLL Dimension 8400 specs:

http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dimension-8400-for/4507-3118_7-30919189.html?tag=mncolBtm;rnav


says it has a full length PCI-E 16X

The Dimension 8400 comes with one full-length 16X PCIe slot for the graphics card and one smaller 1X PCIe slot for upgrades such as Gigabit Ethernet cards and others, though cards for the 1x port have not yet been released

Link to above quote:
http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-dimension-8400-pentium/4505-3118_7-30919189.html#reviewPage1

CNET Editor's Review  ( click on the full editor review port to open it up larger )

hope this helps

[mbailey]

Good morning TC!!

Thank you, I really appreciate your taking the time to post the link,it helped alot and it looks like its a PCI-e.

Any suggestions on what i can or should get. Like what tweeks can i make to make it run the game? Compatible vid cards? Memory suggestions (looks like it will take 4gb total.) Does OS make a difference? Its XPpro.

Regarding price of things, not worried about that. Just something sensible. ie i dont want to do a zillion dollar upgrade on a older system. Just looking to play the game, with some of the bells and whistles.  

Again, thanks for the link sir  , Have a great day

[Ghastly]

With only a 350 Watt Power Supply, you are going to be pretty limited.  Which is probably OK, since with an Intel Pentium 4 you are going to be CPU bound pretty quick anyway.

Check first to see what card is in there, OK?  No sense in upgrading if there is little difference between what's there and what you can put in there, with a 350 Watt supply.

This card - the 4550 - requires only a 300 watt power supply (again, be sure to compare what's already in there with it to make sure it's worth the $60 investment.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150483

Since the Dell was shipped with an ATI Radeon to begin with, I'd look first to ATI - especially as the "best" NVidia card I could find that's rated to work with a 350 watt ps underperforms the Radeon to boot.

But if you'd prefer Nvidia, this NVidia based card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150503 is also rated for a 350 Watt power supply.

Here is a snapshot of each's performance, using a standardized tool.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=Radeon+HD+4550
vs
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?cpu=GeForce+9400+GT

I'd wait for another opinion or two, though.  

<S>

[mbailey]

Thanks Ghastly appreciate the help.Links were great. I will definatly make sure that i check whats already there before i get anything.

Do you think if i change the PSU that would help me get into the range of a higher end Vid card? Or is it the fact that its a P4 that is gonna really limit the choices?

[columbus]

its a 775 socket too so you might be able to find a dual core chip to upgrade it

[BaldEagl]

The real limitations here are the 800 Mhz FSB and the possibility that the PSU connection is proprietary to Dell.

You could swith to a Dual core CPU.  The Intel E5400 (2.7 Ghz)-E5700 (3.0 Ghz) ranging from $70-$85 should work.
You could get by cheaper if you step down to a Celeron but for the small savings I wouldn't.

DDR2 400 RAM 2x1Ghz $40.  I wouldn't go higher in either speed or amount in that machine.

Video card: NVidia GTS450/9800GT or ATI equivalent: $130 max.  No need to get anything better but if you step down it will be a big performance hit.

Good 80+ Certified 400-450W PSU 22 amp minimum +12V rating: $75.  There's a nice Corsair 450W at Newegg that would fit the bill as long as you have a standard connector.

Total: $325 + Shipping and your time to install.

At that everything would be pretty well balanced with no significant bottlenecks other than the FSB which is the biggest limiting factor but everything I've listed is geared to work with that.

[guncrasher]

for another 300 he could have a way better computer, brand new that will last him a couple of years longer.  depending on his budget.


semp

[Ghosth]

Guncrasher actually makes a good point.

for 5 - 700$ you can build a pretty sweet system.
Especially if you can rob some parts of the existing one, like Monitor, hard drive, DVD drives, keyboard, mouse etc.

[BaldEagl]

I'd actually estimate $700 and more likely $1000 is where you start to hit the sweet point for AH minus any parts that can be re-used.  At $500 you're scraping the minimum price barrel and not really any better off than with what's listed above.

I do agree that spending $700-1000 would be the avenue I'd probably take but I gave him a list of what he could do to maximize (max being the key word here) the existing system and do it in a way that makes everything work together as a system.

[mbailey]

Well, first off thanks everyone!! I appreciate the feedback

I plugged it in and ran a DXDIAG. I found out its an ATI radeon x300 se 128 mb PCIe card. From what ive read, this card is equal to a little old man on valium, wearing coke bottle glasses, living inside the computer, drawing the graphics and slapping the picture on the screen  .

Im thinking that even this card is a step up from the computer i play the game on ( 2003 Dell Dimension w intergrated INTELvid chip ).

Im in the market for a gaming computer and am going to see TD when im ready to purchase. Or wait and see if i want to try my hand at building one  

I just wanted to get this new system running a bit faster as my son loves to play the game offline, and being only 10yrs old, doesnt play any online games. So after seeing all the suggestions, and willing to pay+/- $300.00 What is the best suggestion as to bang for the buck?

My thoughts are this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150483  OR

 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150450&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Video+Cards-_-XFX-_-14150450

and 4 gigs of Corsair ram  Total about $175.00

Thoughts?

[columbus]

the 4670 is a better card its 128-bit but its only DDR2, compared to the 4550 its a 64-bit card, but after rebate the 4670 cost of 49.99 isnt too bad.  i actually have a GT 240 512MB with DDR5 its roughly equal to a 9600GT in performance and is a low wattage cards for 60.00 + shipping if that helps. 

[Dragon]

I plugged it in and ran a DXDIAG. I found out its an ATI radeon x300 se 128 mb PCIe card. From what ive read, this card is equal to a little old man on valium, wearing coke bottle glasses, living inside the computer, drawing the graphics and slapping the picture on the screen  .

OMG, I about hit the floor.  LMFAO. 

[mbailey]

the 4670 is a better card its 128-bit but its only DDR2, compared to the 4550 its a 64-bit card, but after rebate the 4670 cost of 49.99 isnt too bad.  i actually have a GT 240 512MB with DDR5 its roughly equal to a 9600GT in performance and is a low wattage cards for 60.00 + shipping if that helps. 

I looked into it, i dont believe it will work with my system. Am i wrong?

[columbus]

its a standard PCI-e slot so theres no reason why it wont. its also a low voltage card  you can run with a 300 watt Power Supply. I had it running with my Nspire 305 watt PSU with no issues with my settings at 2048, of course i was running a quad core pressesor too , your bottle neck i think with running that card is your cpu a single core 3.2 w/HT  prescott based CPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121354 is the card


having read some forums on upgrading the CPU upgrade is limited to single core Pentium 4 prescott based  5x0 and 6x0 series Pentium 4 775 chips. while a better video card may help the video. i am not sure your cpu will work with you. maybe someone here that runs simular cpu can give some performance specs before you think about putting any money into the machine.

Note: 5X1 and 6XX series support 64-bit  and the 6XX have 2M cache

i looked on ebay and they have 661 3.6ghz P4's for around 30.00

also i ironically have a 8400 here in the shop a customer brought in and i am not a big fan of the passive heat sink with the fan cowl over it. 

also double check the caps on the motherboard they are commonly blown or bulging which if you have any makes this all a mute point