Looking for advice upgrading my Dell 4600
By
Doomlord,
Posted on: 2009-05-05 21:03 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
For a quality computer, you could always check out Digital Storm Computers. They have outstanding customer service and 3 year warranty.
That's similar to what my parents have.
Problem is finding a faster Socket 478 Pentium 4, preferably a Northwood core which is a lot less power hungry than a Prescott core. The Northwood core has only 512KB of cache. The technical specs on the Dell Dimension 2600 says it will recognize up to the 3.0GHz/800MHz FSB or the 3.06GHz/533MHz FSB version of the Pentium 4. There are no dual core Pentium D's for that socket.
That video card you found is reasonable, should be 3 times faster than what you currently have installed. It does use a 4-pin hard drive power connector but it shouldn't be so much power to brown out the 250 watt PSU the Dell uses.
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I found this processor on eBay this morning. It seems to fit the specs I'm looking for but will the heatsink in my existing system be compatible with this or will I need find one that will work with this particular processor?
At this point, my honest recommendation is to save a bit of money and suck it up and buy a new system. Anything you upgrade on your current machine means sinking money into parts that won't be compatible when you inevitably do go for a complete rebuild. You can build a decent budget gaming machine for about $500.
I'm looking to upgrade my Dell Dimension 4600 very soon to keep up with some of the curent games out there that Im very interested in purchasing (Left4Dead, Mass Effect etc. etc.).
The 3 main things that I would like/need to upgrade are the...
Video card (Currently a Geforce 6200 AGP)
Processor (Currently P4 2.40ghz)
Harddrive (80gigs... I think)
I have 1.5 gb of RAM so I'm thinking that's not an issue at the moment and I have been eyeballin' this video card but I'm not sure it's the very best and most current card the Geforce AGP line has to offer much less compatible for my system.
I would rather defer to the experts out there on the 3 major things I'm looking for and if there is something else you recommend to go along with what I suggested let me know.
Thanks in advance.