brooklyngooner
Member
Hello all,
I would like to upgrade my current comp (a Dell, predictably, an 8200 purchased about two years ago) and have never even taken the case apart to do so in any way. I am hoping some of you can recommend some ways to help performance at reasonable prices and point out any potential conflicts or any sort of things to look out for when physically working on the thing. I apologize for my lack of knowledge.
Current specs:
Intel P4 2.8 gHz
1 GB ram (unsure of type, or how many DIMMs it's on -- what the easy way to find out?)
Nvidia 4x AGP Ti 4200 64MB graphics card
I'd definitely want to upgrade the graphics card and would like to do so for around $150 but am willing to spend more if it's worth it for noticeable improvement and/or not needing to renew the card in six months' time. Anything to keep in mind? Stupid question -- the cards I looked at say 8XAGP, can I use one of those if the one I currently have is 4XAGP? Any makes or brands or specifics you might recommend? I don't care much about running HL2 at max settings on superhigh res, I'd like to be able to play FPS with no choppiness on pretty good settings, and at any rate I play mostly strategy and RPGs so the best specs aren't required (though it'd be nice to max out AOEIII). And I do want to be able to play CoD2 nicely.
If I wanted to upgrade to 2GB of RAM, what do I need to consider, and is it worth it to do so right now? I know I need to find out what type of RAM I have to ensure compatibility -- I know it's an older type, so maybe I should just replace it and get four 512MB sticks?
Anything else to think about?
Thanks for your replies.
I would like to upgrade my current comp (a Dell, predictably, an 8200 purchased about two years ago) and have never even taken the case apart to do so in any way. I am hoping some of you can recommend some ways to help performance at reasonable prices and point out any potential conflicts or any sort of things to look out for when physically working on the thing. I apologize for my lack of knowledge.
Current specs:
Intel P4 2.8 gHz
1 GB ram (unsure of type, or how many DIMMs it's on -- what the easy way to find out?)
Nvidia 4x AGP Ti 4200 64MB graphics card
I'd definitely want to upgrade the graphics card and would like to do so for around $150 but am willing to spend more if it's worth it for noticeable improvement and/or not needing to renew the card in six months' time. Anything to keep in mind? Stupid question -- the cards I looked at say 8XAGP, can I use one of those if the one I currently have is 4XAGP? Any makes or brands or specifics you might recommend? I don't care much about running HL2 at max settings on superhigh res, I'd like to be able to play FPS with no choppiness on pretty good settings, and at any rate I play mostly strategy and RPGs so the best specs aren't required (though it'd be nice to max out AOEIII). And I do want to be able to play CoD2 nicely.
If I wanted to upgrade to 2GB of RAM, what do I need to consider, and is it worth it to do so right now? I know I need to find out what type of RAM I have to ensure compatibility -- I know it's an older type, so maybe I should just replace it and get four 512MB sticks?
Anything else to think about?
Thanks for your replies.