Upgrading a Dell

[Apple2o]

OK, so i have a Dell Deminsion 8400 series. It has 1gb of RAM and 3.0ghz speed, an x300 graphics card but i have no idea how to find what the motherboard is.

The PC can barely play Black and White 2 on the lowest settings, im trying to upgrade it within 500$ so that it can play it fairly well. Im thinking of getting a new motherboard and a new graphics card, but im wondering if they will be compatible with my dell. Is there anyway i can check?

These are

POWERCOLOR R43CA-GD3D Radeon X800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

A8N-E Motherboard (Athlon X2/Athlon FX/Athlon 64, Socket 939, nForce4 Ultra, ATX, 4GB DDR, 2000MHz Bus)

I have no clue about upgrading my PC, but i know the gfx card is crap, and is there any way i can find out what my motherboard is?


EDIT:For some reason there is lots of talk of HL2, the PC can play is with all settings on high with no lag whatsoever

[technobeast]

Download Everest Home Edition - http://www.lavalys.com/products/over...?pid=1&lang=en

It should tell you almost anything about your hardware and more.. as I've already recommended it many times.

Are these your mobo with graphics card? Or the upgrade you want to make?


p.s. Welcome to PCTT

[bmc]

the mobo may be proprietary....so good luck.

[igalan]

Upgrading the graphic card is the best possible upgrade in your case. Changing the motherboard alone won't give you much improvement, because the processor, RAM and disk drives will be the same. Not to mention the fact that you'll spend many hours for a 1-3% improvement. Anyway a 3 GHz CPU is more than capable of running the newest games at the highest resolutions if it's paired with the proper hardware.

So if your motherboard is AGP, get a good AGP video card. ATI X800 XL or GeForce 6800, 6600GT with 256 MB RAM. If you have a PCIe motherboard, then the newer ATI X1800 or GeForce 7800 are current high end models. In your case swithching for an ATI gfx is very easy: unplug PC, open case, remove old card, plug new one, close and start. Tha Catalyst driver is already installed so the new card will be automatically installed.

[robust]

i am also going to upgrade my dell so that i can hopefully run the new elder scrolls game oblivion. my current system is,

System Model: Dimension 5000
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1022MB RAM
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)l
Card name: RADEON X300/X550 Series

the system requirements are as follows for oblivion.

Recommended:

* 3 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 1 GB System RAM
* ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card

Minimum System Requirements:

* Windows XP
* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card
* and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse

Supported Video Card Chipsets:

* ATI X1900 series
* ATI X1800 series
* ATI X1600 series
* ATI X1300 series
* ATI X850 series
* ATI x800 series
* ATI x700 series
* ATI x600 series
* ATI Radeon 9800 series
* ATI Radeon 9700 series
* ATI Radeon 9600 series
* ATI Radeon 9500 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 7800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series
* NVIDIA GeForce 6200 series
* NVIDIA GeForce FX series

i know that my gfx card isn't supported and so i'm planning to upgrade to a PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...00_Series.html

will that do the trick alone?

[igalan]

First the videcard that you have is Direcx9 compatible, meaning that it should be able to run the game. Maybe with some features turned off, like High Dynamic Range (HDR) or lowering a bit the detail level. Even if your video card wasn't DX9 compatible, it would just fall to software rendering on not hardware supported features.

So play this game and see if the performance is acceptable for you. If it isn't then buy the videocard, but at least give your computer a chance!

[robust]

its not on the supported gfx cars list though

also i have trouble running battlefield 2 on any form of good graphics at the moment. but i will definately try it before upgrading. thanks

[igalan]

The requirements also state 128MB Direct3D compatible video card, so there's a contradiction. I've just went to the official website and they just post the same specs you did. But there is a post with more detailed requirements posted by users here.