Desperate Upgrade Needed!

iRace

iRace

iRace

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Joined
30 Sep 2008
Posts
21
Hi,

I have just got an old computer from a friend. This is the spec if you are brave enough to look! :eek:

Dell Optiplex GX240 - running XP

Pentium4 2.00GHz
Intel 845 Chipset
40GB HDD
768MB SDRAM

I want to slowly upgrade this and eventually change everything (up to a core 2 duo /quad core spec) but for the time being i want to be able to continously use it in the process. So I will need to buy parts now that will still be compatible later on...

What would be the cheapest upgrade I could do first?
I'm guessing RAM isn't a good place to start as the max each slot can hold is 512MB and I want to build something that ends up holding 1GB / 2GB sticks! (Which I don't think you can get in SDRAM anyway?)

Thanks :D
 
Your only option is to get most of the components in one... You need a new case to fit the new motherboard... You'd need that new motherboard, and processor at the same time... And you'd of course have to replace the RAM straight away for compatible DDR2/3.....
And that hard drive wont last you long being so small and probably slow...
Sell it, if its worth much, save up and the guys here can spec you something pretty great from 300GBP upwards really...

To be fair it just depends on what you're after.. It is technically upgradeable... Give a few more details on what it'll be used for and what you hope to achieve in the end and someone will spec you
 
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As Tcody said, you will have to upgrade most of your system at once if you want any compatibility. Spending money to get older components that would be compabile would be at best counter-productive because everything is very cheap at the moment. The graphics card market, for example, is seeing a price crash with some very fast cards available for consumption, but the 845 board only seems to support AGP cards.
 
Case can be changed whenever, independantly of other components (earlier is better for cooling purposes)
Power supply can be changed independantly, but before the motherboard/cpu/ram would be very advisable

Motherboard, CPU and memory must be changed together - along with the graphics card (or get a motherboard with onboard graphics)

If your motherboard happens to have sata ports, hard drives and optical drives can be replaced either before or after the motherboard (and independantly from each other) - if the motherboard doesn't have SATA, change them after.
 
As the other guys have said it would be as good as a new machine. Dell computers are fairly difficult to upgrade the core components. At best you'll only ever be able to do things like HDD, graphics etc.
 
To be honest I don't think it's worth trying to upgrade as literally everything will need to be changed.

Best bet is to continue to use it how it is and save some money as you go. As has been mentioned before, as you have a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc already, you will be able to build a PC waaaayyyy faster than that for (realistically) just shy of £400.
 
Yeah - no point! Dell's use quite individual and specific parts on the whole.

Best bet is to carry on using it while you build up a new machine.

gt
 
gt_junkie said:
Yeah - no point! Dell's use quite individual and specific parts on the whole.

Best bet is to carry on using it while you build up a new machine.

gt
Click to expand...

+1 we use Dell's at work, they purposely make as many of the components as they can not standard size so you have to buy from them, <insert cursing here> :mad:
 
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