Looking to upgrade C521

tonym45

I just read a post from another member;

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055463196


and basically I want to do the same thing too. I play a lot of Left 4 Dead, and want to upgrade my video card, and possibly my power supply. I have already upgraded my memory from the stock 512 mb to;


http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3228139&Sku=C13-6082

(Corsair Dual Channel TWINX 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB) for those who don't want to click)

even though it says i only have 2.93g available (any clue why that could be?). Left 4 Dead plays fine, but looks kinda poor in the graphics department, hence the want to upgrade and why I'm here. I just need some ideas of what to get. I would also like the graphics card to have a HDMI out, because my monitor has a HDMI input

My specs are:

Windows XP home edition
AMD Sempron Processor
RAM @ 4gb
Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE graphic GPU
19" HANNspree HF199HPB Monitor (if that makes a difference)

Looking forward to see what you guys come up with

TerrorFirmer

Left for dead runs fine? Please tell me you're joking. I tried Left 4 Dead on my mobos Ge7150 for the laugh and got 20fps at lowest settings playing online. And that was with a 3.6Ghz Core 2 CPU - the Sempron is ancient and will seriously hamper what you can make effective use of.

I would just go with a 4550 - Low Profile, reasonably fast at 1280x800 resolution, and ten times better then your current video setup and won't be bottlenecked too severely by your CPU.

TonyM.

no I did not post this OK

try e-bay or Komplett Clearance corner.

Solitaire

*cough*newbuildtime*cough*

With a LP chassis your choice of graphics card is gruesomely limited. The best common card you can get is the HD4550, which sucks ass. Nothing else will physically fit in an LP chassis There are LP 9600GTs out there, but they're exceedingly rare this side of the Atlantic.

As for the CPU... well, most things AMD will fit, and any CPU modern enough to maybe not-work due to BIOS issues (it may be an AM2 mobo but that's an old chipset in there!) is probably going to be totally bottlenecked by weak graphics anyway and isn't worth dropping money on. A cheapie AthlonX2 part will suffice.

tonym45

Solitaire wrote: »

this side of the Atlantic

what do you mean by that? i think i might be a little confused. i live in the US

Solitaire

i live in the US

... Oh. Didn't know that

Okay, then I'll change my previous comment to "Consider yourself damn lucky that, being one of the minority of people on Boards.ie that lives in the US, you can actually get your hands on a Galaxy low-profile 9600GT, the most powerful low-profile graphics card EVAR!!1! "

If you think you can get by on a HD4550 go ahead, but you'll be badly CPU- and GPU-bound. Still okay for light gaming but if you need a bigger improvement then you might want to get that 9600GT and seriously think about upgrading your CPU as well.

tonym45

i posted this on another site, what do you guys think?

As for the power supply, say I get a Dimension E521 style case, would everything swap over? To me it looks like everything will... I dont want to spend a whole lot of money on this (even though it's not an issue) because I'm home only one week a month, and my girlfriend really knows how to f*ck stuff up.

C521:
http://www.hardware.info/images/news/dellc521.jpg

E521:
http://www.hardware.info/images/news/delle512.jpg

Solitaire

tonym45 wrote:

As for the power supply, say I get a Dimension E521 style case, would everything swap over?

Nope, not the PSU - its mATX, smaller than ATX. You couldn't mount it in an ATX case as its too small and has different screw locations.

If you could post me a pic of the big sticker on the current PSU I could tell you for sure but knowing Dell that PSU can happily supply even an AthlonX2 and 9600GT. I doubt it could support a Phenom 2 though, due to the age of the mobo rather than power issues.

Getting a 9600GT might be overkill anyway if you don't want to blow time and money on upgrading the CPU, and neither graphics card uses more than about ~65W at worst (5.4A of 12V power).

tonym45

No, that's what I'm talking about, buy a better PSU. Since nothing will fit in my C521 case, get a E521 case, swap the mobo and such and buy the PSU

Solitaire

... oh. How much do you want to spend on this?? I'm not sure the PSU is that big an issue, the form factor and sheer age are the sticking points.