Upgrading Dell workstation to a gaming machine

FAILSAFE 00

Hi guys,

My PC is a Dell Precision workstation 690 bought back in 2008.



CPU: Quad Core Intel Xeon E5345 (2.33GHz,1333Mhz,2x4MB) 750W.

GPU: NVIDIA Quadro FX 5500.

Ram: 8GB of DDR2 667 Quad Channel FBD Memory.

3 SAS hard drives with 300GB capacity in each. (10,000 RPM)

I'd like to use this PC for gaming for about a year or 2 before investing in a proper gaming PC.

The graphics are struggling at the moment. On DayZ its low settings all the way, even then the FPS is crap.

I'd like to stick a graphics card in there that will allow me to play the likes of Dayz on medium to high settings.

I wouldn't mind buying a graphics card second hand for this machine.
Budget: I'd want to spend only about €150-200 since it would be a short term investment but I am open to suggestions.

I seen this graphics card. Would it work on my system? Is it any good for my gaming needs?



http://www.amazon.com/MSI-N670GTX-PM2D2GD5-OC-GeForce-256-bit/dp/B007Z574RU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1392077396&sr=8-5&keywords=MSI+NVIDIA+GeForce+GTX+670

I am open to all recommendations.

Thanks.

ED E

First off are you aware your current GPU is a workstation one? Its designed to accelerate CAD/Creative applications not for gaming. If you do a lot of that work you might want to stick with that kind of card.


Hurdles with converting this to a gaming rig:
Lower clock speed - Right now a lot of games max one or two cores and leave the rest idle, so having a higher clock would be better, CPU will limit you a bit.
DDR2 - passable just about AFAIK
PSU - Whats in it right now? Does it have 6pin PCIE connectors to power a graphics card?
Space - Measure the clearance, you wont have room for some of the larger cards.


All this isnt to say it wont work, but there's a limit to how far you can go with it.

delta36

As a heads up for something multiplayer based like DayZ, I'm reasonably certain it's more dependant on the CPU than the GPU, so that will be your bottleneck.

deceit

The cpu is clocked very similar to a q6600 which doesnt really have many issues with games even in this day and age so should be fine for the moment. I would just pick up a gtx 760 or gtx 670 on adverts and your good to go once you have the correct cables on your power supply (Two 6 pins for these cards I think, you can always create them from molex cables though)

FAILSAFE 00

deceit wrote: »

The cpu is clocked very similar to a q6600 which doesnt really have many issues with games even in this day and age so should be fine for the moment. I would just pick up a gtx 760 or gtx 670 on adverts and your good to go once you have the correct cables on your power supply (Two 6 pins for these cards I think, you can always create them from molex cables though)

I had a look inside the PC, the PSU only has one 6pin PCIE connector.

BloodBath

First off are you aware your current GPU is a workstation one? Its designed to accelerate CAD/Creative applications not for gaming. If you do a lot of that work you might want to stick with that kind of card.

I'm pretty sure modern graphics cards knock the **** out of workstation cards in almost everything including work related tasks. Especially an older card like that.

TerrorFirmer

Won't be a problem with the single 6 pin either, PSU is fine for virtually any card but you're pretty limited by that CPU. I genuinely would get this and call it a day on that PC, decent performance in modern games and very affordable. You'll get by OK with those games and next stop is a 'proper' gaming PC down the line.

FAILSAFE 00

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Won't be a problem with the single 6 pin either, PSU is fine for virtually any card but you're pretty limited by that CPU. I genuinely would get this and call it a day on that PC, decent performance in modern games and very affordable. You'll get by OK with those games and next stop is a 'proper' gaming PC down the line.

Thanks for the info, I am only using this PC has a temporary measure for a few months until I get a bit of money together to do a proper build.