I have downstairs an old Dell Dimension from 2003. It wasn’t state of the art, not even back then. It is running a Pentium IV running at 2.8Ghz. My office machine, powered by a Core i7, is 15 times faster. So the question is, is it possible to make this machine still useful today and if so, how much and how much work would it take?
One of the things I always hear in support forums or critics of the PC is how expensive it is upgrade hardware. So let’s take a look. This is a 6 year old PC. What would it take to make it pretty decent?
Let’s start with memory upgrading. I go to www.crucial.com and learn that it’ll cost around $40 to upgrade its RAM to 2GB (it has 1GB already – which is how it came 6 years ago!).
Second, its ATI 9800 Pro might have been decent 6 years ago but it’s not really capable now. Because it’s 6 years old, I’ll have to find an AGP card that’s decent. The dirty little secret about game performance is that RAM matters the most. I will also need to get something that supports DirectX 10.1. Not because I will run Vista or something on this machine but because I know then it has the latest/greatest Pixel Shader support without having to do any real research. So going over to NewEgg I find this. $76 AGP 4/8X. I’m also looking at this one too.
I found video cards that were cheaper that could do DirectX 10 but the reviews mentioned driver issues and part of the point of this exercise is to put something together that’s cheap but also easy to do. So we’re at about $120.
If all goes well, for $120 this PC will be just fine for a long time to come.
Stay tuned…
I've been continually upgrading my computer for years now. Every 12 months or so, I replace/upgrade whatever components are the bottleneck. Last big upgrade was a motherboard replacement so I could transition from AGP to PCI-E cards.
The biggest problem I see with the OP's computer is the lack of PCI-E support. I honestly don't know how well the old AGP port will hold up under the strain of modern games.
IME Sapphire has been among the best. It's possible you got a dud card; it's possible there was a driver issue. It's even possible it was the program's fault. What card and what OS?
You'd probably need to upgrade the power supply as well.
I updated a computer similar to the one mentioned in the OP. I don't think it's worth the upgrade since I wasn't able to run Demigod that well.
I think you will end up with a decent pc for normal task and some content creation but final rendering or gaming will be disappointing(you already knew this of course)
I didnt have money for a new pc so I was forced into the upgrade route.I started getting into 3d apps and video editing and my pc really showed me the diff between good old PS7 and ANY 3d app.
My emachines w3107 has always been reliable but hey,its an emachine. Sempron 3100+ to AMD64 3400+ was as far as the motherboard would allow...lucked into a bios flash that allowed overclocking.(she runs hot)...70$
memory to the 2 gig max...50$
Dont game enough to know what I am missing with newer games but I THOUGHT my new monitor wouldnt run on the onboard graphics...I was wrong but got a newer card, nvidia 8600 gt 140$ (that turned out to be extremely helpful with hidef video because media player classic HOME CINEMA will offload rendering to the gpu on newer video cards)
so was it worth 260$?...no not if I had done it all in one go but it had to be done piecemeal because of finances.
But...it does run MUCH better...the graphics card was the biggest rip...I bought it right before the prices went plunging down...naturally.
3:30 render to numbered images...7 hours @ 1680x1050...too slow amigo.
I have a Dimension 3100 that I bought in 2005. It had 512 Mb of RAM, a 40 Gig HDD and onboard sound and video. The best thing about it is the Pentium IV 3.2 Ghz processor. I upgraded the RAM to 2 Gig, New 500 Gig HDD and a 256 Mb nVidia card. Oh, and a 20 inch LCD. Even though the pc is "old", its still a great pc and I see many more years of use out of it for what it is mainly used for.
Now, my laptop, that monster is a different story altogether...It's awesome.
At the risk of starting a flamewar...
Install Linux on it. Seriously. Many Linux distributions have much lower requirements than Windows, and run just fine on old hardware. Especially if you use less demanding window manager like Xfce. It's not going to help for games because their requirements don't change, but for common tasks like browsing www, mail, word processors, playing music etc Linux will let you squeeze more out of aging hardware.
For a start I'd recommend burning an image of latest stable Ubuntu.
http://www.ubuntu.com/
You don't even have to install it, thanks to livecd. You can just insert the disk and boot into RAM, it won't even touch your HDD unless you tell it to. You can try it out (using some software, use the web...) before you commit yourself to any decision.
And if you want to squeeze the absolute max out of old hardware, there are distributions like DSL (Damn Small Linux; the image is 50 MB and fits even on small USB drives !).
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
Booting from USB is very convenient for many tasks, and it scares Microsoft. And if something scares Microsoft, it's good for the public.
http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/03/if-it-scares-mi.html
When looking into computer upgrades I think the first thing to consider is: Can your motherboard support a modern processor?
When I considered upgrading mine I found the answer was an unfortunate NO. Basically my MoBo doesn't have the right pin formation to handle a modern processor. Of course, my PC is AMD... and my MoBo is a 939 socket... So, upgrading my computer is not going to happe.
I also recommend checking: www.cyberpowerpc.com to compare prices between something new versus what you'd spend to upgrade.
save some money and build one !!!!!!
Most Dimensions have only two memory slots and the case is terrible. Not designed to use a non-Dell motherboard. In addition they have a very small PSU.
Donate it and start over.
@Frogboy,
1. Forget upgrading the rest of the hardware and instead purchase a cheap RAID card from www.highpoint-tech.com (ie. RocketRAID 1640)
2. Purchase 4 1TB SATA hard drives
3. Install the RAID card and the four 1TB drives.
4. Configure the RAID array. I would suggest going with a RAID 5 array since it'll leave you with 3TB of total storage (RAID 5 takes a hit on WRITE performance as compared to other RAID-levels however the READ performance is decent)
5. Download and install FREENAS to turn that system into a cheap network accessible storage solution. FREENAS can be run from a CD and you only need a floppy in the drive to save the FREENAS config options. The quickest NAS setup I've ever encountered!
You now have a 3TB network accessible storage solution in your basement for around 20mins of work!
the Monk
As well versed or far more to replace a vid card and drivers. Not exactly rocket science.
Luna.. wokred great.. Loaded WB, windows lagged badly , had problems with translucency. Ran hot.
Tried on 2 pc's. Gone.
Kinda of saddening seeing that was the main 'prize' i won.. but oh well.. you roll with the punches in life.
I've heard similar strories about ATI cards before, pretty sure it wasn't anything i was or was not doing and I certainly won't be buying another. Nvidia ftw.
I totally agree, I install openSuse (I know), it gave me more abilities than Vista (even had Aero), gave me server abilities without the memory hog, 3 gb gives you server for different server platforms, lots of development, but the bunmmer thing of Linux is that if you want to install something new it is hell.
BTW, you could also get VMWare which is free, and then install any version of Windows (at the end you probably get a file which is the Windows operating system, so you ask how big, well I got Windows 7 as vmware, it was 5 gb, 7 at most), and install games as usual, but it still needs the same req as Windows games though...
I suppose it was packed with the amazing stock-cooler. It's the worst piece of crap ever, and unless you have like a jet turbine venting your case it won't do any good. The first thing to do with any ATI card is get rid of the stock cooler and get something that actually does the job properly.
I REALLY wish there was a decent alternative manufacturer... Both ATI and Nvidia currently produce overclocked crap that runs waaaay too hot.
Never had any issues with Nvidia really.. both have crap control ui's tho.
Can I upgrade my Atari?
lol
I had an old eMachine with a 2.0Ghz single core, AGP slot, etc.--very basic computer. But, I slapped in a $100 (or less maybe) GeForce 7600GS, discovered PC gaming for the first time, fell in love, and swore off consoles forever! Peeps complain about the cost of PC Gaming, but that setup (with some extra RAM too) ran Call of Duty 2 on high alongside the 360 at launch--not a bad feat! And like I said, it got me into PC gaming for life, so it was definitely worth it.
I have since bought a newer, more modern laptop that I use for gaming, and let the kiddies use the old eMachine. Of course, it now sounds like a jet engine and barely holds together with all of the scotch tape, popsickle sticks, and glue I hold it together with. But it still works (most of the time).
Gee, that reminds me... i DO still have the 386DX40 in a card box somewhere, the cmos battery must be long dead and the 125MBs hard-drive would squeek a little once awaken from the dark. I'd have to re-learn how to properly use Windows 3.1 though.
Hey, even more interesting... i DO own a full-blown TI/99-4a, 16K of Ram, 256 colors, Yamaha 9960 GPU, highest resolution in the world at that time, modules and all.
Heck, why not... might as well dig for the Turbo-GraphX-16, plug the RF to the tube, snap a card and play any of the 40+ games like Nectaris, Galaga, Raiden, SideArms, etc.
Naaa, i'll stick with emulators.
My objective here really is to make the game able to play Demigod so that my sons can play with me online. So turning it into a storage unit wouldn't work out there unfortunately.
New mobo, minimum. Why i suggested a tower.
my bad.........I assumed you simply wanted to make said machine "useful" and not necessarily into a gaming-capable machine. Sorry about that, I shouldn't have assumed.
What's the matter . . . don't they pay you enough scratch at Stardock?
He is stardock!
You know those Stardock guys, buncha bastards!
Honestly, it'd probably be cheaper to replace it-which I think you've been told more than once.
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