-----Original Message-----
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:47:51 -0400
From: LAWRENCE LASKOWSKI <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Upgrade Dell Diminsion 8400
need advice on Upgrading a Dell Dimension 8400.
This is what hardware it has now
Processor: Intel Pentium4 630 3000MHz hyper-threading enabled, PBS =
800MHz
Motherboard: Dell Model OU7077,socket LGA775, chipset Intel i925 Rev 81 =
and Bios Version AO9=20
Graphics: ATI PCIE Radeon X300 SE, Speed 16X
Memory: 1024 MB in 4 slots,DDR2 Regular UDIMM PC3200
My questions are : What are my options? and is it worth the trouble?
I do CAD and CAM and run into trouble when trying to Multitask
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Lawrence, you have a nice sysstem there! I have an 8400 as well and it does
pretty much what I want in terms of music, photo and video editing. The
areas I improved with the original box was changing the original 512Mb of
PC3200 DDR2 with 2Gb of PC4300 DDR2, adding an ATI X800 video card with
128MB of memory and a dedicated sound card (Audigy 2 ZS). I know CAD is
memory intensive and in addition, depending on the complexity of the drawing
your present video card may be running out of 'texture' memory (is it a 64Mb
card?)
You can upgrade the proccesor up to a P4 650 (3.4GHz) as the 660 and the 670
have different TDP - (110watts vs 75watts for the 630, 640, and 650) which I
believe requires a different cooling solution. The same power supply is used
however. (350 watts)
So there is plenty of room for upgrading. Your system board will accept up
to 4Gb of PC4300 DDR2 memory (only 3Gb can be addressed) and a better
processor, although the "gain" in overall processing speed will be small.
(3.0 GHz vs. 3.4 GHZ) Memory is well worth the investment in upgrading. You
won't see much of an overall speed difference until you decide to invest in
Intels latest platform but with the current prices being what they are now
for the new architecture (high - new mobo, memory, processor), you can still
get many more years out of your current box.
HTH
Chris Ryan
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