Dell Inspiron 518 Mother Board Options

[flyinghighlm]

Hello all,

I have come across a older (4/5 years) Dell Inspiron 518 for next to nothing. Its had a an upgraded psu (550w), a SSD drive that i would like to keep and I have 8gb of ddrs ram laying around. The pc currently has a Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4gb of DDR2 ram, and an older Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB graphics card. It works the way it is, wife likes it for the ole interwebs.

My question is, can I replace the motherboard which will then allow me to upgarde the other internals. If so what should I be looking for or something i should stay away from? I dont need to go over the top here, looking at a I5 quad, 1gb card, and ram to support it.

I should also mention i have a OS system already, win 7 ultimate and valid MS keys so thats not an issue to install.

Thank you in advance.

 

[flyinghighlm]

I would like it to support some gaming, rather than using my laptop all the time. If its possible to salavage things from this one, case, fans, psu, and so on i would prefer that..

I am just weighing out all my options. I rather build than buy brand new from a box.

 

[flyinghighlm]

Well the SSD sounds like a big plus, the PSU may be a keeper, you will need a new MB,CPU,and RAM if playing games a new GPU. I would also be looking at a new case.

Why would you say new case, airflow i am assuming? The case currently has 3 fans in it...can i swiss cheese this thing?
Ram is covered, currently have 8gb of ddr3 salavaged from a another pc that was being tossed out at work, win