Old Dimension E521- trying to upgrade video for son

[Aurora18]

before getting the ram look into the mhz transfer rate for best performance

 

[doomsdaydave11]

before getting the ram look into the mhz transfer rate for best performance

She's buying a 8600GT for $60... I don't think she wants to spend any more money on RAM, when that RAM is perfectly fine for WoW use.... this is a non overclocking system, besides, the difference between 4-4-4-12 DDR2-800 and 5-5-5-18 DDR2-667 is minimal. A half of a FPS in a game, maximum.

 

[Guest]

I have been following this with great interest because I have a Dell Dimension E521. I would like to upgrade the video card because I would like to run RealFlight G4 sim. Do you think the 8600GT would be a good card for the sim? I sure would like to here the results of Andria's upgrade.

Ken

 

[illyan]

This 2600XT for $29.99 is an amazing deal and a great upgrade from integrated graphics. Its equivalent to the 8600GT DDR2. Perfect for WoW, I'd say.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102755

 

[perrydog1956]

I brought 4 gb of ddr2-800 made for my Dell Dimension e521 computer for $53.72 total including tax. It has am AMD Athlon Dual Core Processor 3600+. Eight hundred MHz is the fast memory you can install in this computer The AMD Athlon processor has a 1ghz memory bus. This is best deal I have seen on memory for m Dell E521.

4alldeals

4 All Deals Item #22903962
1GB DDR2-800 Dell Dimension E521 Memory RAM
Price: $13.43
Quantity: 4
Inventory SKU: 53819-01
Date: 4/17/2009 8:53:37 PM

Subtotal: $53.72
Shipping & Handling: $0.00
Sales Tax: $0.00
-----------------------------------
Purchase Total: $53.72

 

[ermorris1]

I also have a Dimension E521; AMD Athlon 64X2 2.00Ghz 3800+. I am looking to upgrade my video card with the GeForce 8600GT. I have seen they are available in several levels of onboard cache; 256Mb, 512Mg and 1Gb. Is this merely a buy-what-you-can-afford issue or do the other components limit what I should install. I also have noted some comments on other forums about compatibility from one manufacturere to another. Any recommendations?

I also recently upgraded my RAM to 3G at the suggestion of this thread. What an improvement!!! Once I upgrade my vid card I will probably replace my original 512 sticks with 1G for a total(max) of 4G of RAM.

 

[scooterlibby]

If it's PCI-e I'd say your best bet is a GTX295. No overkill there.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

^ His CPU will bottleneck a GTX295. Also, a GTX295 probably won't fit in a E521.
And a E521 only has a 305 watt PSU with 18amps on 12v rails.

A GTX295 is a nono

 

[rewindlabs]

^ His CPU will bottleneck a GTX295. Also, a GTX295 probably won't fit in a E521.
And a E521 only has a 305 watt PSU with 18amps on 12v rails.

A GTX295 is a nono

Im hoping that guy was being sarcastic

You guys wanting to upgrade to a gpu will be seriously...seriously limited on performance and even with this cpu upgrade you won't be able to run games like GTA which thrive on quad cores....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103274

Since i doubt your dells support overclocking there is a CHEAP! cpu with a stock 3ghz clock

You could also look on ebay and maybe pick up a cheap amd 6000+ for around the same price...or even the cpu from newegg for a lower price on ebay...

Best of luck

 

[AKM880]

Make sure tho that the CPU is a 89W max watts can't exceed that, and a GTX 295 wont fit because of its double width height. A 295 is horribly bottleneck by that CPU

 

[rewindlabs]

I have a an E521, you can run the 8600GT in it with no problem. Although i would suggest looking at the ATI 4670, its a much better card for the same price. If you do get the 8600GT, make sure it uses DDR3 memory as most of the 1GB cards use DDR2. Neither the 8600GT or the 4670 need or able to fully utilize 1GB of memory anyway.

As far as ram memory, unless you have Vista, 3GBs is more then enough and XP can't even utilize 4GBs.

A 4670 would definitely be a great gpu...i forgot that this thing was mainly for wow..still i believe wow gets quite a bit of its performance from the cpu

You are best off waiting for the 4770...it will bring down prices of the gpus in your price range it will be stronger then a 8600gt and it should be close to a 9800gtx after overclocking...maybe not im just speculating

 

[simplyderp]

If you upgrade the GPU, you will see very little difference in FPS compared to upgrading the CPU, because WoW is a CPU intensive game. I had a 64 X2 3800 with x850, upgraded to an HD 3850 and... hardly any difference.

 

[eternityxx3]

I also just bought a E521 pc. It has 2gigs of ram in it, I Just upgraded it. I have a 8800 nvidia geforce gts card, that I won at a lan a while back. I was wondering if it is possible for this pc to run that card without making any upgrades to the power supply!!!

...lol I'm a girl so I don't know much about computers. So if someone could respond to this with some help that would be amazing!! 😀

 

[planeandy]

I have been following this with great interest because I have a Dell Dimension E521. I would like to upgrade the video card because I would like to run RealFlight G4 sim. Do you think the 8600GT would be a good card for the sim? I sure would like to here the results of Andria's upgrade.

Ken

I need to do the same thing with the same computer and realflight ,..Maybe by now you know what option works in this circumstance?...I'm puzzled still..I purchased a pci express card and it didn't fit in the chassis..(GEFORCE 7300LE 256MB)..It has a nvidia 6500 integrated video and I'm not sure if I should disable that before adding a card,..but I havn't got to that far as the card would not fit physically..My son really want's to fly the Realflight G3.5 simulator,.and I'm looking for answers...hoping you worked it out...Thanxxx

 

[delluser1]

I need to do the same thing with the same computer and realflight ,..Maybe by now you know what option works in this circumstance?...I'm puzzled still..I purchased a pci express card and it didn't fit in the chassis..(GEFORCE 7300LE 256MB)..It has a nvidia 6500 integrated video and I'm not sure if I should disable that before adding a card,..but I havn't got to that far as the card would not fit physically..My son really want's to fly the Realflight G3.5 simulator,.and I'm looking for answers...hoping you worked it out...Thanxxx

Don't know anything about the game or if the card will play it, but there's no way that a 7300 LE wouldn't fit in an E521.

 

[allen672009]

i have a p1 card that will work in it ati radion 3d graphic card and driver disk new in the box allen.chudley@yahoo.com/// pci slot is what will fit it