Upgrading, need advice.

[mmm002]

Hello,

This community has helped a lot in my past so I though that I would come back for some advice before I upgrade. I currently use my computer mainly for gaming and school purposes. I play games such as Flight Simulator X with plenty of addons and occasionally Minecraft. As you may already know, Flight Simulator X is very CPU intensive. My current system is very weak and I want to purchase some strong hardware in the near future. I am new to all of this upgrading and I would appreciate it if someone would help me out with all my upgrades.

My current system is the Dell Inspiron 620.
Processor: Intel Core i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30 GHz
RAM: 6 gb
Type: 64-bit.
Graphics: Integrated.
Motherboard: I'm not entirely sure.
PSU: 300 watt

As you can see above, I am not 100% sure what type of motherboard my system has. I believe it has 1155 slots but i'm not entirely sure. Is there any way I can figure this out? This is important because I was planning on purchasing the Intel i7-3770 Ivy Bridge (1155 slot).

Also, will I have to purchase and apply Thermal paste before installing into the system?

Next I would purchase a Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 2gb graphics card along with a corsair 600 PSU.

Now, I was planning on taking this all one step at a time since this is very pricey. Is it possible for me to buy and install the CPU before the video card and PSU? I wanted to see how it would perform with the rest of my system and purchasing it all at once will be too much.

Thank you for reading. Let me know if I was unclear at all.

 

[Darksin]

i believe it is, you can just google your old CPU and see the specs, but i believe it is.
When ever you buy a new CPU thermal paste is already on the stock cooler i believe(Atleast it always was for me)

And yes you can buy the GPU later. Or the CPU which ever you prefer. Just make sure your current PSU has enough power but i'm sure it has.

i suggest to buy a new PSU along with your CPU tbh. 300W isn't that much!

 

[beyondlogic]

Hello,

This community has helped a lot in my past so I though that I would come back for some advice before I upgrade. I currently use my computer mainly for gaming and school purposes. I play games such as Flight Simulator X with plenty of addons and occasionally Minecraft. As you may already know, Flight Simulator X is very CPU intensive. My current system is very weak and I want to purchase some strong hardware in the near future. I am new to all of this upgrading and I would appreciate it if someone would help me out with all my upgrades.

My current system is the Dell Inspiron 620.
Processor: Intel Core i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30 GHz
RAM: 6 gb
Type: 64-bit.
Graphics: Integrated.
Motherboard: I'm not entirely sure.
PSU: 300 watt

As you can see above, I am not 100% sure what type of motherboard my system has. I believe it has 1155 slots but i'm not entirely sure. Is there any way I can figure this out? This is important because I was planning on purchasing the Intel i7-3770 Ivy Bridge (1155 slot).

Also, will I have to purchase and apply Thermal paste before installing into the system?

Next I would purchase a Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 2gb graphics card along with a corsair 600 PSU.

Now, I was planning on taking this all one step at a time since this is very pricey. Is it possible for me to buy and install the CPU before the video card and PSU? I wanted to see how it would perform with the rest of my system and purchasing it all at once will be too much.

Thank you for reading. Let me know if I was unclear at all.

max i believe the dell 620 will work with is i5 sandy bridge 1155 socket h61

check with dell and see if it can use ivy bridge due to the h61 series had to be bios flashed to use ivy they may not have support for it due to dell sucks for processor support

go with 600w evga 80 plus or 600w corsair like you said which ever is cheaper

as for 660 2gb gets beaten over the head by 7870 and 7850 even performs better then the 660 and the 7870 is same price if not cheaper then 660 and 7850 much cheaper usually