17.07.2009, 12:32
Well,
After being in the computer biz for years and working on the "WONDERFUL" (tounge in cheek) Dell systems, I can tell you right now that you're better off to save your pennies and upgrade. Your particular system, as well as almost all recent Dells, are built with a propietary Left Handed Main Board. That means you can not upgrade your mother board unless you buy one of theirs at triple the going rate. Not to mention that most of their boards are plauged with power problems. A Dell system typically fails after just 1-2yrs and is usually MB related due to the inferior quality control.
If you save your money, by the time your ready to purchase, you can build yourself a system with dual GTX260's. The 260's will be dropping in price over the next few months and should be under $100.00 by next spring. That would put you into a kick butt system by the time SoW is released, supposedly next Fall. Incidently, the reason you can get 9600's so cheap is because they were probably the worst design to come from Nvidia in the past 3yrs. They are routinely out performed by the older 8800 series of cards.
Total cost of a new system to run FSX and SoW should be under $800.00. I typically built gaming systems starting at $699.00 and going up from there depending on what my customers want.
I hope this helps you out some. If you must have a card now, spring for the extra $30.00 and get an 8800GTX. It STILL outperforms the 9600's. As for the power supply, you should be able to fit in any standard ATX power supply up to 600w. Once you get up to 800w, the PSU is going to be too big for your case/mother board combo. Also keep in mind that that MB has special connections for the power supply. You may need adapters.
Kingwin and I-Micro are the 2 best that come to mind if you need to save money. Avoid I-Power at all cost. Ensure what ever PSU you get has a 120mm or larger main fan supplemented by at least an 80mm fan on the rear as you're going to need the extra cooling for the case when you put in the new video card.
After being in the computer biz for years and working on the "WONDERFUL" (tounge in cheek) Dell systems, I can tell you right now that you're better off to save your pennies and upgrade. Your particular system, as well as almost all recent Dells, are built with a propietary Left Handed Main Board. That means you can not upgrade your mother board unless you buy one of theirs at triple the going rate. Not to mention that most of their boards are plauged with power problems. A Dell system typically fails after just 1-2yrs and is usually MB related due to the inferior quality control.
If you save your money, by the time your ready to purchase, you can build yourself a system with dual GTX260's. The 260's will be dropping in price over the next few months and should be under $100.00 by next spring. That would put you into a kick butt system by the time SoW is released, supposedly next Fall. Incidently, the reason you can get 9600's so cheap is because they were probably the worst design to come from Nvidia in the past 3yrs. They are routinely out performed by the older 8800 series of cards.
Total cost of a new system to run FSX and SoW should be under $800.00. I typically built gaming systems starting at $699.00 and going up from there depending on what my customers want.
I hope this helps you out some. If you must have a card now, spring for the extra $30.00 and get an 8800GTX. It STILL outperforms the 9600's. As for the power supply, you should be able to fit in any standard ATX power supply up to 600w. Once you get up to 800w, the PSU is going to be too big for your case/mother board combo. Also keep in mind that that MB has special connections for the power supply. You may need adapters.
Kingwin and I-Micro are the 2 best that come to mind if you need to save money. Avoid I-Power at all cost. Ensure what ever PSU you get has a 120mm or larger main fan supplemented by at least an 80mm fan on the rear as you're going to need the extra cooling for the case when you put in the new video card.
Though I fly through the valley of death, I will fear no evil.....
For I am the meanest SOB in the valley!
![[Image: JollySignature.jpg]](http://i590.photobucket.com/albums/ss344/rlakely/JollySignature.jpg)
) If I don't get a whole new rig, What about a 9800GT (superclocked)? Right now it looks like the most powerful card I can fit in my case available on TigerDirect. Do you think I would be able to run IL-2 and SoW when it comes out? :???: