Dell p3 dilemma

[rookie2004]

I have a Dell P3 500mhz machine 64mb sdram pc 100.It is about 4 years old. I was out of the country for 2 years and now that im back I find the thing damn slow. To tell the truth it was always pretty slugish. I was considering droping the max 768mb ram into it and have read that the processor can be upgraded to a celeron 1.4ghz at the most. Add a pretty good video card and I was hoping to have something that could handle hf2 when it comes out.However having read some of the posts here I am begining to have doubts. I suppose my question is -will I be better off just building a new machine? or does this sound like it might work.

If I go ahead and build will the dell case accomadate the new motherboard. I was thinking of an AMD processor. Also will I be able to use my existing dvd and floppy drives?

Any help would be most welcome.

Also the original video card was a tnt2- does anybody know anything about this card- I had nothing but trouble with it. Was it ever any good?

[E.T.]

I have a Dell P3 500mhz machine 64mb sdram pc 100.It is about 4 years old. I was out of the country for 2 years and now that im back I find the thing damn slow. To tell the truth it was always pretty slugish. I was considering droping the max 768mb ram into it and have read that the processor can be upgraded to a celeron 1.4ghz at the most. Add a pretty good video card and I was hoping to have something that could handle hf2 when it comes out.However having read some of the posts here I am begining to have doubts. I suppose my question is -will I be better off just building a new machine? or does this sound like it might work.

If I go ahead and build will the dell case accomadate the new motherboard. I was thinking of an AMD processor. Also will I be able to use my existing dvd and floppy drives?

Any help would be most welcome.

Also the original video card was a tnt2- does anybody know anything about this card- I had nothing but trouble with it. Was it ever any good?

Imo, its time to replace system, especially if its gaming you are pursuing.

Also, Dell had [has] proprietary/integrated hardware, making some upgrades difficult.

Id bet you could build/replace a new system [adequate for gaming] for near, or less than $1K. One that would be viable for gaming into the next few years.

[Eddie]

I get some facts straight to rookie2004:
-P3 500 pretty slow nowadays for gaming.

-Your motherboard cannot support a 1.4Ghz Celeron, even if you can physically plug that procesoor in. You need a new motherboard that has the i815EP chipset.

-As posted by E.T, "Dell had [has] proprietary/integrated hardware, making some upgrades difficult"

-Dropping 768MB on a old PC is definately NOT worth it.

-Don't bother with the TNT2. It is worthless in gaming now.

My conclusion is : you will be better off with a new machine.

I suggest these specs if you want to build a new system:
-Cheapest boxed Athlon XP
-512MB DDR SDRAM
-Decent motherboard such as a ABIT NF7-S
-GeForce4 Ti4200 or Radeon 9600 Pro if you need more power

I do not live in America, so I do not know the prices exactly, but I know it is going to be inexpensive.

[E.T.]

I suggest these specs if you want to build a new system:
-Cheapest boxed Athlon XP
-512MB DDR SDRAM
-Decent motherboard such as a ABIT NF7-S
-GeForce4 Ti4200 or Radeon 9600 Pro if you need more power

I do not live in America, so I do not know the prices exactly, but I know it is going to be inexpensive.


This is a good suggestion for an economical gaming system. Correct in that it would be inexpensive [less than $1K US].
For a few more bucks, I'd up the video card & keep w/@ least a 1.8mhz CPU.
More memory would be nice, but thats something thats easily added latter & for cheap!

[phegarty]

I have the exact same Dell myself at home lying in my brothers room! i was even thinking of setting up a LAN between it and my main rig for gaming but reading this i dont think it would be worth the hassle!!!

[Aku]

Also the original video card was a tnt2- does anybody know anything about this card- I had nothing but trouble with it. Was it ever any good?

The TNT2 was a fine card for its day (around 1999). It was the first video card upgrade I ever did on my pc, and enabled me to play games like Half-Life and Rainbow Six for the first time. Trying to run modern games on a TNT2 is pointless, which is probably why it gave you problems. Since the chip is not a GPU, your processor still has to do all the calculating, which compounds the problem of your having a slow processor in the first place. But for its time, it was great.