Chance of an upgrade?

[JWade]

My friend wants me to upgrade his system for him, he has a dell system with a 630 processor in it (model 5100 with 945G chipset).

will i be able to put in a dual core processor for him? Intel's website the 945G chipset supports dual core processors, but Dell's website does not say/mention anything about it. He will be giving me his 630 processor if it can take a dual core one. anyone have an idea?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

The dualcores that will work in that board are the Pentium-D 8$$ series

Here

 

[JWade]

so you think it will work without an bios update? he is going to buy it if i tell him it will work, but if it dont, then i will have to give him the $$ because i told him to get it, it works though, he is giving me the 630 for doing the upgrade for him (he really doesnt know alot about computers, he knows he has a non-dual core, and would like to upgrade to a dual core)

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I would contact Dell tech support to be sure. Thats the bitch about upgrading a dell, on a regular motherboard you could just go to the mfg website and find compatability info and get the appropriate bios/drivers etc... With Dells proprietary crap, none of that is available and your forced to deal with them.

 

[JasonE4]

It'll almost definitely work without a BIOS update, but why not update the BIOS just in case?

 

[JWade]

currently there is no bios update for it, and i have checked to see if the model was offered with a dual core, but havent find anything yet

edit: what I have found is that the 5100C model was offered with a dual core chip, not sure if they have the same motherboard or not though

 

[TSS]

only XPS systems from dell offer dual cores i belive. anyways why does he want to upgrade to a dual core anyway? isnt gonna be much better then a single core at the moment.

 

[JWade]

TSS, i told him that about them, but he is brain washed by dual core, two cores are better than one core. the 5100C model was offered with a dual core chip, not sure if it has the same motherboard as the 5100 though.

 

[anandtechrocks]

Dell boards may be propriety but, they still use Intel chipsets. If it's a 945 chipset it will work fine with a dual core processor.

 

[stevty2889]

It should work fine with a dual core, but what does he run? He may not actualy need a dual core, and in thats case an 830 would run exactly the same as his 630, only hotter..