I don't remember that specific model but in general any Dell starting with 4000 is their mid-range system.
If it has an onboard video it was never meant to be a gaming system.
You also didn't mention what OS you're running. If it's Win98 or ME for example, you may be actually causing a performance hit by having so much RAM. Win9x had issues with memory over 256Mb on some motherboards.
By today's standards it's not a very powerful system at all.
If all you do is web browsing and desktop apps it's ample.
If it's running slow compared to how it used to run then it may be infected with spyware. 80% of all service calls I perform where the customer complains of slow performance, it's spyware related or too many background applications running (if you have more than 6 - 8 icons in the taskbar, you probably have too many background apps running. Disable any uneccesary apps).
Please refer to my detailed spyware removal instructions here:
http://theflyingpenguin.com/spyware-removal.shtml
You can also kill performance on older systems like yours by installing the latest security apps. Norton Internet Insecurity, for instance, is a big bloated performance killer even on modern systems - it'll totally suck the life out of an old system.
I can't tell you how many clients I've had, with older systems, that had perfectly good performance until they installed the latest Norton Internet Security or the McAfee equivalent and their performance went through the floor.
I recommend either an old version of Norton Anti-Virus (JUST Anti-Virus, not Internet Security). 2002 was the last decent version Norton made that wasn't a RAM and performance hog.
Another good AV app for old systems is Grisoft's free AVG Anti-Virus. Nice small memory footprint - very minor performance hit on older systems.
Hope this helps...
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