just bought a cheap computer

[68falcon]

i just bought an old dell for 50 bucks, and the specs are as follows
intel p3 800 Mhz processor (socket 370)
onboard intel graphics 37mb ram
2 dimm slots with 1 stick of 128 (i think i have another 128 mb stick for it)
5 free pci slots
6 gb hard drive (i have a 40 im gonna use for it)

im wanting to upgrade it for my bro so he can play call of duty and united offensive(nothing brand new just some good games)thanks in advance

 

[Farmer]

uhhh...

Well, I suggest you sell that computer for $100 and then add in another $500 and buy some used low end parts. Maybe an old A-XP or P4 and a Radeon 9800 and peice together something from there.

You're not gonna get to playing COD on integrated graphics. I believe that game requires hardware T&L (which means at least Geforce 1).

 

[Silversierra]

Pci video card? Maybe a 5700le or 5500OC?(or pci 6200, if you can find one).
http://www.directron.com/fx5500ocpci.html

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: Silversierra
Pci video card? Maybe a 5700le or 5500OC?(or pci 6200, if you can find one).
http://www.directron.com/fx5500ocpci.html

he'd still be bottlenecked by the cpu and the ram. it's a no go for COD.

 

[powerMarkymark]

I would think that the whole point of buying a "cheap computer" would to spend very little money!

Don't upgrade anything.

M@rc

 

[Farmer]

But I thought the point was to be able to play COD? That system will not run COD; it will barely run WinXP. I doubt it will even install properly.

 

[Ayah]

It'll install Windows XP, just at record blowing slowness.

 

[lyssword]

Lol guys are u serious it will run win xp easily. I suggest more memory and get a 6200gt/r8500 pci

 

[alimoalem]

is there space for agp? i personally would sell it and get a $300 computer. you can get a much better one at that price

 

[aaqubit]

I run XP Home on an old PII-300MHz 4200RPM HDD on 160MB RAM and Ati Rage Pro Integrated 4MB, so I'm sure you'll run XP smoothly

 

[Nick5324]

I run winXP on an old Gateway (not my main rig) that has a PIII 450Mhz, 384MB SDRAM, a GeForce MX420, and an old 40GB HDD. It isn't blazing fast, but it works.

As for the OP's comp and running COD, I don't see it happening. I'd say keep your eyes on Dell outlet and go for a ~$350 computer.

Edit: COD
MINIMUM CONFIGURATION

* 3D Hardware Accelerator Card required ? 100% DirectX® 9.0a compatible 32MB Hardware T&L-capable video card and drivers*
* Pentium® III 700 or Athlon?processor or higher
* English version of Microsoft® Windows® 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP
* 128MB of RAM
* 8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and drivers
* 181MB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 200MB for Windows swap file)
* 100% DirectX® 9.0a compatible 16 bit sound card and drivers
* 100% Windows® 98/98SE/ME/2000/XP compatible mouse, keyboard and drivers
* DirectX® 9.0a (not included)

I guess if you get the video card, you meet these requirements, barely.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Dismantle it and sell it. I bet you'll get more money than you spent for it.

 

[Nicksterr]

I'm currently selling a system for cheap, it will play all today's games and tomorrow's, check it out: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=45&threadid=1769731&enterthread=y

 

[duragezic]

At $100 its only useful for a machine for someone doing basic computer tasks like internet or word processing. And even then, no one would wanna bother with XP with only 128 mb ram. That thing is not even close to a gaming machine and would take too much to make it one.

 

[halw]

I upgraded an old Dell Dimension XPS 600 some time ago and I worked out quite well. The major upgrade was a Powerleap processor. If they have an upgrade for your system it won't be cheap. Other things I did to the XPS600 was maxed out memory (768 Mb), two 80 Gb hard drives and Window$ XP.

Realistically, you could get a lot more bang for your buck by purchasing an economical pre-built system.

 

[0roo0roo]

pretty sure i had atleast 1.5ghz when i played cod. 800mhz seems morelike something for quake 3/hl1

go into xp performance settings and max it out. turn off themes and everything.

 

[GamerExpress]

I don't think it was a wise choice to pay money for that.

I am always trying to give machines like that away that I have laying around here at work, they are dinosaurs and nobody even wants them for free anymore.

There really isn't too much you can do with them, I remember when the machines were online here when we brought in a dedicated T1 for internet, those machines couldn't even render a web page close to the 1.5 Mbs speed.

 

[Lasthitlarry]

Sell that thing, it would be perfect for the older computing crowd that play solitaire and surf the internet, why try to upgrade an old Intel Dell?

Build a new machine, 600 at least, and you won't regret it.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: GamerExpress
I don't think it was a wise choice to pay money for that.

I am always trying to give machines like that away that I have laying around here at work, they are dinosaurs and nobody even wants them for free anymore.

There really isn't too much you can do with them, I remember when the machines were online here when we brought in a dedicated T1 for internet, those machines couldn't even render a web page close to the 1.5 Mbs speed.

A P3 is still more than adequate as the basis for an office machine. But 128mb of ram AND integrated video (which likely means only 96 mb of ram, unless someone was at least smart enough to cut the video memory to 2-4mb) is a recipe for slowness.

Another 128mb (for 2k, 256 for XP) and any dedicated video card (anything!) and the machine would likely have no performance issues with web-surfing, basic multi-media, and office applications.

 

[GamerExpress]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: GamerExpress
I don't think it was a wise choice to pay money for that.

I am always trying to give machines like that away that I have laying around here at work, they are dinosaurs and nobody even wants them for free anymore.

There really isn't too much you can do with them, I remember when the machines were online here when we brought in a dedicated T1 for internet, those machines couldn't even render a web page close to the 1.5 Mbs speed.

A P3 is still more than adequate as the basis for an office machine. But 128mb of ram AND integrated video (which likely means only 96 mb of ram, unless someone was at least smart enough to cut the video memory to 2-4mb) is a recipe for slowness.

Another 128mb (for 2k, 256 for XP) and any dedicated video card (anything!) and the machine would likely have no performance issues with web-surfing, basic multi-media, and office applications.

I didn't look at the speed of that one, I see now it's an 800Mhz P3, yeah it's not horrible then i guess. The ones we were getting rid of were the P3 500Mhz machines, with that 800Mhz in there you could throw another 128 megs of memory in it and have a machine for internet browsing and simple word processing use.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: GamerExpress

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: GamerExpress
I don't think it was a wise choice to pay money for that.

I am always trying to give machines like that away that I have laying around here at work, they are dinosaurs and nobody even wants them for free anymore.

There really isn't too much you can do with them, I remember when the machines were online here when we brought in a dedicated T1 for internet, those machines couldn't even render a web page close to the 1.5 Mbs speed.

A P3 is still more than adequate as the basis for an office machine. But 128mb of ram AND integrated video (which likely means only 96 mb of ram, unless someone was at least smart enough to cut the video memory to 2-4mb) is a recipe for slowness.

Another 128mb (for 2k, 256 for XP) and any dedicated video card (anything!) and the machine would likely have no performance issues with web-surfing, basic multi-media, and office applications.

I didn't look at the speed of that one, I see now it's an 800Mhz P3, yeah it's not horrible then i guess. The ones we were getting rid of were the P3 500Mhz machines, with that 800Mhz in there you could throw another 128 megs of memory in it and have a machine for internet browsing and simple word processing use.

<--- Posts reply on P2-300 lappy w/ 160MB of ram and W2k

This one is a little hurting... but not enough for me to bother turning on my desktop very often. It suffers pretty bad with any sort of videos though!

I find that for anythign except gaming and video capture, anything within spitting distance of 1ghz will be fine; salespeople always sell mhz, but ram has always been the real determining factor in snappy performance.

 

[Farmer]

Well, the limiting factor isn't processor speed or RAM speed, but rather amount of RAM.