Ok.. Intel, anyone?

Spinning Hat · Post by **Spinning Hat** » Thu May 10, 2007 3:01 am

Here's the scoop:

The Mrs.' mother's business is going out of business, and in payment for work I did, they gave me one of their desktops as payment. It's a Dell Dimension 4300 from a few years ago, but it's got an Intel P4 1.6GHz chip in it. I've determined it's a socket 478 Willamette core chip. (Thank god for CPU Z!) It's got 256Mb of RAM, and a fresh install of WinXP. (I got a brand new copy of XP out of the deal too.

)

My question:

Can I upgrade this thing to the Prescott or Northwood cores, or do I have to find a Willamette core? I know you're gonna say: Upgrade the RAM! Well, I'm gonna do that too. Gonna add a 512mb stick in the next week or so. (It's SDRAM, which kinda sucks.. but free is free, ya know?) I've got the Intel 800 series chipset on this mobo, if that makes any difference. I don't want to change the mobo and psu, etc to make one of the newer chips work, but I think even for things like Picasa, a 1.6GHz chip is a little slow, at least for my taste.

The video is an ATI Rage 128 Pro 16Mb, which is fine for desktop graphics, and Office, etc, but I shouldn't need much more than that if this isn't a gaming rig, right? It displays 1280 x 1024 at 32 bit real nice on my old LCD, so I'm not seeing a real need to switch this just yet. (It's a standalone AGP card.)

Lemme know what y'all think... I been working so much lately I don't quite remember what day it is... I do know I'm getting married in 9 days... so that at least says something.

XMEN Iceman · Post by **XMEN Iceman** » Thu May 10, 2007 9:19 am

Don't mess with upgrading the CPU. The Dell motherboards are VERY unforgiving on them. Even if you put in the new CPU chances are that the motherboard will not support the new bus or clock speeds.

The memory upgrade is a given to support XP. Xp hates anything less than 512 since it ALONE runs in the background at an average of 180mb. Thus giving you very little for other programs to run, can you say "Constant Disk Caching"?

It will be fine for a workstation used for email and word processing, etc.

Have fun!

XMEN Iceman · Post by **XMEN Iceman** » Thu May 10, 2007 9:21 am

Oh...download the Dell drivers from their website to a USB Key or burn to a CD so you have them immediately ready after your install. Will make life much better. I keep them on USB Keys at work.

Post by **XMEN Gambit** » Thu May 10, 2007 9:40 pm

If the CPU upgrade is pin-compatible, you're probably good - the core doesn't matter that much. Don't know if I'd invest the money there, though. As you know already, the RAM will give you a better speed boost.

Spinning Hat · Post by **Spinning Hat** » Mon May 14, 2007 11:02 am

Thanks. I've got the original Dell driver CDs, so I'm pretty lucky.

I'm gonna wait till after the wedding to upgrade this thing, but as it sits now It's OK. The Mrs doesn't use it everyday like I use mine, so I've got a little breathing room.