Upgrading ram on my Dimension 4600

Pinarello

Hello all,
This is my first post on the pc section of boards so here goes..

I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with 512mb of ram and would like to upgrade it to 2gb of ram as one or two of the games i'm playing seem to lag.
So i'd just like to know can anyone here recommend what type of ram i need and where to buy it for this system to upgrade it to 2gb? as i'm a complete noobie at all of this.

I apologise if the answer to this is in a sticky..

Ruu_Old

Try crucial.com, they have a memory scanner/memory configurator and it will bring up a match of what RAM you need. Also, try shop4memory.com as they have a similar feature available to get a match.

irlrobins

Ditto what Ruu said.

But with a PC that old, there are other things likely to be slowing down the games as well: CPU and graphics card. It would probably be pointless upgrading the RAM to anything more than 1 GB as the two former items would still be a bottleneck in your performance.

Pinarello

irlrobins wrote: »

Ditto what Ruu said.

But with a PC that old, there are other things likely to be slowing down the games as well: CPU and graphics card. It would probably be pointless upgrading the RAM to anything more than 1 GB as the two former items would still be a bottleneck in your performance.

I upgraded my graphics card to a GeForce 7600GS 256mb, a few months ago.I think my CPU is 3.60ghz, i ran "dxdaig" and that is what i saw. I really don't want to buy a new pc as this model works really well for everything else i use it for, but if i'm having trouble playing todays games it might be an option. I looked at the Dell XPS range but i'm not paying €3000 for a new machine. Can anyone offer more advice please?

TerrorFirmer

Go to start, run, and type 'Dxdiag' and hit enter. That will tell you what your current CPU, it's probably Pentium 4 or Pentium D.

Is it AGP or Pci express, and what games are you playing?

Pinarello

HavoK wrote: »

Go to start, run, and type 'Dxdiag' and hit enter. That will tell you what your current CPU, it's probably Pentium 4 or Pentium D.

Is it AGP or Pci express, and what games are you playing?

My graphics card is AGP, it's also Pentium 4. I'm trying to play Company of Heroes at the moment, and have will be getting COD4 and World in Conflict.I'm starting to worry that a new pc is on the cards here...

TerrorFirmer

OK a Pentium 4 at 3.6Ghz (if that is the right speed) is plenty, despite its age. The 7600GS would be a major sore spot, especially if you're trying to play newer games. The problem being that new AGP cards are much more expensive then their pci-e counterparts, not to mention that your power supply would not be sufficient to power anything particularly great.

More ram would help, but there's only so much you can do in a limited situation, the card will hold you back even if you get more. I think it's time for a new machine, if you're looking at the latest games, Dells never offer much future prospects in their budget machines. Company of Heroes runs pretty well on a 7600GS though, and given how hardware friendly COD4 is as well, it'd at least run very well on low-ish settings once you got more ram, as would World in Conflict.

Pinarello

HavoK wrote: »

OK a Pentium 4 at 3.6Ghz (if that is the right speed) is plenty, despite its age. The 7600GS would be a major sore spot, especially if you're trying to play newer games. The problem being that new AGP cards are much more expensive then their pci-e counterparts, not to mention that your power supply would not be sufficient to power anything particularly great.

More ram would help, but there's only so much you can do in a limited situation, the card will hold you back even if you get more. I think it's time for a new machine, if you're looking at the latest games, Dells never offer much future prospects in their budget machines. Company of Heroes runs pretty well on a 7600GS though, and given how hardware friendly COD4 is as well, it'd at least run very well on low-ish settings once you got more ram, as would World in Conflict.

I was afraid that you might say this HavoK :eek:. A new pc will have to wait for the time being. But if and when i do decide to get one what would you recommend and where to buy? I'm not going to Dell again as my nephew bought a pc from them last year and has had nothing but trouble with it ever since.

I ws thinking if i put an extra 1gb of Ram into my machine this would'nt break the bank as it would cost me in or around €100 and if it works would do me for the timebeing. Please advise me if you think different..:)

white_falcon

Pinarello wrote: »

I was afraid that you might say this HavoK :eek:. A new pc will have to wait for the time being. But if and when i do decide to get one what would you recommend and where to buy? I'm not going to Dell again as my nephew bought a pc from them last year and has had nothing but trouble with it ever since.

I ws thinking if i put an extra 1gb of Ram into my machine this would'nt break the bank as it would cost me in or around €100 and if it works would do me for the timebeing. Please advise me if you think different..:)

€100 is a lot for a gig of ram. cant immagine it being that much to be honest. go onto the crucial site and have a look - or go to

http://www.komplett.ie/k/kc.aspx?bn=10232

just make sure and get two ram sticks that are the same speed

i mean heres a one gig stick and its only 54 yoyos
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=334570

Pinarello

white_falcon wrote: »

€100 is a lot for a gig of ram. cant immagine it being that much to be honest. go onto the crucial site and have a look - or go to

http://www.komplett.ie/k/kc.aspx?bn=10232

just make sure and get two ram sticks that are the same speed

i mean heres a one gig stick and its only 54 yoyos
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=334570

Thank's very much for this white_falcon. It will cost me €54 for an extra 1gb of Ram off cruical.After doing the scan i saw that the Ram i have is PC2700 so get two 512mb sticks in PC2700 right? If i do this and it does'nt work out then i will go down the nu pc route,for which i will ask for endless help..:o

white_falcon

erm well it depends. i had a laptop with 512mb ram
i bought another 512 stick and tried to put it in. i then realised that i only had 2 ram slots and had two sticks of 256.

so i had to take out one stick of 256 and put in the 512 one, making a grand total of 768mb ram lol

what i mean is make sure your PC has enough ram slots. if you only have two ram slots and have two sticks of 512 in it, then you'll only get 1 and half gigs of ram. so buy 2 1gig sticks and use them - heres a link to the 1 gig stick of ur ram:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=306537

hope that makes sense...

Pinarello

white_falcon wrote: »

erm well it depends. i had a laptop with 512mb ram
i bought another 512 stick and tried to put it in. i then realised that i only had 2 ram slots and had two sticks of 256.

so i had to take out one stick of 256 and put in the 512 one, making a grand total of 768mb ram lol

what i mean is make sure your PC has enough ram slots. if you only have two ram slots and have two sticks of 512 in it, then you'll only get 1 and half gigs of ram. so buy 2 1gig sticks and use them - heres a link to the 1 gig stick of ur ram:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=306537

hope that makes sense...

Thank's very much for the reply m8.On doing the scan from cruical.com it showed that i had 4 Ram ports1 & 2 already have 2*256mb sticks in them. So does this mean i can buy the 1gb ram stick that you showed me or do i have to buy 2*512mb sticks?

white_falcon

Pinarello wrote: »

Thank's very much for the reply m8.On doing the scan from cruical.com it showed that i had 4 Ram ports1 & 2 already have 2*256mb sticks in them. So does this mean i can buy the 1gb ram stick that you showed me or do i have to buy 2*512mb sticks?

u can buy the 1gig stick

all u need is that you have all the RAM speeds matching, which they do if you buy that one

Pinarello

white_falcon wrote: »

u can buy the 1gig stick

all u need is that you have all the RAM speeds matching, which they do if you buy that one

Thank you very much for this information white_falcon. I will buy the 1gb stick and let you know how i get on with it. If it's not the answer to my problem then a new pc will be on the agenda..;)

Pinarello

HavoK wrote: »

OK a Pentium 4 at 3.6Ghz (if that is the right speed) is plenty, despite its age. The 7600GS would be a major sore spot, especially if you're trying to play newer games. The problem being that new AGP cards are much more expensive then their pci-e counterparts, not to mention that your power supply would not be sufficient to power anything particularly great.

More ram would help, but there's only so much you can do in a limited situation, the card will hold you back even if you get more. I think it's time for a new machine, if you're looking at the latest games, Dells never offer much future prospects in their budget machines. Company of Heroes runs pretty well on a 7600GS though, and given how hardware friendly COD4 is as well, it'd at least run very well on low-ish settings once you got more ram, as would World in Conflict.

HavoK
I'd just like to know, i have the Nvidia 7600GS 256mb DDR2 inmy pc and would like to know would it be of any use to me to buy a 512mb card as i saw one on Komplett, and would my pc power supply be able to support it?:)

TerrorFirmer

Pinarello wrote: »

HavoK
I'd just like to know, i have the Nvidia 7600GS 256mb DDR2 inmy pc and would like to know would it be of any use to me to buy a 512mb card as i saw one on Komplett, and would my pc power supply be able to support it?:)

Not really, most 512mb cards are a cheap sham apart from the genuine high end cards that can use that much memory. For example a 512mb 7600GS would perform identical to a 256mb 7600GS.

I doubt your power supply would be up to much, something like a 7600GT would be as much as I'd risk on an an old Agp Dell machine, I'd imagine the power supply could not be better then 200/250w. I have a friend who had a 3Ghz Dell machine, Agp as well, and the psu's maximum load was 175w.

Pinarello

HavoK wrote: »

Not really, most 512mb cards are a cheap sham apart from the genuine high end cards that can use that much memory. For example a 512mb 7600GS would perform identical to a 256mb 7600GS.

I doubt your power supply would be up to much, something like a 7600GT would be as much as I'd risk on an an old Agp Dell machine, I'd imagine the power supply could not be better then 200/250w. I have a friend who had a 3Ghz Dell machine, Agp as well, and the psu's maximum load was 175w.

HavoK
I emailed Marx computer about their highend gaming machine pc core 2 duo 6750.They said to hold out until after christmas as the spec would change slightly again from the model shown on their website.So thank's very much for your help and saving me from wasting my money on an Xbox 360 or PS3.:)