Upgrade ?? - Dell XPS 700/720

Pimp Ninja

Been a long while since I was up on all the hardware out there, so would appreciate some advice.

Ive got a Dell XPS 720. It was an XPS 700 bought close to 4 years ago. At the end of 2007 Dell did a sort of recall/upgrade program where the motherboards were upgraded to the XPS720 board.

After the board upgrade I added some new RAM and a new CPU.

Current spec wise the only thing I am really concerned about the Graphics card. I have an Nvidia 7950 GX2. Its apparantly supposed to have 1 gig of ram, but I can never get the system to recognise any more than 512. Anyway thats more my problem than anything else.

Rest of the system is
8gig RAM
~3gig core 2 quad CPU.

The PSU I believe is a 750watt

Ill confirm full specs later tonight, but anyone got any rough ideas what video cards I should be looking at?

Thanks
Dan

ScumLord

Windows 7 64 would be a good addition to that system.

Pimp Ninja

Its currently XP 64bit. I did buy a full copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit and ran it for a week, but didnt like it at the time.

ScumLord

Pimp Ninja wrote: »

Its currently XP 64bit. I did buy a full copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit and ran it for a week, but didnt like it at the time.

Vista is a waste of time but Win7 is different. I noticed a big improvement with Win7 64 coming up from WinXP 32. You've got decent hardware that Win7 could get better use out of.

massy086

+1 on win 7 64v im using ultimate and love it compard to vista if u have a vista licence look into a upgrade win 7 pack

lmimmfn

What do you want to upgrade for? to get better games performance? OS upgrade? If its games performance how much do you want to spend? whats your current resolution? what is the performance you want to achieve and which games?

Your gfx card is ancient, you could go for an nvidia 8800GT, or 260 or 275/285/295 or ati 4890/5770/5830( due in the next week or so )/5850/5870/5970

Pimp Ninja wrote: »

Current spec wise the only thing I am really concerned about the Graphics card. I have an Nvidia 7950 GX2. Its apparantly supposed to have 1 gig of ram, but I can never get the system to recognise any more than 512.

Any SLI/Crossfire dual card solution( even though its only on 1 PCB the 7950 is a dual card ) does not have a max ram of 1 cards ram + other cards ram, the video info is sent to both cards at the same time and they render their own parts of the scene therefore the total memory is effectively halved. Its annoying how manufacturers state the total ram from the 2 cards when it can never be used like that

Pimp Ninja

Should have mentioned what budget and the goal of the upgrade was alright.

The system is mainly used for gaming. Im just noticing of late that I have been tending to use the lower end graphics settings within games. Also Im a little concerned that Im still on DX 9.

I play a lot of RTS and FPS games.
Going to start playing ARMA II soon. Also looking forward to the new Bioshock, AVP, Diablo, Starcraft

Budget is a max at about €150

Solitaire

€150 is HD5770/4890/5830 territory. All good for decent performance with a 1080p monitor

What spec is that PSU anyway?

lmimmfn

^^I agree, any of those cards are excellent, ArmaII is a bit of a hog on any system but they'll still run it well.

Pimp Ninja

Ok Its time to bump this thread up again.

I never bought a card back in Feb, but its Birthday time, and Im getting one now
Budget is €200

The system is about 3 years old and specs as follows
Dell XPS 720
Core 2 quad 2.4 Q6600 1066mhz (as reported by BIOS)
8gm Ram - 800mhz DDR2 (as reported by BIOS)
Aegia PhysX PCI card
GForce 7950 GX2 (Dell OEM 1gb version)

PSU is a Dell H750P-00 - 750 watt

Suggestions welcome
Thank You

Dubba

For €200 I think your best bet would be a ATI HD 6870.

I recently put Sapphire HD 6870 into my Dell 580 and it runs great (I've nothing to compare it to tho.)

Solitaire

Get a HD6850 if you want to stay closer to €150, or just run out and grab a cheap HD6870 if you want to blow the whole stack

Pimp Ninja

Ok, Thanks Guys! Im gonna read around today about these cards.

Whats the story with having an ATI card in a machine with a seperate PhysX card?

Solitaire

You have awesome sauce. That is all. :cool:

Pimp Ninja

Ive decided on the 6870.
Just shopping around now, looking for a good priced one.

What are the thoughts on the XFX RADEON HD 6870 ?
Is there any big reason to go for one over another ?

Got any recommended sites to buy from ?

Thanks again All !

Skerries

the cheapest i can see it at factoring in delivery is here
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/248745

massy086

http://cgi.ebay.ie/Sapphire-HD6870-1GB-GDDR5-Graphics-Card-UK-Seller-/110615953044?pt=UK_Computing_Computer_Components_Graphics_Video_TV_Cards_TW&hash=item19c1397e94

Pimp Ninja

Went ahead and ordered Radeon HD 5850 Twin FrozR II from Overclockers (Thanks Sasquatch76) as a Christmas prezzie for myself.

roll on the delivery !!