what to upgrade?

[viper3two]

I have an XPS 700, with 4 gigs ddr2? memory, 1tb of drive space, a q6600 processor, a evga 8800gts 640mb video card, also a sb extreme music card. The motherboard is dell branded and it is a 590 sli edition nvidia, it has a 775 lga socket. The dell part number on the mobo is 0YF432. I am running xp pro sp3. In both ms flight sim and black shark, my frame rates are around 20-30 no matter what graphic options I choose (min, max, resolution 8x6 or 1920x1200), so I am thinking black shark uses mostly processor power.

 

What would be the best option for upgrading to get more frames per second? I have seen the q9400 processor but not sure if that would work on this board because the q6600 has a different fsb vs. the q9400. Do you think it would be worth it and get more fps out of the processor if it would work? and also, what components would you upgrade?

 

And, while I am asking, is it worth upgrading to vista to run this? would I see any differnce? I have a sh*tload of games that would take about a week to reload if I did that, just wondering if it is better.

Edited January 8, 2009 by viper3two

[Kuky]

You would benefit from faster CPU, all other stuff in your PC is already good enough for this sim. I know Dell systems are not very furendly when it comes to upgrading hardware parts like CPU as their motherboards have either some "special" connectors. Now I never actually owned any PC build completely by Dell / HP etc as I've always built PC from parts I bought separately myself so I can't say this has to be true but I have heard stories like this from people who did have Dell systems.

 

Anyway, Black Shark (and LockOn) are mostly CPU dependent so if you can get faster CPU you will benefit from it. Now, there are few threads about Vista having somewhat beter framerates compared to XP as for some reason once you enable DCS.exe to run on more then 1 core on your CPU you get some boost in performance. I recently installed Vista 64 bit and have experienced this myself. On XP if you run the sim on 1 or 2 core it makes no difference but in Vista (I believe it's regardless if its' 32 or 64 bit version) 2 cores gets DCS BS to run better compared to 1 core.

 

I think in your situation is best to contact Dell and ask if this CPU you're thinking upgrading to is compatible with your motherboard and if so you could upgrade CPU only. In lot of cases upgrading to latest motherboard BIOS enables compatibility with latest CPU's you can look into that as well.

[viper3two]

Thanks for the reply Kuky. I kinda figured Black Shark is mostly processor dependent. I just figured that because no matter what I did, the frames stay the same. I will contact Dell support and ask them about what processor I can put on that board, not sure if it can handle a Q9x series or not, but will give it a try. Appreciate the help!

[S77th-konkussion]

Last I checked- If you want to upgrade anything other than memory on a Dell- you will have plenty of issues. Upgrading my video card on my old dell was a terrible ordeal. They have their own "special" (cheap junk) case that did not/ doesn't allow you to upgrade the 10 watt power supply it comes with easily. Typically PSU's have power switches which won't fit behind the weird case they use. I ended up having to rip the switch out and splice the wires together. It was that or take a hacksaw to the case to cut out a hole for the switch.... heheh

 

Bottom line- Never again. Dell has seen the last $ they will ever get from me.

[RedTiger]

This is true for most Dells, but he has an XPS. I thought those were at least a little less proprietary and a little more upgrade friendly?

[viper3two]

So far, that seems to be correct. Since I first got it, it had a Pentium Dual Core, I put the q6600 quad in it with no issues, as well as changing out the 7900gs for the 8800gts 640mb vid card. No problems there either.

I wish like heck I could overclock the cpu, but there is no way with the dell mobo, you can only use ntune and it doesn't really help that much as it would if you could unlock the bios in it...

I am also considering getting a mobo/processor/ram since the rest of the stuff in the box seems to be up to par for the time being. The case, ps (1000 watt), drives, sound and vid card are all ok and should do good, just it seems I at the max for what the mobo can handle.

So my big delima ATM is figuring out if I can just put a q9400 in it or should I do the mobo/processor/ram when my income tax check comes in :) ??

I tried contacting Dell about the mobo to see if it would handle a q9400 or q9450 and of course it is out of warranty and I couldn't figure out a way to contact them. I am still trying to figure out the processor issue.

Since it has basically an nvidia 590 SLI board, Q6600, 4 gigs DDR, can somebody recommend a faster processor, something that has plenty of horse power and the best bang for the buck? I have a budget of around $500 on the upgrade either for the mobo/processor/ram or just the Q9400 itself. Thanks

[S77th-konkussion]

Mine was an XPS too- so good to hear they at least partially understood their situation

[viper3two]

Well, it turns out after doing alot of reading in dell's forums that the q6600 is the max you can go. Second issue is the mobo is a btx that is not the standard atx. So, you can reuse the case, but you wind up modding it quite a bit to make everything fit. I really hate to give up that case...it is beautiful brushed aluminum with the blue neon lights....its nice. Not to mention the other thing is the power supply has a non standard connector to the mobo.

But....I have a friend who is a reseller close to me, and he priced out the following for me, so I am considering it:

Antec Nine Hundred series gaming case

Antec TruePower Quattro 1000 watt power supply

Vista Ultimate SP1

Intel ATX X58 motherboard DX58SO

4GB Kingston 1333 DDR3 ram

Intel Core I7-920 Extreme processor 2.66 Ghz

...and reuse my 8800GTX 640MB video card, SB Exteme sound card, 26" highdef monitor, Klipsh surround sound 200watt speakers, X52 pro....

For $1000 bux....

What do ya think? Good deal or not?

Thanks again

[Kuky]

sounds like a good upgrade :) With that setup you should be able to overclock the CPU nicely and get more bang for you buck ;)

[viper3two]

Thanks, will read up more on the I7, but that is what I think I will do.

Anyone interested in a used xps700? :thumbup: