Upgrading my out of date Dell

[bitlazy]

Currently I have a Dell 4600 desktop. I just got a second harddrive for it and now I would like to upgrade the video card and memory. I would like some suggestions on what I should get. Here are the specs of my PC.

Current Memory Installed: 256 MB (Yeah I know it's pretty much nothing)
Maximum Memory: 4096 MB

I have two free memory slots.

Current Video Card: nVidia GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X

Budget: $300 - $400

I would like at least 1 gb more ram and at least 256 MB video card. I was playing World of Warcraft but my memory and video card get bogged down by the game. I don't play any other games on my computer. Also, a TV tuner would be another plus. If anyone can help me out that would be great. Thanks.

[Cricket]

Go to Crucial.com for your RAM upgrade. DELL's don't use generic RAM so you have to get RAM specific to your system. Use the memory configurator to find the right RAM for your system.

Here's a ATi All-In-Wonder video card for you to consider.

Cricket

[glc]

Be careful with video upgrades - the stock power supply may not have enough guts to handle it.

A $400 budget is getting close to replacement territory. You may want to save some more and do that.

[not important]

From ATI:
A 300-watt power supply or greater is recommended to ensure normal system operation. A 350-watt power supply may be required in some fully-loaded PC systems where a number of other internal devices are installed.

You purchased a second HDD........A good Video Card, a new PSU and a Gig of RAM is going to put you about where glc referred to as replacement territory.

[chuck4456]

That's probably a stock 230 watt PSU installed in your system. You need to go to PC Power & Cooling and find out what a DELL upgrade PSU is going for. GLC's right - you are on the fwinge of replacement territory.

[bitlazy]

As far as cost is concerned would be cheaper for me just to build a new desktop? I have people who can help me so I won't be doing it completely alone.

[andper10]

It would definitely be a good idea to build a new one because you will just be upgrading using old technology. AGP cards have been phased by PCI-Express 16x, PC2700 / DDR 333 is very old compared to the latest DDR2 800 ram. Your processor socket is old and has very limited upragdability. And if your power supply is anything like the one in my Dimension 3000, which would not even power a ATI Radeon 9250 (a 5 year old card), you have to upgrade that either way. I would say to bear with what you have for a while until you have enough to build a decent gamer ($800ish without a monitor, speakers, etc.). I will edit in some suggested specs in a few minutes if someone doesn't beat me to it.

EDIT:

$87 Intel 946GZ Chipset Micro ATX Motherboard

$180 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86 Ghz Processor

$125 Corsair Value Select Ram 1GB (2x512) DDR2 667

$196 SAPPHIRE 100189L Radeon X1900GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16

$44 WD 80GB SATA2 Hard Drive w/ 8MB buffer

$32 LiteOn DVD/CD Burner

Use integrated sound

$49 Xclio 500 Watt Power Supply (You could get by with this for a good single card, but it would not leave a lot of head room)

$88 Windows XP Home

Choose a Case that you like

Total: w/o case and shipping: $801

That would be a good PC for games (it would play the latest games on at least high settings), but it definitely isn't the best. You could also go with a Pentium D to save you some money. Intel Pentium D 820 Smithfield 2.8GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor That would bring your total w/o case and shipping down to $733. Although it is more expensive than upgrading your Dell, it would have much better preformance.