Inspiron 530S gaming upgrade

[triquee]

A friend of mine bought a Dell Inspiron 530S a couple of years back and has recently started playing WoW. She is finding that the on-board graphics aren't cutting it for the expansions and is wanting to do a light upgrade to make her machine more gaming friendly. She's also hoping to change her operating system from Windows Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit. She has a 1T external HD to back up her files for a clean install of the 64-bit system.

I did some poking around and this is what I've come up with as far as a gaming performance upgrade and I'm hoping for some guidance, advice, or a second opinion:

Asus GT 220 low profile graphics card

SeaSonic 300TFX 80 Plus Bronze PSU (to support the graphics card - I believe the PSU that came with the Dell is only 220W)

4x1GB Corsair High Performance DDR2 667 (PC2-5300) Desktop memory
She's got 3GB (2x1GB and 2x512MB) of Samsung RAM in it now.

Windows 7 64-bit OEM

Thoughts? Suggestions? Ridicule?

[Khalil]

That power supply even though is as a high quality as you are going to get, it is not designed to handle a GT220. Per Nvidia the GT220 has a minimum requirement of 350W
Why 64 bit? You can only go 4GB with this computer. You only need 64 bit if you plan on building a machine with more than 4GB of memory otherwise I would stick to 32 bit for compatibilty.
For world of warcraft windows 7 will give zero advantage over windows vista.
This Dell computer is not suitbale for any sort of gaming in my opinion.
If you insist on using this computer for the upgrade here is the card I recommend to use with this rig to get better graphics than what you getting with onboard.

[glc]

Sorry, that Dell small form factor case will not accept a power supply upgrade. Break it to her softly - she can't put a strong video card in it and expect the stock power supply to last. It's not worth upgrading the ram from 3gb to 4gb, especially if you are tossing 3gb of perfectly good ram. My nephew has the same system, and he's living with the onboard video till I build him a real computer next Christmas. We also improved gaming performance greatly by downgrading it from Vista to XP.

This is about the best you can do for a video card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127475
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125251

EDIT: Khalil, it won't even handle a 210, they recommend 350 watts for it.

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Originally Posted by Khalil That power supply even though is as a high quality as you are going to get, it is not designed to handle a GT220. Per Nvidia the GT220 has a minimum requirement of 350W.

Double sad face

The reason she's wanting to go 64-bit is because she entranced by it and the reason she wants W7 is because she's fed up with Vista.

I haven't approached the idea of building an entirely new system with her, but I don't think she'd go for it.

[triquee]

Originally Posted by glc Sorry, that Dell small form factor case will not accept a power supply upgrade. Break it to her softly - she can't put a strong video card in it and expect the stock power supply to last. It's not worth upgrading the ram from 3gb to 4gb, especially if you are tossing 3gb of perfectly good ram. My nephew has the same system, and he's living with the onboard video till I build him a real computer next Christmas. We also improved gaming performance greatly by downgrading it from Vista to XP. This is about the best you can do for a video card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127475 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125251 EDIT: Khalil, it won't even handle a 210, they recommend 350 watts for it.

I think the link in Khalil's post shows a recommended 300W minimum PSU. Unless my eyes are shot, which isn't an impossibility...

You said the case won't accept a power supply upgrade...Whatcha mean? I hope you won't mind breaking it down for me. I'm still taking baby steps here

[glc]

It's a small form factor case, and there's no room in there, much less mounting facilities, for a standard power supply. The factory power supply is proprietary with no upgrade possible, only an exact replacement from Dell will fit. The 2 cards I linked are the strongest that unit can handle.

[triquee]

Originally Posted by glc It's a small form factor case, and there's no room in there, much less mounting facilities, for a standard power supply. The factory power supply is proprietary with no upgrade possible, only an exact replacement from Dell will fit. The 2 cards I linked are the strongest that unit can handle.

I'll have to have another look at her PSU, but I believe it's a TFX with the same dimensions as the SeaSonic 300TFX. I could be wrong though. Wouldn't be the first time.

[glc]

You may be correct - but I'd advise you to confirm with Dell that a standard TFX will in fact mount in that case. I was not aware of the TFX form factor till just now.