Newbie seeking to upgrade a Dell Dimension 8200

[mataz]

Right now I'm running a Dell Dimension 8200 that is almost two years old. It has a 1.7 ghz P4, a 64 mb GeFORCE 3 video card, 256 mb of RDRAM, running Windows ME and a 60 gig harddrive. I'm looking to upgrade the computer so that it will run Maya to a satisfactory level. I plan to upgrade the operating system to XP pro. That's the only thing I know for certain. I was thinking on getting a new video card (I was reccomended a Radeon 9800, but am open to the suggestions of professionals), maybe a new motherboard (my current AGP is 4x, but is it worth upgrading just to have an 8x?) if so, what motherboard, more RAM (what type? stick with RDRAM or go to DDR?). Any information or suggestions you could give would be most appreciated. I'm trying to keep the cost as low as possible, and am trying to have the end resulting system be a solid gaming system as well as maya worthy.

[vexler]

Hi, i have a recommendation for you that will give the maximum bang for your buck. The reasoning behind this system is maximum performance for game and 3d interaction. This is a completely home built system, i dont recommend buying dell desktops unless you purchase the professional models. My roommate had problems with his dell that drove him crazy when using maya.

Start with an athlon 2700-2800xp
stick it into any nforce 2 revision 2.0 board. I prefer asus or abit. ( i have an a7n8x).
Get two corsair memory modules 512meg each. pc3000+ (pc3500 optimal - corsair sells paired ram called the twinx that are matched to run at high speed dual channel)
This will let you overclock your fsb and get a healthy boost when running memory in sync with cpu. this board is dual channel so get 2 dimms.

For a video card i purchased a radeon 9700 pro. I think it is a better buy then a 9800 because you wont see that much difference between the two and more importantly you can do a software fire gl x1 conversion. That gives you about 30% boost in speed. I am not sure if doing this trick is feasible on 9800. Also give a geforce fx a hard and serious look, real time shaders can be used while modeling, allowing you to render out impressive stuff in record time. VERY SWEET. Get a good harddrive with 8 megs of cache also. Raid is better but more expensive (raid is helpful if you are editing alot).

This system gives you the biggest bang for the buck for interactive performance. from my experience a single cpu with a good graphics card gives you the maximum geometry ceiling, allowing you to retain smooth responsiveness even with the heaviest scene. Dual cpus are great for rendering, but if you get a geforce FX then theoretically your GPU should do most of the work.

Dont forget about your power supply. Get a model that is rock solid and long lasting. Look for voltage specs that show least deviation from spec. As a rule of thumb you want slightly more juice then you need when it comes down to wattage. Spend like 60 - 100 dollars ona good supply that puts out around 400+ watts.
I recommend antec true power for good, clean power and quiet operation.

You will never get maximum speed from prebuilt computers (dell, hp, compaq etc) unless you go for specialty shops. They will charge extra.

Also, pentium 4 is a good alternative because of multithreading. However it does as much harm as it does good sometimes so im not sure how useful it will be to you. As of now, rdram is very convincing performance wise however its price is not worth the bandwidth extra and as a result it is being quietly shoved aside by intel. That means your upgrade path may be hampered in the future.

good luck.

p.s. Making a homebrew system with premium, handpicked parts is the best way to go. They allow stable overclocking even for 3d applications and for me, the extra juice is useful for smooth interaction in heavy scenes. I think the future of CG is in GPU based rendering in real time or damn close to it. So think hard about what you want in your system, software render speed or hardware render speed. If you are squeamish about hand assembly you can have it pre assembled, but that restricts all of your parts to one dealer, which may not save you as much money. However you dont have to deal with the sometimes hassle prone computer assembly.

[mataz]

Although it would be nice to be able to build a new system from scratch, I don't have that kind of money right now, so I need to recycle as much as I can from my current Dell. :-

[vexler]

Thats the whole point, by building your own rig you can recycle as much as you need. I spent 800 dollars on my rig and its pretty much like what i described in the above post. You are talking about upgrading your current dell with a new one? how are you planning on recycling if you are just going to receive a new complete computer? if you want to save money and recycle parts it seems to me you have to buy it piece by piece off the internet. Also upgrading a dell is nearly impossible, you probably can reuse the case i guess and the power supply...maybe. Good luck anyway.

The asus a7n8x deluxe has built in sound and ethernet and firewire

all you need is a cpu, ram and a vid card. I recommend a new power supply too. You probably can reuse the old dell box but i recommend a new box. You can reuse the harddrive from the dell.

[idagrove]

You don't need to be so extreme as to put your Dell to the curb. But you need to consider the limitations of your existing hardware. For example, you can't throw DDR RAM on a board with a P4 that only supports RDRAM. A simple video card upgrade could make your working environment much faster, but you probably don't want to depend on hardware rendering as your only option, so CPU speed is still an important factor. Also note that according to some pretty knowledgeable posters on this board, you can get excellent performance from an AGP 8x card on a 4x motherboard.

Don't worry about over-clocking if you're not comfortable with it; you could irreparably damage your cpu if you're not careful. And in my opinion few processors have the headroom to make it worth the risk.

I would also assume that any modifications you make will void your warranty with Dell (if it isn't already expired).

[dvornik]

Forget about upgrading a motherboard - Dell cases are too propriatary for that (unless it's an old beige Dimension).

You can upgrade a processor somewhat - check dell support messageboards for the exact options. 1.7 is not too bad actually.

Videocard and RAM would be the easiest things to upgrade. 1 gig RAM (rdram if that's what you have) and a Quadro 4 900 XGL should definitely be a step up for Maya and they won't break your budget.

A second 8 mb cache harddrive (WD or Maxtor) can add to the general percieved "speed" of your system, especially if you separate "system" and "data" drives.

[nuabudikae]

Well said prior poster. Upgrade the ram if you can do so with RDRAM these days. Your processor is fine. Then upgrade your video card. Not much difference between 4x and 8x cards in the real world with game cards anyway.

When your ready to build a new box in another year or two, come back and ask for assistance on how to do it. Many here including myself do this stuff all the time and can coach you through it.

Good luck and regards,

john