How can I upgrade this?

[ukJAG]

Dear all,

I've been given a HP/Compaq D330m MicroTower. Current specs are:
P4 2.4GHZ
1GB RAM
Intel 865G Chipset
On board video & sound
40Gb Hardisk

I'm thinking of using this for my photographic hobby and was wondering if I can upgrade the processor etc. and likely costs?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Ian

 

[PotGuy]

I'm presuming that is a socket 478, so you would gain little from upgrading the processor to be honest.

Intergrated graphics are not exactly ideal as well. Will you be playing games or are you purely interestedi n image quality?

It is up to you whether you feel a 40gb hard drive will be enough for your needs though.

 

[Ian]

Hey Ian!

What sort of stuff are you looking to do with the PC, just photo manipulation? Or do you think you'll be editing movies and playing games on it?

The PC you have isn't the fastest, but quite capable of editing photos fine as it is - although storage may be a bit tight and you certainly couldn't play any modern games on it.

We'd need to know the motherboard to find out the cost and type of ram, but 1GB should set you back £40-ish.

A 250GB drive is also just over £40 nowadays (its only a tenner cheaper to go for a 120GB version so it's a cost effective size).

 

[ukJAG]

I'm presuming that is a socket 478, so you would gain little from upgrading the processor to be honest.

Intergrated graphics are not exactly ideal as well. Will you be playing games or are you purely interestedi n image quality?

It is up to you whether you feel a 40gb hard drive will be enough for your needs though.

Not intending for gaming use, just image storing/editing. I have another HDD and several externals I can use and a dual screen card, was really thinking about the CPU. If I upgraded to the full 4Gb RAM it's capable of would it make a huge amount of difference with the same CPU?

 

[PotGuy]

In a word: No.

If you are using XP at least, you won't need more than 2gb, and even that is not really needed in most applications.

You could add a gig yes, but 4gb would be a waste, especially taking into account the rest of the system.


To be honest what you have there is going to be fine for image editing etc, and if you already have a decent quality dual screen card then there isn't much you could do.

You can upgrade the processor for £50-60, but you won't notice a real difference

 

[ukJAG]

In a word: No.

If you are using XP at least, you won't need more than 2gb, and even that is not really needed in most applications.

You could add a gig yes, but 4gb would be a waste, especially taking into account the rest of the system.


To be honest what you have there is going to be fine for image editing etc, and if you already have a decent quality dual screen card then there isn't much you could do.

You can upgrade the processor for £50-60, but you won't notice a real difference

Thanks for that shipmate. Might as well just sell it and use the cash to upgrade the RAM on my lappy

 

[PotGuy]

Thanks for that shipmate. Might as well just sell it and use the cash to upgrade the RAM on my lappy

Well its up to you. Not a bad system it would do a job. You could use it for photos anyway.

Or you could spend it on 3 months worth of bog roll

 

[Ian]

Potguy's thoughts in post 5 are spot on

What is your current system like?

 

[ukJAG]

Potguy's thoughts in post 5 are spot on

What is your current system like?

Hi Ian,

My current system is
Dell Inspiron 6400 Intel Core Duo T2050 1.6 GHz Laptop
60GB HDD & 250Gb My Book

The lappy was purely because of a space issue but am moving in the 2-3 weeks to a bigger place so was thinking of getting a PC aswell. Budget will be tight, around £500 so I thought of this D330 as a possibly option. I suppose if I'm being honest I do miss COD online and would probably want it to play the odd deathmatch or two

Cheers.

Ian

 

[PotGuy]

Well it will certainly play COD1 and the like if you stick any mid range card from this or the last generation in i it will play fine. COD was made to run on P4s, so that would be fine. Just so long as you don't try anything more recent than a bout of HL2