Maximum Upgrades on a Dimension E521 - project

​Hi All,​

​I had to research the heck out of some topics before upgrading, and thought it would make sense to try and make a guide where people with an E521 could find everything they need in one post and share what works and what doesn't. It seems that everybody wants to know the MAX upgrades that they can get out of their system. Why not? Most OEM manufacturers publish specifications with fault-tolerance built in - In other words, your system may be capable of much more than it states in the official Dell operator and service manuals. They do this in order to only suggest upgrades that will work at least 99.999% of the time with 99.999% of hardware on the market. By doing so, it cuts down on the amount of customer support that they have to provide. This is a good thing and keeps most users from getting in over their head and also helps keep the prices of their computers reasonable.​

​ I have first-hand experience that often you can do more with your base system than factory documentation would suggest - my Inspiron 1501 is capable of running double the memory that Dell lists and 4GB ram in a laptop is a definite advantage with it has integrated graphics to make up for. ​

​I will be using WEI as a standard as I really hope it will become even more utilized in Windows7. My whole family likes PC games and it is much easier for my wife and other family members to compare a simple WEI number than to give them a list of CPU's, RAM, GPU's, etc... Most non-enthusiasts would assume that a game that calls for a 2.0Ghz processor wouldn't run on a Turion 64x2 tl-56 @1.8ghz or a Pentium M @ 1.6Ghz - they are woefully unprepared to handle my son's Christmas list. WEI gives my extended family the opportunity to get my son the things that he actually wants for Xmas and birthdays - PC games. ​

​Upgrades that I have done to date:​

​GRAPHICS​

​Installed PNY Nvidia 7600GS 512MB 128bit GPU - this ran flawlessly and was only replaced to get Shader Model 4.0 (SM4) and DX10 support.​

​Installed PNY Nvidia 8500GT 512MB 128bit GPU - this runs great, has full DX10, SM4 support. With games that support DX10 , it is better than the 7600GS. With DX9 games (which is most games), the 7600GS is actually slightly better. We like to watch a lot of movies on our PC and the 8500GT has great support for HD and all other video playback. Works well with Adobe Photoshop CS4 using the GPU to do some of the rendering. It was a good trade-off, I lost maybe 5 to 10% fps in games and gained 100% better video playback with full HD support. (I get WEI scores of 4.9 Aero and 5.4 gaming with this card)​

​Why not get the latest and greatest card? New games are starting to use DX10 - I am looking forward to the better graphics and more realistic effects. If DX10 adds anything near what DX9 did, I am going to be very pleased. Also - I live in the peoples republic of Maryland and the power company BGE/Constallation Energy seems to control the strings of the state government. My power bill has gone from less than $100/mo to over $300/mo in the last 2 years and I use approximately 20% less energy now than I did then. This will be the primary PC and media center in our home and will run almost constantly. Using a better/newer GPU would likely require me to install a larger power supply to meet its power consumption demands. I would rather run a 305watt power supply than a 450+watt power supply. Also, this is a budget-build, and I am trying to see how much bang-for the buck you can get. (My new GPU cost me less than $20.00 New from Newegg.com by combining a sale and a Mfgr's rebate.)​

​MEMORY​

​Replaced factory configuration of 2 x 512MB DDR2 pc5300 667mhz memory with 2 x 1GB PNY Optima DDR2 pc6400 800mhz memory. (Good memory, latency of 5, comes with heat shield) The bios recognizes it as 800mhz memory and runs it full-speed. Windows Vista recognizes it too - the Windows Experience Index (WEI) gave me a 5.9 - the maximum score that Vista gives - with 2GB of this memory. You cannot get this score with 2GB of 667 as it measures the AMOUNT (in GB) and SPEED (in mhz) and latency (lag time - lower is better) of the RAM. (Under $30 with rush shipping from newegg.com)​

​Added 2 x 1GB Crucial Ballistics Tracerz DDR2 pc6400 800mhz memory to get 4GB total. (This is ridiculously good memory, latency of 4 with heatshield and led lights - bought used for $25.00 both sticks) Obviously still 5.9 WEI as this memory is even better than the other 2 sticks that max out on the scale. ​

​Why do I need 4GB? Some GPU/video cards use both dedicated RAM which is built onto the card AND use shared memory as well. With Vista Basic 32, I lose about 512MB to OS addressing issues, and another 512 to 768MB in shared video memory. By having the full 4GB available, I actually have 2.7 to 3 GB available for the OS and applications to use. Even with selecting user and inputting password, it takes me under 25 seconds to a full, usable desktop when I boot up. It's at least 5 seconds faster than with only 2GB (which is really only 1.5 due to GPU/shared memory). I still get the 5.9 max WEI score, but I think it would get a 6.5 or better using Windows7's larger scale. ​

​Future: I am determined to try to see if it will take a 1x2GB stick of DDR2 pc6400 800mhz ram. (Hopefully 4x2GB) AMD Athlon64 or 64x2 processors should be able to address much more memory than this and because AMD CPU's have the memory controller onboard the CPU, not on the motherboard, there is a good chance that I can get more than the max 4GB ram. Since 800mhz memory is the max that AM2 (the socket and chipset type for Athlon 64, 64x2) uses (without overclocking), 800mhz is fully recognized and utilized. I will try this soon and let people know if it works.​

​Processor​​ ​

​The stock Athlon 64 x2 CPU is installed. It only gets a 4.2 on WEI. This PC is going to run 12+ hours a day 365 days a year for hopefully another 2 or more years so reliability and durability is a must. Also, my wife has no desire to fiddle with adjustments or put up with any instability issues or loud fans, etc... that can occur with overclocking, so that option is out. Just ordered a Athlon 64 x2 5600​​+​​ from ebay. It runs at 2.8ghz instead of the 2.9 of the (non +) 5600, but has 2 x 1MB L2 cache instead of the 2x512kb L2 cache that the regular 5600 and most other 64 x2 processors have. By all accounts that I have read, this should be a faster chip 90% of the time than a 5600 or even 6000. It should also prove to be a reliable upgrade and work well with the stock HSF (heat sink & fan) from the E521. Others have reported WEI scored in the 5.3 to 5.5 range with this CPU. I will update this within the week. ​

​Storage​

​The stock 160GB 7200rpm SATA HDD is being used and I have bought a used 80GB Western Digital SATA drive to partition into a CS4 scratch-disk (10 GB) and Back-up disk (65ishGB). I don't need any more than this space because even with taking college photography classes, my wife takes about 6GB/year of pictures. By the time she is filling this up, I should be able to buy a used octo-core for a day or two's pay. ​

​Just the stock 160GB drive gets a 5.4 WEI score. I am going to try and disable the (useless with 4GB RAM) virtual memory/page file and see if this number improves. The WEI score is based on read/write speed - I would assume that 4GB with no page would run faster than 2GB with a 2GB page file, since there is no disk read/write time. ​

​Other​

​Will be upgrading to Vista64 this week. CS4 has native 64bit support and is optimized to run 10-15% faster on 64bit OS (supposedly). Also, newer games have 64bit support and should be better to utilize multiple-core CPU's instead of having one core run the game and another running everything else. ​

​I look forward to hearing from others that are trying to seek out the potential of the E521 and what upgrades they have able to accomplish above and beyond what Dell may officially support. ​

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