Okay you have 4×512 MB=2 GB of RAM. The RAM can be upgraded to 8 GB but 4 GB should suffice. There is less gain in terms of performance in increasing the RAM above 4 GB in comparison to installation of a SSD.
Both the RAM and a SSD can be purchased from Crucial:
Wow thanks very much for the quick and very helpful reply, I don't think my budget will stretch to the card you have linked to unless it is going to make a massive performance difference.
Strangely I have just been researching a ssd and the difference it will make whilst I waited for this thread to be authorised. Again I think this will come down to budget. I can see this build getting out of hand very quickly, but perhaps a ssd is something I will consider as a future upgrade.
You mention upgrading to 4gb but would I see a benefit by increasing to 5gb by using 2 of my 512 sticks alongside 2 x2gb sticks? Seems a shame to have them and not use them.
Lol,I have just gone from Xp to 7, I will have a read of that link in more detail but is the gist of it a free upgrade to windows 10???
Yes it essentially gives you a free upgrade to Windows 10. Your Windows 7 license should also get you a free upgrade to Windows 10 but it wasn't very economic to buy a Windows 7 license for this machine at this stage.
The RAM sticks it depends... sometimes keeping the old RAM is a performance drain. RAM runs at the lowest speed of the component in the system...
If your new RAM runs faster than your old RAM. Then if only the new RAM is installed it will run at the speed of the new RAM. If the new and old RAM is installed it will run at the speed of the old RAM. There are some other considerations such as chipset/processor speed which may also limit the RAM.
SSDs are going down in price all the time so its definitely something worth considering in the future.
Ok now I'm confused even more :-) is there anyway to check the extra ram I have installed now is actually working? It was originally 2x512 but I added another 2x512, or is that irrelevant as they are all the same size?
Regarding windows 10 .... I installed windows 7 from a copied disk because the e520 was an old network computer and nobody could remember the station passwords so I clean installed 7 from a family members copied disk and skipped past the reg key for now because they cannot find it. I do however have the original Xp key on the sticker on the top of the computer. I don't want to make a mess of it all!
I will have to look into the benefits of 10 over 7 as it's not something I have any knowledge on.
Is it worth me putting a e6600 or e6700 processor in for the matter of a few £?
Okay put it another way think of your RAM as a team of runners. You may have 1 really fast runner but he has to match his speed with the rest of the team if they are to run together.
You can compare the processors here. Theres not much in it, just a slight difference in speed. Personally I wouldn't bother but you can. If you've never replaced a processor before look up videos on YouTube for instructions on how to apply thermal paste.
Theres multiple advantages in having Windows 10 including future support but your main advantage is to have a modern Windows version which won't expire in 30 days.
I've also ordered a 8gb sub stick to try out the windows upgrade, hopefully everything will go smoothly and my boy will have a computer that suits his needs!
I'm also going to look into installing xbmc/kodi for him to watch films.
My ram and graphics card arrived today so just in the process of installing it now.
One thing I noticed is that the 512 sticks I had in already are 533mhz and the 2gb sticks are 663mhz. Would it help of hinder the overall performance to have the extra 1gb of 533mhz on top of the 4gb of 663mhz?
ok, so i stuck with the matched 4gb of ram and installed the graphics card last night. I was amazed with the picture quality straight away, the text was so clear!
i uploaded football manager 2013 as an experiment again and it ran it perfectly!
I have checked the "can i run it website" for minecraft and everything is acceptable apart from the processor speed. I will be updating the processor in future but still not up to the required 2.8ghz, i think the E6700 is only 2.66ghz? but i hope this wont be to detrimental to the game? Perhaps someone could clarify?
I felt very satisfied with what i had done last night as i have never opened a computer up before, let alone swap components around and perform upgrades. It is great to know i have researched something and made it better! ...... I'm almost sad to let this computer go to to my sons house (he lives with his mum) !!! i would now love to build a system for home but the Mrs is not keen at all as "we have nowhere to keep it" !!??, but she also said that about the 4ft fish tank that i brought home one night :-)
watch this space as i wlll now be on the lookout for a secret build of my own!!!!! :-)
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
•
16.1K Posts
0
August 23rd, 2015 15:00
Okay you have 4×512 MB=2 GB of RAM. The RAM can be upgraded to 8 GB but 4 GB should suffice. There is less gain in terms of performance in increasing the RAM above 4 GB in comparison to installation of a SSD.
Both the RAM and a SSD can be purchased from Crucial:
http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/compatible-upgrade-for/Dell/dimension-e520
I'd recommend a MX200 or BX100 250 GB SSD. I'd also recommend a 4 GB kit (2×2 GB), you can always purchase a second 2×2 GB kit later down the line.
The 5450 should run fine without an additional power supply however is getting a bit old. A R5 230 will likely be better:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Radeon-Silent-DDR3-Graphics/dp/B00K09XCII/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440365316&sr=8-1&keywords=AMD+Radeon+R5
Success is reported with this card here but you may want to ask on the thread for more details:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19337860?pi21953=2
Software wise you should take advantage of the Windows 10 Insider Preview and use it as a stepping stone to get Windows 10 Pro RTM for free:
http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/windows-xpvista-%e2%86%92-windows-10-free-upgrade/
Mellow yellow
7 Posts
0
August 23rd, 2015 15:00
Wow thanks very much for the quick and very helpful reply, I don't think my budget will stretch to the card you have linked to unless it is going to make a massive performance difference.
Strangely I have just been researching a ssd and the difference it will make whilst I waited for this thread to be authorised. Again I think this will come down to budget. I can see this build getting out of hand very quickly, but perhaps a ssd is something I will consider as a future upgrade.
You mention upgrading to 4gb but would I see a benefit by increasing to 5gb by using 2 of my 512 sticks alongside 2 x2gb sticks? Seems a shame to have them and not use them.
Lol,I have just gone from Xp to 7, I will have a read of that link in more detail but is the gist of it a free upgrade to windows 10???
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
•
16.1K Posts
0
August 24th, 2015 01:00
Yes it essentially gives you a free upgrade to Windows 10. Your Windows 7 license should also get you a free upgrade to Windows 10 but it wasn't very economic to buy a Windows 7 license for this machine at this stage.
The RAM sticks it depends... sometimes keeping the old RAM is a performance drain. RAM runs at the lowest speed of the component in the system...
If your new RAM runs faster than your old RAM. Then if only the new RAM is installed it will run at the speed of the new RAM. If the new and old RAM is installed it will run at the speed of the old RAM. There are some other considerations such as chipset/processor speed which may also limit the RAM.
SSDs are going down in price all the time so its definitely something worth considering in the future.
Mellow yellow
7 Posts
0
August 24th, 2015 02:00
Ok now I'm confused even more :-) is there anyway to check the extra ram I have installed now is actually working? It was originally 2x512 but I added another 2x512, or is that irrelevant as they are all the same size?
Regarding windows 10 .... I installed windows 7 from a copied disk because the e520 was an old network computer and nobody could remember the station passwords so I clean installed 7 from a family members copied disk and skipped past the reg key for now because they cannot find it. I do however have the original Xp key on the sticker on the top of the computer. I don't want to make a mess of it all!
I will have to look into the benefits of 10 over 7 as it's not something I have any knowledge on.
Is it worth me putting a e6600 or e6700 processor in for the matter of a few £?
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
•
16.1K Posts
0
August 24th, 2015 06:00
Okay put it another way think of your RAM as a team of runners. You may have 1 really fast runner but he has to match his speed with the rest of the team if they are to run together.
You may download speccy to look at your RAM:
https://www.piriform.com/speccy/download
Look at the max bandwidth of all the modules.
P.S. Offtek is slightly cheaper than Crucial for RAM:
http://www.offtek.co.uk/ram-memory-2/dell/dell-desktop-memory/dimension-e520-dm061/mid145298
You can compare the processors here. Theres not much in it, just a slight difference in speed. Personally I wouldn't bother but you can. If you've never replaced a processor before look up videos on YouTube for instructions on how to apply thermal paste.
E6600:
http://ark.intel.com/products/27250/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E6600-4M-Cache-2_40-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB
E6700:
http://ark.intel.com/products/27251/Intel-Core2-Duo-Processor-E6700-4M-Cache-2_66-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB
Theres multiple advantages in having Windows 10 including future support but your main advantage is to have a modern Windows version which won't expire in 30 days.
Mellow yellow
7 Posts
0
August 24th, 2015 15:00
Ok so I have made some purchases based on the budget I had set out in my head
Asus Hd5450-Sl-1Gd3-Brk PCIE 2.1 Graphic Card (1GB, GDDR3, 64 Bit, 900MHz , 650MHz) £28
Low profile bracket £4
2x2gb sticks £25
E6700 dual core £8.50
I've also ordered a 8gb sub stick to try out the windows upgrade, hopefully everything will go smoothly and my boy will have a computer that suits his needs!
I'm also going to look into installing xbmc/kodi for him to watch films.
I will report back with my results.
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
•
16.1K Posts
0
August 25th, 2015 17:00
Remember to buy thermal paste for the cpu.
Mellow yellow
7 Posts
0
August 26th, 2015 11:00
Yep got some Arctic silver 5 on its way.
My ram and graphics card arrived today so just in the process of installing it now.
One thing I noticed is that the 512 sticks I had in already are 533mhz and the 2gb sticks are 663mhz. Would it help of hinder the overall performance to have the extra 1gb of 533mhz on top of the 4gb of 663mhz?
Philip_Yip
9 Legend
•
16.1K Posts
0
August 26th, 2015 12:00
If you install the 1 GB of RAM all the RAM will slow down to 533 MHz so it'll probably hinder the performance.
Mellow yellow
7 Posts
0
August 27th, 2015 03:00
ok, so i stuck with the matched 4gb of ram and installed the graphics card last night. I was amazed with the picture quality straight away, the text was so clear!
i uploaded football manager 2013 as an experiment again and it ran it perfectly!
I have checked the "can i run it website" for minecraft and everything is acceptable apart from the processor speed. I will be updating the processor in future but still not up to the required 2.8ghz, i think the E6700 is only 2.66ghz? but i hope this wont be to detrimental to the game? Perhaps someone could clarify?
I felt very satisfied with what i had done last night as i have never opened a computer up before, let alone swap components around and perform upgrades. It is great to know i have researched something and made it better! ...... I'm almost sad to let this computer go to to my sons house (he lives with his mum) !!! i would now love to build a system for home but the Mrs is not keen at all as "we have nowhere to keep it" !!??, but she also said that about the 4ft fish tank that i brought home one night :-)
watch this space as i wlll now be on the lookout for a secret build of my own!!!!! :-)