upgrade to what?

so is its unwise to upgrade?????

The ram and graphics cards seem rather easy to do, I would not know where to start with the PSU!

it's nice to upgrade - but do you need to?

what do you intend to do with your new gfx card?

the psu is a bit more of a complicated creature, as there will be several things you need to unplug/replug, but it's not rocket science.

I just wanted to update my pc, I started with the extra ram and thought the graphics card was the next EASY thing to do on the list

does anyone know how much power the Radeon x1300/1550 uses, maybe one of the newer card use less than that!

You don't have to upgrade your Psu. It's like this, if you want a hardcore powerful graphics card, yes, you must buy a new power supply. If you simply want a mainstream card that can play most games (at low settings, they won't look great and may run slow) and have HD playback, HDCP, lossless 7.1 audio, etc etc, you can buy a low power card that can run off the power provided by the pci-e slot itself. These are very limited in performance, but it's simple, just don't expect to play the newest games.

I suggest this: Newegg.com - MSI VR5570-MD1G Radeon HD 5570 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Or this model with DDR3 memory, will game much better, and only about $20 more: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131342

These cards are basically Radeon 5770's cut directly in half in every way.

This will be pushing your power supply a bit, but I think it will work just fine.

If you want a high end setup, reply and ask for advice and list features you want or need.

linnemeyerhere said:

mfcphil,
This litle trick of offering just enough PSU and other things allows all the manufacturers to have you trade in rather than upgrade. I ran into this very thing on my Gateway GT5220 and it turned out to be way more trouble than it was worth. Yes max'g out the ram and adding a small GPU will help but in the end, case design and component upgradeablity will hamper the build, IMHO. Go light on this upgrade and save back some bucks and stay here and get some great education on builds and start thinking about your ground up build ! We're here to help you and the learning process and quality differences in the components will blow your mind.

Sounds Like Pretty good advice.....last word on this one then.....if I put even a cheap lower end graphics card in, it would have to be better than the one Dell provided! wouldn't it?

Could anyone suggest a nice card which will improve my performance but not drain the power, I will save the higher end cards for my next pc