Discussion Help Build Up this Dell Workstation To beast others

[JZ nology]

Ok, I work for a company that designs large offshore crane assemblies in the solidworks 3D design program and I want to upgrade the computer to operate at its max potential. I have a Dell Precision Work Station 390 with specs in which I will post below. There has been some minor upgrades but only a couple. I have also checked the RAM and it is currently at 4 sticks of 512 mb still.

New Nvidia Quadro FX 570
New Hanns G TXT Color 22 monitor

Below is what shipped with the computer from Dell.

1YG666Card, Graphics, 128, RV530 ELGA10B1CJ727Palmrest,

Keyboard, Plastic Entry, Nmb, Black1CJ339Mouse, Universal Serial Bus

2BTN, Wheel, Lead Free, Optical Black1MW437Keyboard, 104,

Universal Serial Bus, United States Black, NMB...1GH897Assembly,

Cable, Serial AttachedScsi, Poweredge Expandable RaidController

Number, HARD DRIVE..., 1, DROP1WH355Assembly, Floppy Drive,

1.44M Teac, CHASSIS 2005..., Black1UT879Kit, Software, Overpack,

WXPPSP2 Compact Diskette W/documentation,

English0149DFINFORMATION..., PREPARATION MATERIAL...,

DEVIATION..., PRECISION WORKSTATION..., INCREASE...,

#215120PCord, Power, 125V, 6Feet, SJT..., Unshielded1TH999Kit,

Software, Office PRO-2K3 OEM, English4Y5956Dual In-line Memory

Module 512, 533M, 64X72, 8, 240, 1RX81H8799Hard Drive, 73G, Serial

AttachedScsi, 3, 15K, 3.5, FJT, AL9LX1WH304KIT..., Documentation on

Floppy Disk, Software, POWERDVD, 5.71YH139Assembly, Compact

Disk Read Write/digital Video Disk DriveCombo, 48X, Half Height,

SONY..., BLACK...1MJ762Processor, 80552, Pentium 4 Cedart Mill, 631,

3.0G, C11UH023INSTRUCTION..., DEVIATE CHAS L6 TO

L5.51GU186Printed Wiring Assy, ControllerPc Interface Express, SAS

SAS5/IR, Adapter1PD147Assembly, Cable, Light Emitting Diode, Hard

Drive, Auxiliary Precision Workstation, 4901PR291ASSEMBLY...,

CHASSIS..., 390, PRECISION WORKSTATION..., PWA

INTEGRATED..., V3083535INFORMATION..., PART, ADVANCED

TECHNOLOGY ATTACHMENT PACKET INTERFACE...,

DEVICE001323INFORMATION..., NO ITEM1T4860Guide, Product,

Information Desktop, AMF/BCC2J8461Assembly, Cable, Video, Lead

Free1U9607Assembly, Heatsink, Shroud Celeron,

TANK1CW851TECHNICAL SHEET..., MICROSOFT..., MESSAGE...,

VISC, PERSONAL COMPUTER..., WORLD WIDE..

Any Help would be greatly appreciated. I want to save our small company money by not having to buy a new system but at the same time build this one up to be faster and more productive without spending huge money and show them on my system its worth to invest in the 9 other systems to do the same to theirs.

 

[Psycho Homer]

What you posted does not tell us anything.

 

[trtl]

I don't see what is wrong with your current set up... It's a work computer dude; if it works it's all good.

 

[Alteran]

I did a quick search through Google. Looks like you have the LGA 775 chipset, which doesn't leave you with a lot of options, and can hold 8 gigs of RAM. Graphics, you are limited though to what looks like a PCI-e x16 card of no more than 512ram and 150 watts. But I could be wrong on that.

 

[Psycho Homer]

I did a quick search through Google. Looks like you have the LGA 775 chipset, which doesn't leave you with a lot of options, and can hold 8 gigs of RAM. Graphics, you are limited though to what looks like a PCI-e x16 card of no more than 512ram and 150 watts. But I could be wrong on that.

Wow. You phail.

 

[TuBbY BuNnY]

I did a quick search through Google. Looks like you have the LGA 775 chipset, which doesn't leave you with a lot of options, and can hold 8 gigs of RAM. Graphics, you are limited though to what looks like a PCI-e x16 card of no more than 512ram and 150 watts. But I could be wrong on that.

LGA 775 is not a chipset. LGA 775 is a CPU socket

PCIe x16 is backwards compatibility with PCIe 2.0.

There is not limit on power supply wattage. Manufactures have to follow power supply regulations so they don't under/over volt any of the components unless there needing more power.

So I recommend you go to google and search up some things before you post

kthxbai

 

[JZ nology]

What Im looking for is some easy upgrades besides ram. There is four sticks of 512mb and I was wondering if going with four stick of 1gb will make a noticeable difference seeing that windows can only ever operate with 3.89gb ram ever. Will going with 8gb be useless or will it somehow still be quicker. The 3D program is very power hungry and it is slow and very frustrating. I will try to get some more on what else is running in it.
Thanks

P.S. lets keep it clean and friendly. Don't reda$$ someone for trying to help. I know some about computers but not a lot.

 

[trtl]

No you will see no difference between 8GB and 4GB of RAM (without modification) as long as you are on a 32-bit OS.

This is how the 4GB limit on 32-bit OSes works: VRAM + SRAM = Total RAM = 4 GB
That means if you have a video card with 512MB of memory, you can have up to 3GB and 512MB SRAM, or system RAM.

If you upgraded from 2GB RAM to 4GB RAM, you would surely notice an increase in speed during rendering, and overall multitasking.

Other upgrades that would help the most:
Graphics Card
CPU
PSU (with those upgrades you'd probably need a better PSU as well)


As for the actual hardware upgrades, I'd suggest:

CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115055

Graphics Card
Workstation Graphics cards are very expensive, I don't think I'd upgrade that component. Maybe you can get good results with regular Graphics cards? Not sure on this topic.

RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148111
2 sticks of 2GB
I'd suggest purchasing these ASAP, the prices of DDR2 are rising because manufacturers are beginning to stop producing it.

PSU
Not sure if Dell is still as proprietary as they used to be, or how they were when you bought this workstation. I'd suggest just going with the RAM and CPU upgrades and not a graphics card, you probably won't need a new PSU if you go that route.

 

[JZ nology]

No you will see no difference between 8GB and 4GB of RAM (without modification) as long as you are on a 32-bit OS.

This is how the 4GB limit on 32-bit OSes works: VRAM + SRAM = Total RAM = 4 GB
That means if you have a video card with 512MB of memory, you can have up to 3GB and 512MB SRAM, or system RAM.

If you upgraded from 2GB RAM to 4GB RAM, you would surely notice an increase in speed during rendering, and overall multitasking.

Other upgrades that would help the most:
Graphics Card
CPU
PSU (with those upgrades you'd probably need a better PSU as well)


As for the actual hardware upgrades, I'd suggest:

CPU
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

Graphics Card
Workstation Graphics cards are very expensive, I don't think I'd upgrade that component. Maybe you can get good results with regular Graphics cards? Not sure on this topic.

RAM
Newegg.com - Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model CT2KIT25664AA667 - Desktop Memory
2 sticks of 2GB
I'd suggest purchasing these ASAP, the prices of DDR2 are rising because manufacturers are beginning to stop producing it.

PSU
Not sure if Dell is still as proprietary as they used to be, or how they were when you bought this workstation. I'd suggest just going with the RAM and CPU upgrades and not a graphics card, you probably won't need a new PSU if you go that route.

Thanks a lot for the insight. Im gonna run this by our admin and talk with our tech installer and see what they think. This is the route I was thinking of going but wasn' quite sure what to look for. Seeing the price of ram is going up We might have to push this through.

 

[trtl]

Of course always use caution, if all of the workstations are the same, purchase one to be sure it will work.

Just to be on the safe side of course.

 

[JZ nology]

Of course always use caution, if all of the workstations are the same, purchase one to be sure it will work.

Just to be on the safe side of course.

Of course, our tech help from off site is pretty smart but busy a lot. Im gonna work with him to try it on one machine to see if its a good install.