mrmuch77,
While workstations can be made into decent gaming systems, in my view this particular Precision 490 is not a great candidate to upgrade for modern games:
1. CPU of only 2.33 GHz
2. DDR2 RAM of probably 533 or 667 speed. And, DDR2 can run tremendously hot- 75-85 C +
3. DDR2 RAM is probably ECC error correcting which has a noticeably higher latency- slower reaction- due to the parity checking
4. The Quadro FX 4600 was a fairly high end graphics card for 2D CAD in 2006, and reasonable but not wonderful in 3D. The Quadro drivers too are configured for completion of every frame and high anti-aliasing- image quality- whereas gaming cards are made for highest frame rates.
But it has some potential and for not much cost,
If you'd like to upgrade: If there are two CPU's (I'm not clear on whether there are two, but it was usual to have two if they were dual core) I'd suggest buying a pair of Xeon 5160's which are 3.0GHz and amazingly, these sell for as little $5-$20 each. If there is one CPU, find a quad core Xeon 5365 3.0GHz at about $60-80. Check that the original heatsink(s) is/are correct for the quad core, though you might find a modern fan / heatsink that would work. The original heatsinks for these systems that look like little models of buildings with Copper pipes can cost $30-60. Then, replace the Quadro FX 4600 with a 2GB GTX 750. I think a really high end card will not provide a lot more advantage as the CPU and memory subsystems will be the limiting factors.
While you could have a good improvement by upgrading- and upgrading could be inexpensive, all in all, I would agree with numanator and suggest keeping the new drives, selling the Precision 490 and building new with an i5, fast DDR3, and GTX or Radeon. You'd be surprised, but with dual Xeons and the well-thought-of FX 4600 the system still has a reasonably good value- there are completed sales for similar systems from $300-$600. I know of architectural offices still using Precision 380's, 390, 490's 690's, T3400, and etc.
Cheers,
BambiBoom
HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 >[Passmark system rating = 3923, 2D= 839 / 3D=2048]
Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >[Passmark system rating = 1859, 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]
2D, 3D CAD, Image Processing, Rendering, Text > Architecture, industrial design, graphic design, written projects
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