Upgrading A Dell XPS 600: Is it possible?

MrDalfy,

I have a Dell Dimension a generation behind yours, a 2004 Dimension 8400 (P4 630 3.0GHz / Hyperthreading 64-bit, 3GB of RAM, Quadro FX580, Seagate 750GB > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit) and that system still has AutoCad 2007, Adobe CS3, Corel Graphics Suite 12, Wordperfect X4 and more and runs at a reasonable speed. I used Sketchup 8 a bit but that is really a 2D system and when I went to 3D CAD in 2009, I bought a dual 4 core Xeon Precision T5400 and Quadro FX4800. The shift from 2D to 3D - which means games too- was a fundamental shift in the hardware paradigms.

I think that the XPS 600 which can use the first dual core- the Pentium D which is really two P4 tied together and DDR2-667 RAM- might have it's best chance with: a Pentium Extreme 955 3.47GHz, 8GB of DDR2, a GTX 560ti or 650 Ti and possibly an SSD. I say possibly an SSD as Passmark baselines show a couple of XPS 600's wih SSD's but the disk scores seem to be the same as mech'l drives- it's really quite odd.

That said, the best performance according to Passmark is going to be substandard for modern games. The fastest CPU, the 955 Extreme, has a top CPU mark of 1082 and a GTX 650 Ti has a 3D rating of 1532. The highest disk score is an "SSD 128GB" rated at 757.

The CPU is just not moving the 1 and 0's fast enough as a GTX 650- TI in an i7-2600 system can score over 4000 in 3D and a typical 128GB SSD might score in the 3500's. In effect, upgrades to an XPS 600 reach a limit very quickly- the XPS 600 will not benefit past a GeForce 9800.

Unless you have a special attachment to this system or are prepared to accept quite strict limitations on the modernity of the applications- it will run the games of 2007 but I think games of 2016 will be "unhappy".

If that system plus your upgrade budget can equal about $200, you can do far, far better toward running modern games. I bought a Dell Precision T3500 for $53, added a $60 CPU- a Xeon X5677 4-core @ 3.47 /3.73GHz, upped it to 12GB of DDR3 1333 ECC ($43)- it can use up to 24GB-, a Quadro 4000, and a PERC 6/i with a 146GB 15K SAS and WD Black 500GB drives that were sitting around. The CPU rating is 7213, 3D is 2194, the disk is 1282 - all for $185. A T3500 with a GTX 650 Ti has a 3D score of 3212 and with a GTX 980- 8599- the CPU, RAM, and disk system are not throttling performance as in the XPS 600. Used workstations of that era seem to have the best cost /performance ration but thee are also a lot of Dell Optiplexes with 2nd generation i5's- and i7's that would be much more worthwhile to upgrade.

If you do pursue the XPS 600 upgrade, do not over spend on a fast GPU or SSD or buy with the idea that it is a temporary home and can be transferred to the next system that make good use of it.

Cheers,

BambiBoom