Upgrading XPS 420

[TrainerAbu]

I'm a noob, first off. Anyways, I always have wanted to upgrade my computer, but I've been afraid of the pain of it all, especially when I hear people saying that the XPS 420 is way too small and talking about measurements and needing the right size parts to fit it and stuff.

Specs:

Dell XPS 420
Vista 32 Bit
Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz Quad Core
3GB RAM
375 W power supply
21" monitor (1440x900)
8800 GT Nvidia card

The video card goes to 94 degrees C whenever I play a game (like Team Fortress 2 and others) at 40% fan speed. And, I want the best video card that I can buy without it being too expensive.

I have a 8800GT and want to upgrade to the latest video cards that can run Final Fantasy 14 on high settings good.

But I also need more cooling since my video card gets too hot. However, there's a certain amount of space in the XPS 420 case so not everything will work, I'm assuming from what I read people say online.

What are some things you suggest that I buy, especially for cooling/fans?

And while I'm here, I just replaced my sound system with a new logitech more expensive one a few months ago, but now the left speaker doesn't work (it works sometimes and occasionally makes little fuzzy noises,) oh well.

 

[o1die]

Trust me. You don't want to upgrade the cpu on a dell board. They are proprietary to some of the dell cases, and dell doesn't provide any bios updates that I know of for cpu upgrades. You're lucky the board still works. Lots of those boards fail. All you can do is possibly add an extra case fan to cool things down. You can't even upgrade the cpu cooler on some dell cases easily. I've worked at dell several times here in austin. I would instead just save maybe $300 or more for a proper upgrade. You should change out the board/cpu/memory all at the same time, and get a better power supply, which is normally a good idea. Your dell is worth more if sold intact. I would get rid of it before it fails if you're not happy with the performance. If your games run stable, I would leave it alone and not worry about temps too much.

 

[TrainerAbu]

I don't even really understand what CPU or PSU means since I'm a huge noob to computer hardware.

I just want to upgrade my video card, if that needs a new power supply then also get one of those that fits my XPS 420 case, and I want to know most of all what good fans or other cooling items I could use on my XPS 420 to cool it down, and they must be ones that fit the XPS 420 case.

 

[delluser1]

Trust me. You don't want to upgrade the cpu on a dell board. They are proprietary to some of the dell cases, and dell doesn't provide any bios updates that I know of for cpu upgrades. You're lucky the board still works. Lots of those boards fail. All you can do is possibly add an extra case fan to cool things down. You can't even upgrade the cpu cooler on some dell cases easily. I've worked at dell several times here in austin. I would instead just save maybe $300 or more for a proper upgrade. You should change out the board/cpu/memory all at the same time, and get a better power supply, which is normally a good idea. Your dell is worth more if sold intact. I would get rid of it before it fails if you're not happy with the performance. If your games run stable, I would leave it alone and not worry about temps too much.

I don't think it's worth it to upgrade a socket 775 machine but come on, loosen 2 screws, swing the heatsink to the side and then open the 775 socket ?

 

[TrainerAbu]

Thanks for all the help so far.

So yeah, it's just that for Christmas, I want parts I can ask my dad to get me, that can cool my XPS 420 so that it doesn't get so hot when playing games

(Right now, I have to change the fan speed to 98% with a program and put on headphones so that I don't hear the noisy fan)

along with around the latest video card type of thing that can let me run Final Fantasy 14 on the highest settings and other good looking games on the highest settings.

But it has to fit my XPS 420 and be things I can just ask my dad to get me for Christmas online and know they should work perfectly, but if it's better to move all the parts to another case too if my dad even knows how to do that, then that's fine too if it's required.