Help upgrading DELL PRECISION 690 to gaming machine

[zdtownsend]

Hello, I'm trying to upgrade this dell, it has the follow specs:
#
TWO DUAL CORE XEON 3.2GHZ PROCESSORS 5060 SO 4 CORES TOTAL
#
4 GB RAM
#
2 X 160GB HARD DRIVES SATA
#
DVD-RW DRIVE
#
CD-RW DRIVE
#
FLOPPY
#
VIDEO CARD IS DUAL DVI PORT NVIDIA FX550 128MB

Can this be upgraged to any nvidia card i want and can i put two of them in it? if so what do you recommend. And the computer has 8 ram ports, it has 4 sticks of 1gb currently to upgrade to 8mb do i just put 1gb in each of the ports. Can this computer even even be used as a gaming rig

 

[NervousSoup]

Graphics: Has your mainbourd got a PCI-E slot
RAM: Are all the slots the same. Also what OS are you planning to use?

 

[zdtownsend]

heres the mobo

heres the ports

# Eight (8) DIMM sockets (4 occupied)
# Two (2) PCI-X slots
# One (1) PCI slot
# Three (3) PCIe x8 slots
# One (1) PCIe x16 slot (occupied)

 

[zdtownsend]

200 dollars

 

[NervousSoup]

Is that just for the graphics card or the ram aswell. I would also recomend depending on what Power Unit (PSU) you have you might need to upgrade that to.

 

[NervousSoup]

true but its always better to take evrything into account now rather than it just pop up later and it bight you in the backside lol

 

[zdtownsend]

has 750 watts, i'd like to play every game on a 24 inch monitor with high graphics ie crysis. max budget is 300 dollars

 

[NervousSoup]

yeh youll be fine on that budget for graphics and ram, new psu isnt needed.
any future queries just jump on the forum mate.

 

[NervousSoup]

I reccomend xfx for grapgics cards their always without disapointment.

 

[NervousSoup]

i would reccomend XFX for graphics cards there always without disapoitment.

 

[zdtownsend]

it has two processors can i over clock both of them? should i spend most of my money on the gfx card?

 

[NervousSoup]

yes you can depending on what motherbaurd you have and what bios. I would gfx is the main thing i would you have got enough ram for a 64bit os as it is but it is always good to have more ram. ps if overclocking defenetly take into consideration cooling it is very important.

 

[NervousSoup]

graphics card is where the money goes, overclocking is free (more or less)..
Dell certain Dell XPS, AlienWare allow overclocking, I'm not certain for the DELL PRECISION...

I'm trying to research a possible dual card system, researching card possibilities for PhysX.
I'm just thinking a little out of the box, havin' fun toking one....
To bad it doesn't have a second pci-e x16 slot so I'm kinda looking into the other slot options.
It's a shame if you can't tho with all the power supply and all that room..

yeh defenetly

 

[zdtownsend]

The precision 690 supports SLi as long as you have the riser card and an SLi bridge, would this be a good investment?

 

[NervousSoup]

yes defenetly.

 

[zdtownsend]

is it a benefit to buy 2 100 dollars graphic cards over a 200 dollar one?

 

[zdtownsend]

i found this article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-scaling-analysis,1572-10.html explaining what will happen if i use a video card in an 8x pcie slot