Pentium 4 Budget Upgrade

[someguynamedmatt]

Yep, another thread on how to upgrade a Pentium 4 system. Oh, the joy.

Anyway, I have a family member who is constantly complaining about slow, sluggish performance, but doesn't have the money to buy a whole new system. I've been called upon to fix that situation.

The system in question is a Dell Dimension 4600. Here's a manual for some information:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4600/en/4600/sm/specs.htm

It's your typical Pentium IV system, with 1.5GB DDR SDRAM and running Windows XP. It has an old IDE 80GB HDD, but I haven't been able to crack it open and see how well the storage can be upgraded. I'm not sure what drives the graphics behind this thing, but it really isn't that important seeing as the system is only used for light office work and day to day internet surfing and the likes.

I have an old Pentium D 2.66Ghz processor laying around, but I have no clue whether or not it will work on this old system. I really kind of doubt it... And seeing that it uses DDR SDRAM instead of DDR2, I can't really put my 2x1GB set of old DDR2-667 to work, either. I'm really at a loss as to how to upgrade this old thing...

Oh, and it would have to be around $100-200. A whole new system won't fit in that budget, I don't think, unless I want to go for something used.

Any ideas?

 

[joefriday]

Dell 4600 is socket 478 and uses the intel extreme graphics 2 and 865G chipset. Some 4600s do not have integrated graphics though, they use the 865P chipset. The best you can do is 3.4GHz socket 478 pentium 4. I think it supports both prescott and northwood, but if it were me, i would only search for northwood P4s as they run cooler. You'll want at least 3.0GHz HT P4s for any real day to day use. Also, the Dell 4600 has two sata ports and an 8x AGP, so if you have an ancient agp you could always put it in there, although it probably wont help at all and create more heat and power consumption. A hard drive upgrade would help, but since it is the old ICH southbridge, it does not play nice with Sata2 hard drives, so make sure the hard drive you get has a jumper to reduce performance to Sata1 specs.

Another possibility is to get a new mATX board and rebuild the system with new ram and processor, but for what you're telling me, I think a small CPU upgrade and a new hard drive is all that's needed. Probably will run a ton faster if the OS hasn't been reinstalled in a while. It is quite surprising how useful the old (hyperthreading) P4s still are today for the office user/non-gamer. My parents, and in-laws are still rocking Dell Dimension 2400s and 3000s with P4s as daily machines, and they're super happy with the performance.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

That's probably what I'll end up doing. [strike]Would it be able to support a Pentium IV Extreme Edition by any chance?...[/strike]
Scratch that idea... they're still fairly expensive for all the more they can do...

Paired with one more Gb of RAM and a decent hard drive upgrade (I'll probably just get an IDE drive to save the trouble), it should get it up and going a little bit faster...

 

[aznshinobi]

Hmmm matt, I think your better off building another build for your family member. Salvage what you can and use the 200$ to the fullest.

I'm sure you could grab a Athlon II X2+Cheapo mobo w/ onboard +4gb ram that'll probably keep em going for a while.

Athlon X3 435 72$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103920
ASRock 880GM-LE 60$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157199
Patriot 4gb (2x2gb) DDR3 1333 CL9 40$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220537
Total: 172 (w/o shipping)

I'm sure the PSU has enough to run this setup.

But ya know. Just in case, not the best psu but it's decent I suppose. Cooler Master Elite 460. 30$
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171046