Pentium 4 Upgrading

First let me ask what you do with the computer, and how much you expect to gain from the upgrade. Honestly, any of those chips is just terribly slow compared to newer tech. You may want to consider not just whether it's possible but whether it's worth it at all to bother upgrading such an old PC.

(sorry, if it wasn't me you were bound to get a comment like that from someone)

That said, if you must we can provide help on the technical details (though I'd need to do a couple of checks myself).

I understand its an old pc, and dont worry I was expecting a response like that!

I sold my custom built pc with a core i-5 a while back to buy a nice laptop for school, and I realized how much I missed desktops so when my friend was selling this old work pc I grabbed it for $20.00. That being said, I don't expect much other than maybe Fallout 3 on medium, but I'd like to push this setup to the max, because its the only setup I have and it's good fun!

Anyways, don't break your backs on research for me (I've done enough of that), I'm just looking for someone who knows a thing or two about upgrading or using these rigs.

Plus I realized I don't know which motherboard I have in there (out of like 10 different ones), and considering I have no RAM yet I may have to get back to you with more specs from CPUZ this week. But the computer had and worked with a Pentium 4 SL7PU @ 3.0 ghz, so thats a start.

Any idea if I can tell the motherboard specs by looking inside the case?

Thanks again

yes if u open the case and look at the motherboard there will be a modal number then just google it

and it will be letters and number

The problem is your pretty much stuck with socket 478 or 775 (depending on the CPU model) and all those CPU's are old, outdated and slow today. It's OEM so you are going to be even more limited on top of that. It really isn't worth it I would trash that computer and start making plans for a new build.

Don't know your budget or your other parts of the system, but I'd consider something along these lines first:

$68
Equivalent in gaming to Ph II x4 955
Intel Pentium G630 Sandy Bridge 2.7GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80623G630

$75
GIGABYTE GA-B75M-D3H LGA 1155 Intel B75 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

$35 for DDR3 8 gb's!!!
Crucial Ballistix sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model BLS2KIT4G3D1339DS1S00

Total ~$178 shipped!

You can use any existing SATA HD's and/or SATA DVD drives and any PCI-e based GPU that you may have.

Not sure where your going with this build, but that is where I'd start. Otherwise you can get a low end HP, Dell, Acer desktop and install a low end GPU to go with it.

Maybe an AMD APU based system can do what you want. Cheap but yet plenty powerful in both GPU and CPU department when compared to the old prescotts p4's.

That is an option too. It'll all depend on budget and needs.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. Yes I realize that I should probably upgrade the motherboard, but somewhere I read that the dell optiplex gx280 has a custom fit proprietary motherboard. Does anyone know if the motherboard that lunyone posted would be compatible?

If that Dell is made to fit a proprietary motherboard then you are going to have to get another case. A proprietary board uses different mounting points so a standard ATX or micro ATX board isn't going to fit.

Simple answer is yes, this would work fine.
If you are going to stick with a single core processor, then you may as well max it out 3.8ghz 64 bit with HT.
915g chipsets will use 4gb of ram (1 gig per slot) at a max speed of 800mhz. (pc6400u)
Then drop a ati 7870 in your pcie slot & enjoy the lastest games on max graphics.
Its like taking an old car with a 4 cylinder engine & dropping a V8 in it.
The only problem is that you still have the same old 4 speed gear box. (P4 cpu)
Good for when you have no money. Except the graphics card. Thats worth more than your pc.

PUT A 3.4GHz pentium d in the thing. 4GB of ddr2 ram at 800MHz and a 9600GSO and there! you'll be able to run prototype and resident evil 5 max (no antialiashin) at 720p   p.s i know how to get juice out of them pentium 4's    

Lockout are you frickin nuts brah? a 7870 with a pentium 4? DUDE YOU THATS LIKE BOTTLENECK LEVEL 99

Indeed it was at the time. I have gone back to my ati 6670, which works perfect with this system.
Forgot to mention i also put in a creative sound blaster xfi titanium sound card, which was *** until i downloaded all the patches.
Games & movies sound excellent. I also put in a new 850w PSU to avoid any future melt down. Everything cost a little over $200 courtesy of ebay & not including the ati 7870, which i will be using on my wifes old 945gc ich/7 core duo pc for a future rebuild, since i bought her new pc for xmas.
Just a heads up, the 915g chipset, was originally built to hold a maximum 8gb of ram, (2gb per slot) but because of the availability & how expensive it actually was to buy back then, it was never mentioned or recommended.
http://ark.intel.com/products/27733/Intel-915G-Graphics...