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Tom's Hardware > Forum > Laptops & Notebooks > General Discussion > Need advice on upgrading Dell Laptop

Need advice on upgrading Dell Laptop

Forum Laptops & Notebooks : General Discussion Need advice on upgrading Dell Laptop

I currently have a Dell Dimension E510 and cannot play any games at all. I want to start to get back into gaming and am planning on purchasing a desktop in the next month or two.

I also recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 15r i5 Laptop , 4gb Ram 640G HD,Intel HD Graphics 3000, up to 1.6GB Video Memory. I know this isnt a gaming laptop by any means, but I would rather put some $ into this than get a whole knew desktop. That way the desktop can be used for homework and web browsing while the desktop can be the one for gaming/portable for college.

I would like to play games like Diablo ,Left4Dead and others, but can't with my current desktop. Would it be better to invest in a whole knew desktop or upgrade my laptop. Id much rather put in 1-200 in my laptop than get a whole new desktop. If so, what would I upgrade?

Any help is appreciated, thanks so much! Im pretty new to laptops/desktops, but would like to learn more!

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to skitheeast36

Laptops, in general, have very limited upgrade options outside of RAM and hard disks.

For any kind of decent gaming, you either need a big bucks laptop or a desktop system.

Reply to jsc

skitheeast36 wrote :

Intel HD Graphics 3000
Diablo & Left4Dead

Your laptop will run those games.
Half Life 2, Far Cry, World of Warcraft - older games like that, will run on low settings.

It won't be possible to upgrade the laptop graphics for better performance.

Why can't your Dell Dimension E510 not run games?

------------------------------ Laptop Buyers FAQ
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Reply to WR2

Im guessing its the video card, I tried running COD World at War and it wouldnt even start up... Would upgrading my video card solve the problem?

Reply to skitheeast36

Sorry you cannot upgrade the video card. There is no dedicated graphics card in your laptop.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to howardp6

howardp6 wrote :

Sorry you cannot upgrade the video card. There is no dedicated graphics card in your laptop.

And Im guessing putting 4 more GB of RAM wont really improve gaming either?

Reply to skitheeast36

What video card do you have in the desktop?
What amount of RAM and which CPU?

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Reply to WR2

Here is a review of a Dell Dimension E510
It had a Pentium D 820 2.8Ghz dual core CPU & 1GB of RAM and a ATI Radeon X600/256mb graphics card.
Your system could have different parts.

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Reply to WR2

Yep, all stock . What should I look to get for this to run at least some games...

Reply to skitheeast36

And I think BF3 will not support mobile video anyway.

I would simply put together a desktop. But don't build what your ass cannot lift and carry to the lan. :bounce:

Reply to x Heavy

Would upgrading my video card be a solution to running some games, such as Left 4 Dead 2?

According to systemrequirements:

CPU
Recommended: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
You Have: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz
PASS

CPU Speed
Recommended: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz
You Have: 2.8 GHz Performance Rated at: 31.136 GHz
PASS

RAM
Recommended: 1 GB for XP or 2GB for Vista/7
You Have: 1022.1 MB
PASS

OS
Recommended: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
You Have: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
PASS

Video Card
Recommended: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVIDIA GeForce 7600, ATI Radeon X1600 or better

You Have: RADEON X600 (0x5B62)

Upgrade Suggested: Unfortunately, your Video Card does not meet this requirement.

Features: Recommended attributes of your Video Card

Required You Have
Video RAM 128 MB 365.0 MB
Hardware T&L Yes Yes
Pixel Shader version 3.0 2.0
Vertex Shader version 3.0 2.0

Sound Card
Recommended: Yes
You Have: SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
PASS

Free Disk Space
Recommended: At least 7.5 GB of free space
You Have: 26.9 GB

Reply to skitheeast36

A $30 graphics card upgrade would let you start gaming on your desktop.
XFX Radeon HD 4670
Would be a good idea to increase the RAM to 2GB as well.

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Reply to WR2

Sweet, I don't want to overdue it but I have ~100 to put into graphics card/RAM... 2gb of ram is what, 20$? Would getting an even better graphics card than the one mentioned above let me play on higher settings?

Reply to skitheeast36

Yes it would. But you're also getting into the zone where you'd need to consider a power supply upgrade as well.
That 5 or 6 yeard old 305W power supply probably won't support the best graphics card you could afford.

It's probably time to start up a new topic in the Systems forum and ask for upgrading advice there.

------------------------------ Laptop Buyers FAQ
Locked Out Of Your Laptop?
Reply to WR2

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