XPS 8300 transplanting question

[The undecided]

Hi all,

As you can see from the title, I have an XPS 8300, and for a while I've been thinking of ways to improve it by either a) new PSU, ram, GPU but sticking w/ the old mobo and case, b) the same as a) but w/ a better case and possibly CPU cooler or c) almost a total new build only taking the HDD (seagate 1.5tb) and processor, i7-2600k (H77 chipset). I was angling toward option c) but I had one doubt which was, would I be able to use the hard drive as well as the windows 7 installed upon it on my new computer or would I have to clean install a new copy of it.

Replies greatly appreciated.

 

[FShiwani]

Option A
PSU will not benefit you much at all, depends if your new GPU requires more power, you might need a new GPU, post your current PSU wattage and what GPU you are planning on getting. Case does not matter that much unless for cooling, since it was made by Dell I assume it is good enough. RAM will not be beneficial if you go above 4GB - for gaming, for video editing/3D Work, you could definitely benefit for more RAM. GPU will probably be the most beneficial depending on what type of work you are doing, for gaming and 3D, GPU will be the most beneficial.

Option B
Case does not matter much, since your's is Dell, it's probably good built, although you may need it to house your new CPU Cooler, sometimes Dell Cases only fit with Dell Components and they may not have made the case wide enough for a after market cooler.

Option C
Your HDD is perfectly fine and so is the Processor, I don't recommend Option C as it will not benefit you that much and will be more costly, not giving you much of a performance boost.

Windows Keys are bound to the motherboard, if used on a different motherboard they will not work. However I have heard of people using the key provided on the the manufacturer case in the new installation and has worked. If you change the motherboard I would highly recommend installing a fresh copy as some of the old drivers often interfere.

 

[The undecided]

The current PSU puts out 460w, I was planning on putting an evga gt 660 signature which I found was recommended to have at least a 500w PSU. I already have 12gb of RAM and the current mobo takes up to 16gb so I can put some more in. I was going to put it into a new case because, yes, it's very well built the dell case but it isn't well thought out in terms of cooling so my GPU gets really quite hot under any kind of load.