some more hardware questions

OCZ Memory http://www.ocztechnology.com/
BFG Graphic http://www.bfgtech.com/
Seagate Drive http://www.seagate.com/
Lian Li Case http://www.lian-li.com/

You are going to find the best prices at Newegg.com.

Thks for the links,  what is the difference between  DDR memory, and DDR2 memory? As for the graphics card, what is the difference between the GT and the GTX?  The drive and case are pretty self explantory

Hm just found these on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227223&ATT=Memory+System+Memory&CMP=OTC-d3alt1me

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145486

 The OCZ is more powerful, but would it work on either of the asus boards ? Also is the jump in power worth  the $20 more?

DDR memory, and DDR2 memory? As for the graphics card, what is the difference between the GT and the GTX?

Here is a link to the new GTX: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050621/ It is just a faster (and from what tomhardware says, very much improved) version. 

DDR2 is the next generation of DDR, or doubling the Double Dynamic Ram.  I would go with what your board Manufaturer recommends.

If you are going with that CPU, you'll need DDR2, as the boards available will want that type.

AMD does not support 240 pin DDR2. The M2 socket platform for release 1st quarter of 2006 will.

Well thanks to everyone who posted and some other people I know here are the parts I'm planning on getting

amd 64x2 3800+

geforce 7800 gt ( bfg verison I think)

asus premium

coursir 2 gig ddr( 2 1 gig sticks) 3200

case still shopping around for a good one, outside of that  I might pickup another drive since I'm only using one drive now. Besides getting a new mouse, the rest I'm going to use from this comp.

for prices, you might also want to check out pricewatch.com, which lists out all available parts from different websites by price.

for prices, you might also want to check out pricewatch.com, which lists out all available parts from different websites by price.

That is my favorite,  But I think there are others.  Anyone?

Tiger Direct.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/

Tiger Direct.

Reputable and good, but pricey usually.

I shall hijack this thread too

Searching the net, I found a handy utility called Everest from Lavalys that gave me all sorts of interesting low level information about my system that didnt come with the Dell paperwork. In particular, my GeForce4 Ti 4200 can cope with 1x 2x 4x AGP.

After being utterly confused by the bewildering array of manufacturers of video cards I finally settled on the XFX GeForce 6600 PVT at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150086 so I can stick with nVidia. However, I was a bit concerned at the statement that it required an AGP8x spec motherboard although the interface was described as 4x/8x. Alternatively, I was thinking of the 128Mb version http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150089 which is inexplicably more expensive.

After getting into this upgrade thing a bit more I also discovered I could double my memory quite easily by buying a second stick of DIMM memory from Crucial http://www.crucial.com/store/MPartspecs.Asp?mtbpoid=750ED13FA5CA7304&WSMD=Dimension+4550+%28533MHz+FSB%29&WSPN=CT289645

My other concern is whether I'm going to overload my PSU. Buried on the Dell website I found out that the 4550 ships with a 250W PSU. I have recently added a second hard drive, so I guess I could remove the original (small) one if I found I had power problems. Any way to check out the current load on the PSU and whether I'm going to get problems?

All this so I can play BF2!

Well after a long two weeks and thanks to everyone here and at another forum, and from my friend , I got my parts picked out.

 Asus A8n SLI Premium

amd athlon 64 x2 3800+

BFG Geforce 7800 Gt Oc

Coursir 2 gig memory kit DDR 400

Antec P160 case

enermex Eg701AX 600V power supply. The rest I'm using from this comp.

I might grab an 80 gig sata drive but haven't decided yet.

Aha! the 128MB version was using DDR3 rather than DDR memory. Having checked out Tom's Hardware comparisons the 6600 GT comes midway on the table and fares reasonably against the best so I shall go for the 256MB version of that:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150113

Any coments?

AMD does not support 240 pin DDR2. The M2 socket platform for release 1st quarter of 2006 will.

My bad, absolutely right. Here's a nice bit of reading @ AMD: Link

Any way to check out the current load on the PSU and whether I'm going to get problems?

You can go here http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/ and use the interactive calculator to find the wattage required at full draw for your system.

As a general rule, you will want a 350 watt (or greater) PSU for a mainstream system.

Many manufacturers are notorious for skimping on the PSU capacity in production models.

Well according to the calculator the load in the origninally shipped condition already exceeded 250W! It also seem that Dell use a non-standard PSU/motherboard interface so you either need a proprietary PSU upgrade to 450W for $149 or add the price of an adaptor.

I guess I'll just have to try the new hardware and see if I get any problems. Hopefully, nothing as drastic as smoke coming out of it!

OK. So I now feel almost qualified to get my very own computer geek badge having added 512 Mb of memory, a new PSU and installed my new eVGA GeForce 6600 GT with all the associated drivers etc.

However, I get some stuttering when it starts a new map on BF2 which I put down to the enormous memory load that game requires; but I also get some stuttering when XP starts and that nice little chime doesnt play entirely smoothly. I tried increasing the virutal memory available to around 1.5 Gb on my slave drive to see if that helped but no luck.

My main problem though is that periodically my cursor turns invisible! It doesnt close down because I can still press buttons and click links: its just difficult to find them when you cant see where the cursor is! The only cure is to reboot. I've got all the latest Mobo, video, audio, bios and every other sort of driver I can think of but it still happens.

Anyone got some suggestions?