stusidoti

I'm new here but I think this is a very supportive community just from breezing through the threads. I'm hoping that some nice, more experienced folks than me can steer me in the right direction. I have no experience building computers, however I am mechanically inclined and have installed software, drives and memory but nothing like a motherbord, processor or PSU...so I'm hoping the community can give me some direction.

Here's my dilemna...I'm between spending a lot of money to buy another new PC becuase the new low-profile PC I have no won't accept a full-size graphics card I need to run a specific piece of software OR spending less money to upgrade my old tower that has been a faithful workhorse.

About 11 months ago my wife kindly bought me a Dell C521 with a dual-core Athlon 64X2, ATI Radeon X1300 with Vista and in general, it has been a fine machine. However, I need to learn some CAD software (Studio Tools 13) to keep my skill-levels competitive for my career and I have learned that the ATI Radeon X1300 graphics card built into my Dell C521 does not support the OpenGL2.0 standard that Studio Tools needs nor is the X1300 very capable of doing CAD and it seems like a lot of gamers are not fond of the X1300 either.

The other issue that I have learned while surfing around looking for a great graphics card to run Studio Tools is that I simply cannot find a CAD-capable graphics card that will fit the Dell C521's half-height or low-profile card slots. The best low-profile graphics card I can find currently is the GeForce 8400 which seems much much slower than the GeForce 8800GTX which I've been told is the new 'standard' graphics card for running Studio Tools on a PC. I have a few friends running the 8800GTX and they seem very happy.

I think in terms of the Dell C521 I'm out of luck unless someone can recommend a very nice low-profile high-quality graphics card on par with the GeForce 8800. Of course, I'd like to swap the C521 for a different machine with Dell and pay the difference, but I don't think they'd go for that and quite frankly, we bought the wrong machine and that's not on Dell, that's on me.

The other PC that I have is an old (1999) Micron Milliennia tower running an Intel Pentium 2, a 200 watt power supply and a motherboard that I am simply unable to identify. This machine was my workhorse for the last 4+ years and before that, it was my wife's and it has been very reliable. I would love to upgrade the Micron with whatever it needs to run Studio Tools 13, keep the DellC521 as an everyday machine and turn the Micron into a dedicated CAD machine....and so I'm wondering if anyone can suggest a series of upgrades I'd need to do to the Micron if they are still available?....Please be as specific as you can as I am not as well-versed as you here in the community. Any and all links would be great, parts names would be helpful, any suggestions a noob should know!!

Now Studio Tools system requirements are:

System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems
• Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional 32bit or 64bit Edition.
Minimum Hardware Requirements
• 1 GB of system memory - 2GB or more highly recommended
• 1 GHz CPU
• 128MB video memory and supported video card with appropriate OpenGL driver. OpenGL 2.0 driver support is required for advanced rendering features to work correctly
• 3 button mouse
• Wacom tablet is strongly recommended for any 2D paint workflows

So from that, I do have XP Pro installed on the old Micron and I have the original for a re-install after the upgrades, I have a Wacom tablet, and I have a pretty good idea that I will want the GeForce 8800...so I'm asking for the community's advice on how to upgrade anything else you think I should do...I'm guessing here out of my ignorance but I'd guess;

New Motherboard...suggestions?
New CPU...suggestions?
New PSU...suggestions?

Another path to take perhaps is...one of our IT guys at work suggested that I buy a new PC case, rip the guts of my Dell C521 and install all of that WITH the new GeForce graphics card of my choice into the new PC case. What are your opinions of that idea? ...and...does anyone have a book, link or a thread for doing just such an operation? I'm sure I'd screw that up with my lack of experience so this option seems like it's to most challenging for my limited skill and knowledge level.

So to boil it down, I think I'm between;
1: miraculously finding a low-profile graphics card that can run CAD
2: severely upgrading the old Micron
3: putting the C521's guts into a full-size case and install the GeForce

I'd appreciate any and all advice

Thanks-Stu

1 g0t 0wn3d

Well you could sellt he dell thats one

you may be able to put it in the other case and upgrade the power supply to a 650 watt antec trio and run that

or you could do the second with a nice new case like the antec 900

emosun

The Dell C521 appears to have a btx motherboard. You could buy a btx compatible full size case then a new psu and then a video card. As for that old pc I don't think there anything you could use on that.

1 g0t 0wn3d

the thermaltake armor has a btx version