CPU upgrades

[oshunluvr]

What kind of video card do you need? I have a couple lying around.

[claydoh]

Thank you, oshunluvr, I don't actually need one. I purchased a cheap, low-profile Radeon HD5450 when I first got the PC just to get a dvi or hdmi port; the intel gpu actually does Portal well on middling settings, and plays video just dandy over vga, lol. I think HP have a dvi output card and/or display-port-to-dvi adapter, just have not looked for one recently. The 240 watt psu is the limiter there.

[oshunluvr]

I looked over the docs of that adapter - seems doable enough. My mobo has the X38 chipset so it's a non-starter here.

I know I have an nVidia 7100 pci card and maybe an old AGP 6600GT card in my junk box that I'll never use again. We're moving cross-country in six months so I'm dumping all but what's needed. I might even have a better PSU, but I'd have to look. I keep a couple spares for bench work.

[MoonRise]

My desktop system here at home is the Core 2 Quad Q6600. I've never had issues out of this system. Runs 8GB RAM and the original PSU. No overheating issues and this room can get warn during the summer. I usually have it doing my programming work, RDP and all while also running a VirtualBox of XP to boot. Along with that I have the NVidia GeForce 9400 GT. I've been happy with it. If you can get the Q6600 still for that system and reasonably priced I don't think you'd be disappointed. IMHO.