Upgrading my Dell XPS 420

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TrainerAbu

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I'm a noob, first off. Anyways, I always have wanted to upgrade my computer, but I've been afraid of the pain of it all, especially when I hear people saying that the XPS 420 is way too small and talking about measurements and needing the right size parts to fit it and stuff.

Specs:

Dell XPS 420
Vista 32 Bit
Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz Quad Core
3GB RAM
375 W power supply
21" monitor (1440x900)
8800 GT Nvidia card

The video card goes to 94 degrees C whenever I play a game (like Team Fortress 2 and others) at 40% fan speed. And, I want the best video card that I can buy without it being too expensive.

I have a 8800GT and want to upgrade to the latest video cards that can run Final Fantasy 14 on high settings good.

But I also need more cooling since my video card gets too hot. However, there's a certain amount of space in the XPS 420 case so not everything will work, I'm assuming from what I read people say online.

What are some things you suggest that I buy, especially for cooling/fans?

And while I'm here, I just replaced my sound system with a new logitech more expensive one a few months ago, but now the left speaker doesn't work (it works sometimes and occasionally makes little fuzzy noises,) oh well.
 
Looks like your GPU temps are way too high and fan speed way too low! you should try to keep your gpu under 90c , you could always increase the fan speeds your self. But your fan should increase to more speed reaching those temps.

If you plan on upgrading a Video card i would highly recommend buying a new Power supply, even a descent 450w one would do, im not sure what PSU's dell uses but i think that they use cheap ones that don't output allot of power. Dont get me wrong you can still run like a 5770 of that power-supply but not recommended.

As far as the video card goes you can buy a 5770 1gb which will do you good for gaming, you can find one around 130-150 maybe even cheaper now with the holidays. So whats your budget like?
 
Ya I'm agreeing with Sniper on this one plus I'm going to say take this one step further.

Get a case,
Newegg.com - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, option Fans-2x Side 120mm Fan


Get a PSU,
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-600CX 600W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply

Get a GPU,
Newegg.com - SPARKLE SXX460768D5UNM GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 768MB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
there's plenty of graphics cards this is just one suggestion.

That upgrade is $284.98 $229.98 + S&H

and you'll be good to game on anything. Hopefully this isn't horribly out of budget for you. If it is let us know and we'll help you further.
 
Thanks for all the help so far.

So yeah, it's just that for Christmas, I want parts I can ask my dad to get me, that can cool my XPS 420 so that it doesn't get so hot when playing games

(Right now, I have to change the fan speed to 98% with a program and put on headphones so that I don't hear the noisy fan)

along with around the latest video card type of thing that can let me run Final Fantasy 14 on the highest settings and other good looking games on the highest settings.

But it has to fit my XPS 420 and be things I can just ask my dad to get me for Christmas online and know they should work perfectly, but if it's better to move all the parts to another case too if my dad even knows how to do that, then that's fine too if it's required.
 
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