Will this computer run new games?
 

Hi, my parents bought a new computer, and I'm wondering how well it will run new games, or if I will have to make some upgrades. They bought a dell, and here it is.

Base Unit / Unité de base:
Dimension E521,Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (2.1GHz, 512Kx2) (466-6065)

Memory / Mémoire:
2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (311-6587)


Monitor / Moniteur:
22 in (22 in viewable) E228WFPWide Aspect Digital Flat Panel (320-5210)

Video Card / Carte graphique:
Integrated Graphics (320-4270)

Hard Drive / Disque dur:
250GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM) (465-7925)

I'm not a hardcore gamer, and dont need the highest quality of equipment. The main negative for me is the video card. Does anyone know if it will run anything at all? On my current computer that I havent played a game on for over 2 years, there is a NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200. Would it be an upgrade over the Intergrated Graphics, or will I need to go buy a new one? Thanks for any help

You will need a new video card. Otherwise the PC itself should be fine.

If you are not on a budget, buy a Geforce 8800GTS(the 640MB video memory version, not the 320MB video memory version). Or even better the Geforce 8800GTX(768MB video memory).
The Geforce 8 series are DirectX10 compatible(unlike the Geforce7 series which are not).
If you are on a budget, the GEforce 8500 or 8600 are good choices.
Everything else is pretty good, though more CPU power is always welcomed. Check your Motherboard manual and see if you can upgrade the CPU in the future( in the manual are specified the CPU's that will work on your Motherboard).
The amount of RAM should be OK until you migrate to Vista(if you do that, make sure you have 4Gb RAM, as VIsta recommends at least 1gb for itself).
Your monitor seems to be HD compatible, which is a plus. The hard drive is fine and you can always add another if this won't be enough.
Make sure you have good Power Supply Unit(620W should be enough you go for Geforce8800).
Everything else can come later(a good sound card - Creative X-FI gamer is very good at the price/performance, and a good sound system)

As Wolfsrain said, a video card update is what you need, if you´re on a really tight budget and you need to sacrifice DX10 compatibility, go for the Gefore 6 series top of the range card or something mid range on the 7 series.

PS: Thread moved to Hardware.

Hm, I think the 320 MB version is quite okay @ the moment.
I guess it will work fine fot the next 2 years or so. Even the 4200 AMD will limit the 8800 card capabilities.

512 coming up
 

I can't understand why a computer of that spec would be supplied with integrated graphics? Unless that is what you asked for.

If you read what he said, you will notice the machine is a Dell.

90% of their machines are on-board graphics.

Arrgghh! Dell!

Not gaming machines then? They do it to cut cost so that anything decent is an extra. My sister once enquired about a cheap Dell. When she refused all the extra's and extended warranty etc. They put the phone down and wouldn't sell her it.

If I built PCs, I would only put a decent graphics card in if someone asked!

What kind of on-board is it?

The newest on-board from Intel/ATI can adequately run games on low settings.

FX5K2 is slow as hell. Any recent on-board will kick its ass hands down. You must give us a gamelist however, not every game likes integrated graphics solutions, that applies almost exclusively for Intel products though.