
I recently purchased a Dell E520 computer after one of my colleagues tipped me off about a good deal on Dell’s website. The deal has since ended but both myself and the IT Manager at work managed to nab one for a princely sum of £329.
- Intel Core2 Duo E4300
- 2GB 533MHz DDR2
- 250GB SATA HDD
- 19″ Dell Flat Panel LCD
- 16x CD/DVD-+RW
The idea I had was basically to replace my current main machine which is now getting a bit long in the tooth. Albeit still being a perfectly capable machine it was time to move on to PCI-Express, SATA, Core 2Duo and DDR2 RAM.
After buying the Dell I got it hooked up and it was fine as an entry level machine but it didn’t have dual monitor outputs so, with it having a PCI-Express x16 slot, I thought I’d just invest in a new graphics card. Problem is, I had to find one that would fit. Basically the E520 is a BTX design which means that the motherboard is mounted on the other side of the case to a normal ATX motherboard. Admittedly the BTX design is far better for managing the heat generated by today’s modern machines and the airflow is far superior to ATX designs but it doesn’t lend itself well to the plethora of graphics cards on the market that use a dual bracket/heatsink slot design
After literally hours of surfing the net looking at toms hardware and bit-tech reviews I settled on an ATI X1950XT, which is still quite a capable DirectX 9.0 card.


