Upgrading my Dell Server to a Game Rig for SW:TOR

[mrmojo]

Hey people,

i recently posted a thread in the ToR forums to see if my Dell Server has any chance to be upgraded to a PC to play ToR with, and i was told to try it in this forum, even tho i had nice replys there too, for reference: mmo-champion.com/threads/1041868-Dell-Server-to-play-ToR-with
Im pretty much clueless about systems right now, the last time i build a PC, i bought a Geforce mx440 which had like 64mb...i think it was atleast 6 years ago?! The last time i ACTUALLY played a PC game...puh, was prolly around 4 years ago.

So im pretty clueless. I managed to get this Dell Server for free. This one:

dell.com/downloads/emea/products/pedge/en/SC440_Spec_Sheet_Quad.pdf

The only difference is: it comes with the 4GB ram.

Now what is it you want:
Upgrade this computer - if possible
I want to use this to play SW:ToR and possibly Diablo3
I dont know what FPS i expect, what id like tho is not "lowest" settings...preferably med-high settings.
Id be using Windows, i dont know which yet... maybe Windows XP ?
How much you want to spend? Around 500€, the cheaper the better. Ive checked the "setup of the month" post and tried to find the parts listed there on ebay, so i would try to look for 2. hand ways to buy things, atleast parts of it.
I could put it together myself.
Im from Germany.

I wouldnt need a Harddrive, i got a few lying around here...mostly 80GBs but its enough for my needs.
Same goes for the CDrom drive. Probably got one lying around here, which should be enough.
So what could i use out of the server or what would have to buy - to make it to run SW:ToR on medium-high settings.
If using the Dell one, would cause more problems then building one from the scratch, i wouldnt mind screwing the Dell one and just try to build a solid one for gaming only, since i got a laptop to work on.
If someone could create me a spec, with common parts, i could try to gather all those parts around ebay or other 2. hand sources... (hard in germany tho ;p)

thank you for your help!

[Synthaxx]

Honestly, using a dual-core Pentium D, Xeon 3000, or worse a Celeron D. in any system these days isn't really a great choice. Considering it's 512MB - 4GB RAM capacity, that's hardly gonna be enough (because likelyhood is it's not got 4GB). Moreover, it'll need ECC memory if you want to upgrade it, which is hellishly expensive in comparison to non-ECC memory until you get to the very high capacities. It's possibly that it's only got 2 RAM slots on the board, which limits your upgrade options to 8GB, and that's if the board itself even supports more than 4GB.

Honestly, you're just gonna have to build a whole new system, although you may be able to salvage the HDD's from it.

[Culadin]

You won't be able to upgrade using that system. The processor inside does not meet the minimum requirements, nor is it of a socket type that can be upgraded.

At this point you would be looking to replace:
CPU, Motherboard, Memory, Graphics Card, Power Supply, and I would suggest a new case.

CPU - Intel i3 2100 106.90 EUR
Motherboard - Gigabyte H61M-S2V-B3 52.65 EUR
Memory - G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB (2X2GB) 1600Mhz kit 28.56 EUR
Graphics Card - XFX Radeon HD6850 1GB GDDR5 134.85 EUR
Power Supply - OCZ 600W Modstream 80+ Certified 68.85 EUR
Case - Thermaltake V4 Black Edition 39.30 EUR

Total 431.11 EUR

I personally would suggest investing an additional 95EUR for Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit to bring your total up to 527.06 EUR. At least then you have the most recent version of Windows so you would be Direct X11 capable. This build also reuses the HDD / ODD from previous systems.

With this combination of GPU / CPU you will be able to play on high to ultra settings with 40+ FPS.

[Nellah]

Motherboard - Gigabyte H61M-S2V-B3 52.65 EUR.

That motherboard doesn't have any IDE slots, so it's very unlikely that the 80GB drives the OP has will work with it.

OP, it's definitely worth shelling out for a new hard drive / SSD, the old 80GB drives you have will be worlds behind even modern mechanical drives for seek speed and read/write speed. You will shudder at the load times for modern MMOs. Upgrading my wife's computer from a 120GB Maxtor to a 640GB WD Blue dropped WoW load times by half, and the drive I upgraded her to is still not exactly modern.

[mrmojo]

Didnt know people dont use IDE anymore....well, i guess i could manage that somehow with a new HDD.
Thanks for all your help, im currently trying to find those items he listed on internet and try to get it ready.

On a side note... would you think i could run Knights of the old Republic 2 with the Dell Server?
I dont know if a) what graphic card is even inside this and b) if its enough for Kotor2 since its from 2005.