well my very old dell dimension 4550 is totally outdated. and i saw that radeon came out with the hd 3850 in agp mode, so i think i might do that. but i dont know what to do with the other componets.

so my question is, whats the best that i can make my dell dimension 4550.
thank you in advance

The PSU in that old Dell may not be enough for the HD3850. How many amps does it have on its +12V rail(s)? If I remember correctly, the aux power connector for AGP video cards will take a floppy drive style connector.

I looked at some Dell specs. The PSU is 250 watts, which won't cut it. Your machine also appears to be limited to 1GB of RAM.
Id say the best you can make of this machine is an adequate web surfer, emailer, and solitaire player for your grandparents.

I have a dimension 4550 also and I've gotten 1280mb of ram (1gb stick and 256 stick). You don't need more than a gig on that machine. I installed a 7600gs and I believe the cpu to still be bottlenecking that graphics card. I also had to modify the case to fit a new psu into it.

I doubt that you will be able to fit the 3850 in that case. My x800gto that I killed barely fit.

So, your best bet is to upgrade the ram to 1gb and buy a 7600gs or something similar. You will not even fully use whatever new tech you put in it since it is soooo old and limited anyways. I wouldn't put more money into it. You'd be better off buying a cheap computer anyways or building a new one for $500. But if you want to add more parts to it, that's your decision.
Personally, I haven't even fully used the upgrades I put into mine, just the 1gb of ram and the extra hard drive, that's it.

Let me know if you have any other questions about it. I've done tons of research on this system so I know it inside out.

I'd say make it into a file server, or internet/web machine is your best bet. You can only play games (around 2003) very well on it anyways, so new games are out of the question. I think when I can get my parents off of it, I'll hook mine up to my tv and play with around with that as a media center sort of...

okay i wont upgrade the pc. but can you help me look for a good cheap barebone pc. the most it can cost is like 300 dollars. thanks

Hmmm......

$300 can be kinda rough. Is there anyway you can get $500?

The difference between a $300 and a $500 build is basically a graphics card. If you are spending $300 don't expect to game very well....

okay well is this a fair idea. buying a barebone pc that comes with everything but the gpu, that is 300 dollars or less. then i could use the intefrated graphics card for the meantime until i can get a graphics card, like the 8800gt

Possibly, if the barebone includes a PSU of sufficient quality and capacity to run a decent GPU later.

can you help me look for one