Possible Scrapyard Wars inspired upgrade?

[MidKnight]

How's it going everyone, first time poster here, so things might be a bit sloppy. Sorry.

I was very intrigued by the series "Scrapyard Wars" and it got me thinking about my current setup...

I'm currently playing games on my 2010 MacBook Pro (i7-970m, GeForce 330m, 4GB Ram) using Bootcamp. It runs games well enough however I am not trying to burn up my laptop by playing games all day on it.

I have an older Dell PC sitting around my house that has a Q6600 in it but no graphics card at the moment (used it to fix another PC because I thought I was done with this one) as well as 4GB ddr2 800Mhz ram.

My question is, is this computer salvageable as a low end gaming PC? I would be willing to purchase a graphics card if this set up would work, probably something more on the mid-high (gtx 960) end though so I can put it in a new PC at some point.

I am a current software development major in college so I can't be spending a ton of money.

[the jolly roger]

what PSU does it have???

 

you can get a new PSU (corsair CX500M) and an r9 270 and it will be pretty nice

[EarthboundHero]

Grab an R9 280 and 4 more GBs of RAM and you're good.

[Tagiau]

4 more GBs of RAM

Asking a lot in terms of ddr2. 

 

But what this person said. Get 4 more gb of ram and whatever graphics card is in your budget that you want. (280 is better)

[coen113]

use smc fan control, to keep the temps under control

[EarthboundHero]

Asking a lot in terms of ddr2. 

 

But what this person said. Get 4 more gb of ram and whatever graphics card is in your budget that you want. (280 is better)

I'm sure he can find 4GBs cheap on Craigslist.

[WaitForMeImOnDialUp]

if anyone wants to build a gaming rig from the 775 platform i strongly suggest getting a cheap xeon e5450/x5450 off ebay for 30 bucks, its a q9650 with much better overclocking. if oc'd to 4 ghz it can handle a large amount of games with no problems.

[ApolloX75]

I'm sure he can find 4GBs cheap on Craigslist.

Lol its not getting the ram that's the problem, its whether the board will recognise it. A lot of DDR2 boards from that era will max out at 4GB. Even older DDR3 boards running the P45 and 790i max out at 8GB, and some don't recognise sticks bigger than 2GB.

Anyways OP its totally doable to have some fun with a Q6600 and good GPU. My FrankenPC was a QX9650 animal until recently, and paired with a GTX 970 is was pumping out some good results. Definitely bottlenecked to hell, but still decent even in the latest games like Far Cry 4.