Upgrading Dell Inspiron 531 Motherboard to SLI

toddman876toddman876
edited February 2009 in Hardware
I am seeking help in upgrading my Dell Inspiron 531 with a new or possibly used SLI Mobo and CPU so that I may upgrade eventually to dual 8800GT's (so excited) when the funds are available. The problem is that I am not sure what Mobos or what size Mobos (not sure if my case is ATX or M-ATX) will fit in the 531's case b/c I would rather not have to buy a new case and put the money towards the GPU. I have pretty much replaced everything else which leaves the stock mobo and CPU as the only pieces of original equipment left in the rig. As of now I have an AMD Athlon XP X2 4000+, SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card, 550W BFG PSU, 4GB Ram DDR2 PC6400\800Mhz, BFG 8800 GT OC, 500GB HDD, 250GB HDD. Any help would much appreciated with my first post! Thanx in adavance!

Comments

  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2009
    Todd, your Dell has an M-ATX motherboard. You'll probably have to stay with the micro format, as a standard ATX board, I'm sure would not fit in your case.

    If you are a computer hardware enthusiast, which it appears you are or are soon to be, start looking for a tower case. The off-the-shelf brand computer cases are designed primarily to be as cheap as possible for the manufacturer. Check your local Craigslist, maybe you can find something that someone just wants to get rid of. The cramped, poorly ventilated Dell, Gateway, and HP cases just were not designed for high performance upgrading. It can be done, it's just a pain.

    Here's a thread that also addresses Inspiron 531 upgrading.
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