you currently have:
pentium 4. 3.0ghz
xp home edition
512mb DDR400 Ram
128mb pcie(tm) radeon x300se
1) My initial thought is that even if you upgrade your card, your system will be severely bottlenecked by your (a) relatively slow processor compared to present-day dual/triple/quad cores and (b) lack of ram.
The motherboard taht Dell gives is also unlikely to be a top end one with a high performance northbridge. the last time i opened a dell, it was a proprietary motherboard with a low end northbridge.
your system has a PCIE and DDR 1. my guess is that it's an Intel 915 chipset, which by today's standards are rather backward.
further, your power supply is insufficient. To get your rig up to gaming st
2) If you do not want to get a new pc, this is what u need to upgrade
a) Xpertvision 9600GT $299 PCIE 512mb. I suggest this because it is no point paying top dollar for a card (e.g. 8800GT or 8800GTS G92) that will be bottle necked eventually. tthis card is great value for money
b) 2 gigs of DDR400 Ram. At best bargain, it's $65 per 1 gb
c) Acbel 510W power supply at $95 from Fuwell
Total, you're looking at $500. and you will still be bottlenecked by your slow motherboard chipset, slow hard disk and overall aged architecture of your pc
3) therefore, if you're really serious about gaming, go get a new one. here's a suggested config:
Asus P5k Pro motherboard
Intel Q6600 quad core
XpertVision 8800GT Sonic
4 x 1 GB DDR2 800 Crucial
Acbel i-power 560W
cheers
