Do I need to upgrade any components?

[stulid]

Keep the chip/RAM and errr not much else

 

[ShivP]

You could also keep the HDD if it's SATA (assume it is?) Check if it's IDE (fat ribbon cable job) or SATA

 

[Voy06]

I guess the moral of the story then is don't buy a dell pc. Thanks for your time folks.

 

[stulid]

I guess the moral of the story then is don't buy a dell pc. Thanks for your time folks.

Sell it.

Start a fresh.

 

[joeyjojo]

op uses a dell. their mobos run a custom bios which will not overclock, nor will it accept a gpu other than on its whitelist

Where did you get that idea? Plenty of reports of GPU upgrades on Dell's around, including the 8100 the OP has:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19478957
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1911688/dell-studio-xps-8100-graphics-card-upgrade.html
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1905832/upgrade-dell-xps-8100-750-gtx-260.html

None of them have come back saying their GPU upgrade didn't work.

Spreading rumours isn't helpful.

If I were you OP I'd go for the GPU upgrade, then do the rest when needed. The 970 is pretty top-end, there are plenty of GPUs at the £100-150 mark that will play Civ 5 very smoothly. What resolution is your monitor? Something like this would happily do 80 FPS with max settings at 1080p:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 280 TurboDUO 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £155.99
Total : £165.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 

[tamzzy]

ah. i stand corrected then.
just remembered the last time i tried upgrading my friends dell the bios was locked...but that was like a decade ago lol =x guess dell's changed