Dell GPU Upgrade solution

J_D

J_D

New Member
Hi my brother has had his Dell now for about a year and a half and is looking to upgrade the Graphics card.

Dell Dimension 5150 http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_5150?c=us&cs=28&l=en&s=dfb
(That’s the only page I could find with info on it still)

Anyway his comp uses PCI-e socket and he currently uses an ATI X600 256Mb 'Hyper-memory' PCI-e

And he is looking at this particular card
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?sap-1650xt&P=1

Comparison (apart from they don’t have a X600 so I used a Pro)
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=472&card2=94

Now basically I think he will be happy with the upgrade but I’m concerned because I have heard lots of problems with Dells and upgrading them

I believe the Dell only has an Approx 300Watt PSU so would the extra power required, cause problems.

Does the X1650 XT require an extra Molex power cable?

I don’t want to my bro to end up paying 90 odd quid for something that should work, just it won’t cause its being put in a dell!
 
IF you're worried about power, have you considered the 7600GT or similar card? If I recall correctly, they require less power than the x1600s and are better cards. Heh, plus I have one and I know for a fact all(or next to none) have any additional power connections.
 
Well this is it isn't it. I'm a bit of an NVIDIA fan and would personally always go for NVIDIA cards.

however I was just a bit concerned because my brothers computer came with an ATI and therefore when you reset it back to factory settings (reformat, but with all the crap) would auto install the ATI drivers at the time of manufacture for the X600. Therefore I was worried if he did say buy the 7600GT
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?nov-76gt&P=1
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=472&card2=385
Then if he reformatted would the computer throw a wobbly just cause there’s a NVIDIA card sitting in the Slot.
I would like to think that if that was the case then windows would kick in with its standard set of drivers?

Because when I upgrade from the 5200 to the 6600 and then reformatted a while after. My computer reformatted to a forceware driver of 5X.XX and thus windows just kicked in and then I had to go get the latest one from the net

Which was lucky cause if I would have just been left with a blank screen would have then had to of gone a found an older card to just install the new driver.


Anyway, so you don’t think there should be any problems in changing a GPU in a Dell?
 
There shouldn't be any problems. all you have to do is uninstall the Ati drivers, and then install the 7600GT. I'm a huge nvidia fan at the moment because they have the best cards at the moment, so I would definitely recommend a nvidia card.
 
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