Rookie with questions. Please advise...

[Okedokey]

...dude look at the formfactor, its impossible. it will be fine on a low end gpu. No doubt.

Claptonman is absolutely correct. Fury has no idea.

220W with probably 6A on the 12V rail is not sufficient for the 50W graphics card he/she is installing. In fact the minimum nvidia recommend is 300W. That machine has a 220W pos psu. And that is not considering, derating from temperature, capacitor ageing, poor quality etc etc. the list could go on.

He/she can replace it with this otherwise risk losing the whole machine. Either way, simply saying "it’s too hard" go for it, is completely incompetent and irresponsible on a computer forum. The OP has come here for advice, not a gamble. The new GPU requires more power and what the OP needs to know is if it fails it can take out everything including data. Not worth it imho. IF, the OP goes on and understands that risk and continues with the GPU install, then fine. But it’s not impossible to install a suitable Power Supply Unit.

no doubt.

but yes, use logic, a high chance of destroying the motherboard, ram and all the data on the harddrives, for $80. good choice if you like false economics and losing all your shit.

 

[FuryRosewood]

No idea...because apparently you KNOW better. Look at their setup for the minimum wattage. Probably includes something like a C2Q extreme or something ridiculous, which is a YMMV figure. Their just covering their rear end incase someone does run outside of their spec, hell ive even ran dual 9800GTX+ cards on a 550W Rosewill supply (YES a complete crap supply) that was probably being nearly maxxed, did the PSU explode? HELL NO. CSS will not be a CPU + GPU blend and will likely leave the OP far outside maxxing the wattage of the PSU. You managed to find a supply that might fit that aspire x3200, however spending 80 bucks on that...is it worth it? Really? Hes putting a 30 dollar gpu in the machine taking the risk of blowing it up, which I feel at the age of the machine...rolling the dice will be fine. Ive seen people put bigger loads on similarly setup machines with no issue...so ok bigfella, go suggest he puts 120 dollars into a machine to run CSS...

-even looking at their recommended figure, it does not say what the machine was ran with, the best way you could possibly get a idea of how loaded the system was to stick a wattmeter on it and make a determination, nvidia used to give you better info to give an educated idea of if you were in spec or not, all their doing is throwing 300W at you and having you make a distinction if your under or not, kinda crap imo, preferred when they told what their recommended wattage was based off, so in other words...that figure is meaningless to me.

good example too: the machine im running software on at work is a dell dimension 531, with a athlon 64x2 with 1 gig ram, and a geforce 7300LE. Min requirements for the 7300LE is 350W, the PSU is 300...its also 5 years old...and my god...its still running... so honestly, take their recommendations with a grain (or handful of salt).

 

[Okedokey]

Im working off amps, what are you referring to? Please I don't want to get into another 3 day conversation about how amps = science and your experience = anecdote. The OP needs another PSU if he/she wants to run that discrete GPU as a cheap and old micro form factor PSU with only 220W is not anywhere near enough no matter how much you don't like it. That PSU WAS NEVER designed to be used with a discrete GPU. And that PSU is not proprietary, so it will fit.

This is the PSU a DPS-220UB A.

And this PSU is a 250W (which is a better buy than nothing) and fits directly in. The extra 30W (at least some of the way to the extra 50W required with the GPU, and the guarantee that it fits). And there is a whole page of replacements here too: http://www.nextag.com/liteon-ps_-_5221_-_06/stores-html

Hardly impossible.