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Yo! I know next to nothing about hardware these days. I'll keep this short and sweet. Bought this Dell XPS 420 a few years ago...
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q9400 2.66GHz 4 GB RAM GeForce 9800 GT
Been noticing lately I can't crank the graphics up on the new games like I used too! Would a new graphics card help that's not to pricey? I no longer buy AMD products after a disasterous year with them back when video cards first started to have some punch. A few cards in a row caused me a TON of problems. Never had any probs with NVIDIA so only they get my business! ha! |
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8/30/11 1:10:12 AM#2
a quick check with dell, i came up with this ----------------------------------------------------------
Power
375 W standard
425 W available on select configurations
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not entirely sure it's wise to push too far on vid card with this one:)
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8/30/11 1:14:23 AM#3
Yes, it will. I have a Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz. Early this year my 9800 GT died. Quzzical suggested a AMD 6850 that fit my budget of under $200.00. I am quite satisfied with tthe upgrade. While I have seen no improvements in frame rate. I have seen big improvements in the overall quality of the graphics that I can get at those same frame rates. It has definitely been worth it. You can get a 6850 for about $150.00 easily now. Having a quad core may give you a better frame rate improvement than I saw. I too was concerned about the ATI/AMD cards mostly because the drivers were rarely updated. Their update cycle is much faster now. It still doesn't happen as often as Nvdia does. Then again I only updated the Nvidia driver about every 2 or 3 iterations anyway. I am satisfied with the first AMD/ATI card I've had in over 10 years. My card has run all summer without a hitch in a room where the temperature has ranged between 90 and 103 deg. Farenheit for the past 2 months. |
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8/30/11 3:26:32 AM#4
AMD has video driver updates every month. Basically, what they do is to work on drivers pretty continuously, and once a month, take all the fixes that are ready, package them into a monthly driver package, and ship them off to Microsoft for certification, and then release them. The driver version is actually the release date, as it's year.month. For example, Catalyst 11.5 means it released in May 2011. A Radeon HD 6770 might get you about 50% more performance than what you have now in the same power envelope. You should probably replace the power supply if you want a more powerful video card, though. Also, if you had problems with a few cards in a row in the same system, it's likely that the video card wasn't the problem in the first place. Dell cases don't have a whole lot of airflow, so you'll probably need an external exhaust card. Most video cards are internal exhaust, as it's cheaper to get a given level of cooling performance that way. A reference Radeon HD 6970 or GeForce GTX 570 is external exhaust, but I don't think 225 W in a Dell case is a good idea. Either of these would be appropriate to your needs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130565 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102912 Note that Toxic is Sapphire's high end line, so that's not just external exhaust. It's a premium cooler that's meant to let you overclock the card. You might also be limited by how long of a card will fit. You should probably pull out a ruler and measure how much space you have. In particular, check to see if anything overhangs the motherboard at all, or whether you could have a card a few inches longer than the motherboard fit. You should probably replace the power supply, too. This will work nicely for you: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371047 |
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hmmm, stuff to think about indeed.
i just can't believe this system is 3 years old already! ugh.
thank you much for the help! |
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i'll probably go with that 6850.
got a lot of time off this winter, i might as well get the most out of this machine if i'm going to keep it for another year or two! |
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8/31/11 12:24:37 AM#7
Originally posted by loeslein Like psyclum mentioned, should probably check your power supply wattage first inside the case. If it's 450 watts I don't think a 6850 will power up and if you try to insert in the computer it could damage your power supply and your components.
If your power supply actually is 450 watts or lower I'd recommend switching a good quality 500 watt power supply or higher. |
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8/31/11 12:29:19 AM#8
I upgraded my PS and gpu like 2 months ago in a relatively new dell case. After reading about the bad airflow and not wanting to spend more on a cooling system or bigger fans I just took the side case off, turn on a high powered desk fan aimed at it, give it a weekly cleaning with air compressor. good to go LOL
Sure, its ghetto but it works great and its cheap :P
Well, unless you dont have a fan, or air compressor.. then I guess you might as well spend that money on the PC itself
:-P |
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8/31/11 12:41:06 AM#9
Originally posted by Normike actually, the card in his machine right now (9800gt) is already a 125 watt card. the 6850 is a 127 watt card so if he had no problems with the 9800gt, then the 6850 should be fine for him from a powersupply point of view. I was pointing out his powersupply so he doesnt go nuts and go for a 200+ watt card:D |
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8/31/11 1:13:14 AM#10
Originally posted by Normike The nominal power supply rating is only something on the sticker, not something actually built into the electronics. If you take two identical power supplies and put a 500 W sticker on one of them and a 400 W sticker on the other, they'll still perform identically. Other hardware has no clue what it says on the sticker. The real risk of an inferior power supply isn't that it won't turn on. The risk is that it will turn on, and then have voltage regulation or ripple go out of spec and damage other hardware. Now, if you don't have the proper power connectors, it might not turn on. |
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