Video Card Upgrade

[Baywing]

I want to upgrade my video card from the current nVidia 7300LE to something that will perform better with sims. I have a Dell E521, dual AMD Athlon, 64X2, 3800+ with 4gb RAM, and 305W PS. I've contacted Dell, and they want money before they'll talk to me as the machine is over a year old. I've also contacted XFX, but haven't gotten a reply. A search of the net shows that the 7900, 7950 (even if I could find one) and the 8800 won't fit and would require a new PS if they did. The motherboard has a built in nVidia graphics of some sort, so I'd like to stay with nVidia to avoid any issues. I'm looking at a 8600, but want something I can plug in and run without creating new problems. Looking back, I never thought I'd be doing sims, if I knew then what I know now, I'd never have bought a E521. BTW, running XP home if that matters.
Any recommendations? Referal to a website with this type of info?
Thanks!

[seafarer]

Depends a lot on your budget. Even an 8600GT is going to be a stretch with a 305 watt power supply. Looking at Dell's pics online, it looks like a pretty standard sized power supply. So you could easily stick a 500-750 watt unit in there and go with an 8800-series card (maybe an 8800GT with an extra cooling fan for safety).

Power supplies are easy to swap out, but some Dell mobo's use a proprietary connector. However, you do not necessarily need a Dell power supply, as I've seen adaptors for standard mobo connector cables, so any ol' ATX-form power supply will do, just add a cable adapter into your budget ( http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std/sku=dellconverter ).

P.S. On ebay, it seems that even Dell makes (or brands) a 600 watt power supply for that model of computer - I saw one ebay store with them for a buy-it-now price of $25.00 US. Personally though, I'd spend a bit more and get a better quality 3rd party power supply - OEM power supplys tend to be of the cheaper (price and quality) kind. Web stores like www.newegg.com and www.tigerdirect.com have plenty of good brand power supplies in the 500 watt range for $40-$80.

[RC-Viper]

Maybe this link can help you decide what video card to choose depending on your budget.

Check it out :
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/03/best_graphics_card/page2.html

[Faamecanic]

Read the NIVIDIA Tweaking thread in this forum...then STAY away from NVIDIA.

My old ATI 9800Pro STILL makes SH3 look MUCH better than my 8800GTS's in SLI....

Water just looks SOOOO much better with ATI. With my NVIDIA I get "shimmering" and Jaggy water in the distance with both SH3 and 4 that really hurts the immmersion factor.

[FAdmiral]

Are we talking PCI-Express or the older AGP type of card?


JIM

[Baywing]

In my case, my machine is PCI-E. The website linked to above seems to rate the Nvidia cards as very good. My MB has nVidia graphics built in (presumably not used) so just trying to avoid a conflict.

[SS-18rider]

Hello!

I would recommend you to buy a ATI card. I have own a lot of different nVidia and ATI cards, and the latter has alway has an superior picture quality I think. Crisper and clearer picture. First time I noticed It was in IL2 Sturmovik, when a went from ATI to a nVidia highend card. Today I have made the same mistake again and bought a 8800 nVidia card. I´m not satisfied and will switch back to ATI, maybe I´ll go for a HD 3870 512Mb card; You´ll get lesser FPS but a better picture to a fairly good price at the moment. That´s my opinion...

I´ve been looking at Dells swedish website, and for you Rig they offering ATI videocard upgrades, so It shouldn´t be a problem .

[FAdmiral]

I run a GF 7600GT 256-DDR3 with my PCI-E board. XP home with 3 gig of
DDR2 ram. Everything works just fine, even the graphics extensive "Crysis"
game looks very good with decent frame rates....

JIM

[Baywing]

Thanks for all the opinions. I found a 470W Dell compatible PS, so that's on it's way. I'm still deciding on the video card, have to look at them and see which ones will fit in the space allowed, the 7950 and 8800 won't without lots of mods. I have to figure out how to get the top off the Dell E521 box, looks like the PS is attached there, too. I'm also starting to wonder if this is worth the trouble.......(just shelled out $450 to fix the car, $45 part, $400 labor on top of a $650 fuel oil bill. Feelin' the squeeze:arrgh!:)...but it may be the only vacation/entertainment I can afford this year!:hmm: