[Alzeimer]

The best thing would be to get a CD from Dell made for your model or from Microsoft

Edited by Alzeimer, 11 January 2014 - 03:22 PM.

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PC fully functional! Woop woop!

Alas, it's not quite the raging beast that I remembered it to have been, but what can I expect from a system that's a decade old...

It's going to be really useful to have this extra PC in any case, so thanks a lot for helping me out!

I've got two last ways that I can think of to increase graphics performance, that I can realistically achieve at this time (money), and they are:-

1. Installing the latest GPU that the Dell XPS Gen 4 system supports;
The PSU has one single 6-pin connector for the GPU, but there's some spare HDD 15-pin power cables in there, which I could use an adapter for, if I had to use a 2x6 (or different, I guess) pin GPU. The PCI Express slot goes at 250MB/s, so no point getting a card faster than that. The part I need help with is narrowing down which cards to choose from; there are so many. But there's probably a single best choice, and as it would be an older card I doubt it would be that expensive.

2. Installing more RAM to my iMac (21.5, late 2009);
This iMac uses the NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB, which I believe shares it's memory with the system memory. There's 4GB of RAM installed. Do you think adding more RAM would notably increase graphics performance?

It may be that I'm out of options for increasing graphics performance for the time being, please let me know what you think!

[Locla]

PC fully functional! Woop woop!

Alas, it's not quite the raging beast that I remembered it to have been, but what can I expect from a system that's a decade old...

It's going to be really useful to have this extra PC in any case, so thanks a lot for helping me out!

I've got two last ways that I can think of to increase graphics performance, that I can realistically achieve at this time (money), and they are:-

1. Installing the latest GPU that the Dell XPS Gen 4 system supports;
The PSU has one single 6-pin connector for the GPU, but there's some spare HDD 15-pin power cables in there, which I could use an adapter for, if I had to use a 2x6 (or different, I guess) pin GPU. The PCI Express slot goes at 250MB/s, so no point getting a card faster than that. The part I need help with is narrowing down which cards to choose from; there are so many. But there's probably a single best choice, and as it would be an older card I doubt it would be that expensive.

2. Installing more RAM to my iMac (21.5, late 2009);
This iMac uses the NVIDIA GeForce 9400 256 MB, which I believe shares it's memory with the system memory. There's 4GB of RAM installed. Do you think adding more RAM would notably increase graphics performance?

It may be that I'm out of options for increasing graphics performance for the time being, please let me know what you think!

[Locla]

I've set my eye on the GeForce 9800 GT as a potential GPU: http://www.geforce.c.../specifications

For this I would need an additional 9-pin power connector, but I don't know whether to use a double or a single power adapter:




or




Please let me know what you think of the GPU choice

[Alzeimer]

PCI Express® or PCI Express 2.0-compliant motherboard with one dual-width x16 graphics slot
A minimum 400W or greater system power supply (with a minimum 12V current rating of 26A)
Intel Pentium 4, AMD Athlon XP class processor or higher
50MB of available hard disk space
512MB system memory (2GB recommended)
Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows XP Operating System (32-bit or 64-bit)

These are the requirements for the GeForce 9800 GT.

If your Power supply meets the requirements you should be ok

[Locla]

Thanks for the confirmation. The PSU should be adequate; as far as I can tell it has an output of 12V with a current rating of 32A:




After a bit of research I found out that the GeForce 8800 GT is almost identical to the 9800 GT, so that expands the options a bit. I'm watching a few cards on ebay, I'll update on how the installation goes... or if I run into any problems!

[Alzeimer]

After checking your Power Supply I noticed that your 12v rail is only 17a per rail (dual rail setup) for a combine 32a.

One rail is for your CPU and the other is for the rest of your peripherals (video cards, hard drives, optical drives ect) so if you look at the 9800gt requirements it is 26a so even if I am no expert at Power supply electric I think that your Power Supply would work too hard to run your video card.

Either find a different card with a lower consumption rating or change your Power Supply.

Also one more thing to consider is the space in your case since the 9800 and 8800 are big cards that require space and Dell setups are usually compact so not much room.

So consider the GeForce GT 220 good card for your system, smaller in size, no pci-express 6 pin connectors and only requires 18a (at full load) so you should be good.

[Locla]

Oh dear, I understand the label now Well... another thing learned: PSU Watts don't mean everything!

The space is not an issue here- I could fit a 10.5 inch GPU in the case with minor mods to HDD bay. With your card suggestion you include that there is no PCIe 6 pin connector; sorry in case there was confusion earlier, I was looking at 15 pin to 6 pin adapters in case I got a new GPU with two PCIe connectors. I already have one 6 pin PCIe GPU connector.


After a bit of research, I agree that the 9800GT would likely not even run at all, with my PSU, for lack of Amps. Such a nice card too. Well that's a shame.

I'm going to go home and re-think my life; whether I should hunt down a more powerful version of these Dell XPS PSUs; or if I should buy a dedicated add-in PSU just for the 9800 GT GPU.

However, I have also considered the GeForce GT 220. It's certainly better than the Radeon x850xt I currently have, according to benchmarks. Hmmmm. The easiest option would be to just find one of those.
Ok.
Bearing in mind that the rail with the GPU is limited to 17A, but that I have 10.5 inches of space and a single 6 pin connector, is the GeForce GT 220 likely to be one of the highest performance cards that I can run with?
Thanks for your advice man

EDIT: I've included a pic; the red card being held down by the green support is the GPU. That black and white cable labeled P5 is it's 6 pin connector.

Edited by Locla, 15 January 2014 - 09:03 AM.

[Alzeimer]

For your P4 and 2gb ram and your power supply here is a list of cards you can use

Radeon HD 6670 - 17A and a 400W PSU minimum
Radeon X1650 Pro – 18A and a 350W PSU minimum
GeForce GT 610 - 16A and a 300W PSU minimum
GeForce GT 520 - 18A and a 300W PSU minimum
GeForce GT 240 - 18A and a 300W PSU minimum
GeForce GT 220 - 18A and a 300W PSU minimum
GeForce 8400 GS - 18A and a 350W PSU minimum

to compare with your previous choices

GeForce 9800 GX2 - 35A and a 550W PSU minimum
GeForce 9800 GTX+ - 32A and a 500W PSU minimum
GeForce 9800 GTX - 25-30A and a 450W PSU minimum
GeForce 8800 Ultra - 35A and a 500W PSU minimum
GeForce 8800 GTX – 30A and a 450W PSU minimum
GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB - 28A and a 500W PSU minimum
GeForce 8800 GTS 320/640MB – 26A and a 400W PSU minimum
GeForce 8800 GT - 26A and a 450W PSU minimum


here is a link to video cars power requirements if you want to look at it
http://forum-en.msi....-graphics-cards


Hope that helps

[Locla]

The Radeon HD 6670 seems to be the best out of those options, according to passmark.

I'm watching a couple on ebay right now.

I should have included a list of my specs before now, sorry about that. Here they are:

Intel 2004 pentium 4, SL7Z4 3.73GHz/2M/1066/04B,
Intel chipset 925XE
4GB RAM Infineon PC2-4200 DDR2-533MHz,
1T WD HDD,
ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition,
Philips DVD+/-RW ,
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS,
NPS 460BB PSU (460W)

Many thanks for card suggestion, will update when installed

[Locla]

GPU installed It's running things beautifully! Not exactly one of the recommended cards, but I'm going to change it soon.

This thread has got a bit off-topic so I'm going to create a new one for further upgrades.

Thanks for your help!