Just buy what you can afford. I have an AIW something, something. I forget now. But ATI makes great cards, and you cant go wrong. Power supplies are really cheap these days. Some are less than $30 for 450w. And replacing them is easy. Just take out the screws at the back, and unplug any cables to the motherboard, cds, floppy. And put the new one back in just like you took it out. At my dads work with ~500 pcs, they burn through 1-5 a week. Its better to be safe, than sorry.
Computer Problem...
- Thread starter 125gJoe
- Start date
Kasakato said:
I am sure this is well meant advice - with possible catastrophic consequences though. DELL is one of the manufacturers that used proprietary PSUs for their PCs - meaning they didnt comply with the ATX standards. If you replaced those with a regular PSU - you could kiss your PC and most components in it good by.
Thankfully you posted your PCs specs and seeing its a newer machine you'd be safe to replace it with a regular ATX PSU. A good brand name economy PSU is the Thermaltake 420W on newegg - it usually goes for around 35$.
Defenitely stay away from anything cheap !!! Big no no for PSUs.
If you decide to replace it i'd measure your existing one first - and compare it to whatever you are going to get - just to make sure.
Now to the card itself - you should be able to get away with a R9600 or better 9600Pro with your current PSU. They go for around 70$.
For better performance a 9800Pro would be ok (100$) - but you might end up replacing the PSU.
Other good cards would be Nvidia 6200 (non TC) or 6600. For ALL cards make sure they have at least 128bit memory bandwidth - anything lower and you take a huge performance hit. If you buy a 6200 you need to get a 256Mb version to have 128bit memory bandwidth.
All these things mentioned your best bet (performance/ price ratio) would probably be the Nvidia 6200 - for around 70$ you get much better performance than the equally priced R9600Pro (or even more expensive 9800(pro)).
Whatever card you end up getting - make sure you follow proper deinstallation/ installation instructions to ensure the drivers work correctly.
since you have a dell and your priority isnt games, i would go with the x600 or x700 line, saves you a few clams.
i had a dell before and psu was the cause of many headaches. there's a place where you can buy a direct replacement, but i forgot where the link is. if you plan on having this comp for a long time, i suggest you upgrade the psu
i had a dell before and psu was the cause of many headaches. there's a place where you can buy a direct replacement, but i forgot where the link is. if you plan on having this comp for a long time, i suggest you upgrade the psu
Thanks for all the advice. I ended up with an ATI Radeon 9550 256M and it seems to work better than before the Nvidea died. We almost missed the burned out capacitors when looking it over for overheating problems.
I'll keep in mind the PSU upgrade advice. Something tells me that may be the next problem.
I'll keep in mind the PSU upgrade advice. Something tells me that may be the next problem.
what was your old video card, becaue if the 9550 is faster than your old one, it might suck up more power, and then the urgency to get a better psu is greater. i would check on the specs of both video cards to see what kind of power consumption they have. also, underpowering a computer isnt a good thing, so you may need to change it anyway. there was a site where you could plug in all your comps info and see what rating psu you need, ill try go find it
EDIT: i found a couple
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
http://extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp
they seem acurate enough
EDIT: i found a couple
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
http://extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp
they seem acurate enough
Last edited:
The ATI 9550 has no greater power requirements than his old FX5200. Both run 250 MHz core clocks.
Unless he plays some higher-end games, I don't really see a reason to upgrade the power supply. Like a car, its possible to upgrade just about everything on a PC, but.....if his average power consumption is only about 60 watts, the stock PS should be fine.
Unless he plays some higher-end games, I don't really see a reason to upgrade the power supply. Like a car, its possible to upgrade just about everything on a PC, but.....if his average power consumption is only about 60 watts, the stock PS should be fine.
