Video Card Upgrade options for Dell Dimension 4700 Desktop?
Looking to update my old 4700 to sail me through another year before making a bigger purchase this X-mas. I have a Nvidia GeForce 6800 256 mg card now and want to go to something better for under $100, plus i'll be adding two 1GB sticks of RAM to replace my stock RAM. Figure this will give me more life before i feel compelled to drop big cash on a modern system. Any help for video card suggestions?
Comments
Your problem is that the Dimension 4700 ships with a factory 305W power supply, which isn't strong enough to run midrange cards like a GeForce 9800GT and Radeon 4770 (those require 400W while the Radeon 4850 and GTS 250 require 450W minimum).
Making matters worse, the Dimension 4700 psu is a proprietary BTX mount, so the standard ATX power supplies you can get for $40 won't fit properly. You have to spend $80 for a Dell-specific replacement like these:
http://www.supernotebook.com/power-supply.php?psup...
http://www.pcpower.com/products/power_supplies/del...
That's too expensive. So to upgrade within your budget you've gotta drop down the graphics card power rankings a bit. The most powerful cards you can run without a psu upgrade are:
#1 - Radeon 5670
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
#2 - GeForce GT240
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
Both are in-between the GeForce 9600GT and 9800GT in performance, but the 5670 is slightly faster and supports DX11.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/01/...
http://www.techspot.com/review/240-ati-radeon-hd-5...
Good luck!
since you said you just upgraded to 2.5 GB of ram than Im guessing your computer is old. if it has an AGP slot than don't put any more money into this computer. If it has a single core processor than also don't put any more money into this computer. you are stuck with what ever PCI or AGP cards that are still available. the best AGP card that you can get is a 6200 with 512 MB. but I would not waste the money. if you have an PCI-e slot than I would go with at least a 9500 GT with 512 mb or the 1gb version both are cheep the 1gb will cost you about 85.
Tom's Hardware recommends a GeForce 9600 GT or a Radeon 4850. I'd personally go with the 4850.