OK
JCR wrote in message ...
My XPS420 shipped with an HD3870X2 and a 425watt ps

John

On Tue, 5 Oct 2010 13:05:17 -0500, "Monica"
wrote:

This is a card I am (was) considering. You guys say that the 375w power
supply is stronger than what it's rated? Dell's website recommends a 400W
power supply for this graphic's card.
ATI Radeon HD 5500, 1GB, DDR3, PCI Express. What do you think? Is it
safe?
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...18244#Overview

"Monica" wrote in message
...
I'd rather eat a bowl of bugs than try to have a conversation (chat or
phone) with DELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They no nothing and/or won't let me speak to anyone that DOES!
THIS is why I come here for help
One person, via (Upgrade) chat, said that my system CAN HANDLE this
card:
EVGA 01G-P3-1158-TR GeForce GTS 250, 1024MB DDR3, PCI Express 2.0 (2)
Dual
Link DVI, SLI Ready
Then he connected me to tech chat who told me I was connected with the
wrong ts. Gave me a phone number to call
and those people hang up on you when you tell them you're not buying a
card from Dell.
Then someone on the Proshow forum said:
Today's video cards are power hungry. Unfortunately, the GTS 250 has a
450w and 24A requirement (CAN'T HANDLE)
Word of caution: Before buying any video card check it's power
requirements and make sure that it does not exceed the capacity of your
power supply.

So can someone tell me what specs to look for? Will my XPS 420 with 3GB
system ram and a 375w power supply handle
DDR3 (higher)? PCI Express 2? 1GB video ram?
Monica




"Ben Myers" wrote in message
...
On 9/29/2010 1:15 AM, Monica wrote:
Like pacca, mine too is a 375w power supply.
Looking a Newegg and narrowing the search to Free Shipping/nVidia
chipset/price $100-$200/1GB RAM, I get 7 results. I don't recognize
how
they brand these cards anymore.
Any comments/suggestions? If it matters, my monitor is Dell 2005FPW
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eId=1&name=1GB
Monica
"William R. ech.com
wrote in message ...
Hi!

I have a XPS 420 running XP SP3. I'm maxed out on system RAM at
3GB.
Core Quad Q660 @ 2.40GHz

I'm very certain the power supply will handle the load. Dell was
still
using
quality power supplies at the time your system was produced, and they
were
conservatively rated. I expect that you'll find at least a 305 watt
supply
underhood, and yes, it will be printed on the label when you open the
cover.

(In fact, the 305 watt unit I'm used to seeing in various systems
really
looks to me like it would be good for 450 watts based on a cursory
examination.)

I have some ATI video cards. They're fine. But as much as I like AMD
and
their products, I'm afraid that I'm slightly partial to nVidia. I
woud
say
that nVidia has a better driver policy, as they tend to support older
chipsets for quite a while and I find their drivers site to be more
friendly
than that of ATI/AMD.

William





nVidia sells chips, a reference design for manufacturing, and driver
set
to any company with apparent contractual terms relating to product
quality. I have seen cards with nVidia chips manufactured by third
parties with no fan, a cheap tiny fan, and a monster honking fan so
large
that the card needs two slots of capacity in a motherboard chassis. So
which brand of nVidia card to buy?

Of the brands on the newegg web site at just after midnight on
September
30, PNY and Gigabyte have long manufactured other products of good
quality. I know little about eVGA and XFX, whose cards show up a lot
lately. I have been mightily put off by anything made by MSI after
they
manufactured a lot of motherboards with bad capacitors a few years ago,
helping to kill IBM's desktop computer business. The other brands are
unknown to me, and probably are a crapshoot. Perhaps someone else can
enlighten us... Ben Myers