Question about my dell 5000

[Jiamenguk]

I own an dell Dimension 5000 PC, 3.0GHz 1.5RAM (upgraded from 512MB), 160GB harddrive, 17inch monitor and now i want to replace the X300SE with a better graphics card, my question is, what card should i get? i want a good card that's below £200, and goes very well at max quality in at least 1024X768 resolution(since i'm used to it and no point of going higher due the 17inch monitor), but i also dont want to change my motherboard or anything that will cost me more money. i currently have my eyes on the 7900GTO, but i wonder if my machine can fit the card in, and i dont want to upgrade my PSU or anything, since thats gonna take a long time to just learn how to take it apart, or should i get a cheaper card like the 7900GS or a 7600GT.

my problem is that i want a card now and will last for a long time, and i dont want to get the new gen cards cos the price is as high as paradise, and mid-range ones are coming out next year, so if anyone can give me an advise, thank you.

[Steve B]

i'd say best bang for buck on a graphics card at the moment is the x1950 retailing at around 175 squids

[Jiamenguk]

but the card needs me to do a psu upgrade which can be very frastrating(from what i have learnt on the internet)

[sawyen]

7900GTO then.. a lil nicer on the PSU..

[Jiamenguk]

i thought 7900GTO was a GTX with lower settings, and the GTX needs a 450W of power supply, as far as i know my dimension 5000's power supply takes up to 305W, so....

[alldone]

In a dimension 5000 (like dimension 5150, e510 etc) the graphics card slot is at the top of the PCI slots and there is no removeable back-panel plate above it so you can only fit in a single height card without chopping bits off the back panel - much worse than changing power supply. This means that the best cards you can get in are 7950gt or X1950pro.

According to the Dimension video forum, 7900gs will work without upgrading power supply as Dell underrates their power supplies (RMS rather than peak output of most power supply manufacturers). You can check your system power consumption at

extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp (Can't post URLs ... not enough posts ... arghhh....)

You would need 4 pin molex splitters to take power from optical drive molexes

forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_video&message.id=152075&query.id=54231#M152075
- these are only 50p or so each.

7600gt just plugs in without extra power connector but is not as good a card. 7900GTO will not work as is double height card (even if you do modify the back panel it won't fit under the HUGE shroud on the processor heatsink - there is a thread on the dimension board about someone who was chopping bits off the shroud with a jigsaw to get a gto in, but his processor overheated and he had to glue it all back together with duct tape & superglue). As you say it needs a bit too much power as well.

There is a good value Leadtek 7900gs for £119 on "today only" at scan - I've just brought one

[Jiamenguk]

what do you mean that "i would need 4 pin molex splitters to take power from optical drive molexes"
man, i dont want to buy anything else..... even if i got it, what do i do with it?
thanks for your help anyway

BTW: is this the 4 pin molex splitters, cgi.ebay.co.uk/PSU-4-PIN-MOLEX-3-WAY-POWER-SPLITTER-5-25-to-2x-5-25_W0QQitemZ200047339862QQihZ010QQcategoryZ45342QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[CrazyMonkey]

Yes Molex splitters are cheap so dont worry about that
I would get a x1950pro its single slot (what you need) and should be easyish on the PSU

[alldone]

The nvidia 79xx cards and ATI x1950pro cards both need more power than is supplied through the PCIe slot. The PSU in a dimension 5000 doesn't have the power lead (with a 6 pin molex) that these cards need.

Most of them (including the leadtek 7900gs tdh I have just installed) come with a connector that joins the 6 pin plug to two 4 pin power leads.

In the dim5000 the only 4 pin leads are the ones that supply the optical drives.

I have a dim5150 (the same as yours) with one dvd drive. There is one spare 4 pin lead but you need 2 of these to plug into the 6 pin to 2x 4 pin connector. you can do this by plugging a splitter (like the ebay link you had) into the spare (labelled p8 in mine). If you have 2 optical drives installed you wont have a spare lead but can use 2 of the 4 pin splitter cables attaching one to each of the leads going to the drives. In the end you need 2 free 4 pin plugs. Makes more sense when you have the case open & the card in front.

You need to buy one (if you have one DVD or CD drive) or 2 (if 2 drives) of these spliiters. I ordered mine with the card and it cost a whole 55p, no extra p&p.

It's easy to do - would have been easier if dell had spent another 50p on the PSU and given us a few more power leads. You'd need to do this for anything more powerful than 7600gt in as they all need extra power.

I like the 7900gs - it's slightly noisier than the passively cooled ati x600 crap that dell supplied (computer through work & very cheap, but no choice but dim 5150). I have only tested it on X3 demo @ 1280x1024 so far but have gone from about 30fps avg, dropping to minimum of 1(!!!)fps with all the settings as low as they go on the old card to avg 44fps with all settings on high, 2x aa, 4x aniso. And it is supposed to overclock by about 20-30% without eating too much power.

I thought about the x1950pro as it looks like a better card, but decided that the extra 20+W of power (see anandtech or xbit labs for comparisons) it requires might be too much for my current power supply & didn't want to change it at the moment (or spend the extra £50 or so). It would probably be OK depending on how many extra hard drives/optical drives etc you are running. 7950GT seems to be only a few watts more than gs but extra ££.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do

[Jiamenguk]

thanks very much for your help

[s_kinton]

I got my 7900GTO delivered yesterday. If you buy a retail box i.e the MSI for £189 from scan, then it comes with a 2x 4pin molex to PCI-E 6pin power adpator included, so you wont need to buy one.

I decided to sell my two 7800GTs and move fron SLi to single 7900GTO, but use the money to upgrade to a 22" LCD and dual core.

The 7900GTO gives me a run of around 1500 less on 3dmark05 than my SLi setup, thats at stock clocks. Hopefully, i'll close the gap with an oc on the GTO