Dell E520 Graphics Upgrade

[Finhunter]

Hi all hopefully you can help me with an upgrade question.

 

 

I was going to upgrade my son's PC Graphics card for his birthday (could be costly cos my other son's birthday is also coming up, he has the same PC and is looking for the same upgrade). :eek:

 

PC Make/Model/Setup.

Dell / E520 / Windows Home Premium / 3GB Ram / ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256MB DV (at the moment)

 

Power Supply; Dell P/N NH493 (DC Out 305W)

 

I'm looking to upgrade his graphics card but I realize I may have to also upgrade his PSU as well dependant on the power used by the card.

 

They both are never off playing "America's Army" online and are waiting for "America's Army" 3 being available (next few weeks) which is apparently heavier on Graphics usage.

 

My question is which for both and good value with good output.

 

I've looked at the following and would like some advice;

 

• OCZ 500W StealthXStream Power Supply (OCZ500SXS-UK) = £40.66
  

 

• BFG GF 9800GTX+ OC 1GB DDR3 PCI-E = £149.95 (really don't want to spend much more than this)
  
  

Both Amazon UK.

 

Questions;

 

Will they both work inside the PC?

 

Will they both fit inside the PC? (space as in depth of the G/card may be an issue due to a huge shroud round the Processor's heat sink & fan)

 

 

Thanks in advance for any hepl/advice given.

 

 

 

Below is a photo of the inside of the pc;

 

 

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6586/13062009008p.jpg

[Tootech]

Hi,

 

This is a bit of a tricky one - looking around the net the concensus is that the PSU you have is good for more watts than the rating. If it was me, i'd swap it. The unit you recommend is good to go.

 

Here's the requirements for AA3

 

America's Army 3 on Steam

 

Making sure your card will fit is going to be difficult. Is it possible you can go to a local shop and have a look at their selection, that way you can check it will all fit together.

 

Its a BTX form factor case, which means that some bits are in different places compared to the standard ATX cases. The CPU shroud may be a problem.

 

Have a look at the link below to get an idea of the lengths people go to

 

Got a BTX case Dell (E520) and want to cram in a 8800 or similar? Here's how :D - [H]ard|Forum

 

Keep an eye on the thread, hopefully other people will drop in their ideas.

[Finhunter]

I had another look around after going to the site you posted for making alterations to the inside of the Dell E520.

 

Although this doesn't put me off (I have stripped and built full my own PC rather than pay shop prices) I am still a bit wary of weakening the shroud round the Processor (although I realize this still might have to be done anyway) but I would still rather this was a last resort rather than a first line of attack.

 

I've now revised the purchases I was going to make to the following;

 

 

• OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt Gamers Power Supply Unit - OCZ600SXS-UK; £58.85
  

 

• Asus Radeon HD4870 Dark Knight PCI Express 2.0 1GB; £139.95
  

Both again from Amazon UK

 

 

Thought I'd just upgrade the PSU to a 600w (means there's plenty of juice for any future upgrades for only an £18 now rather than the need to upgrade it again)

 

The Graphics card I've chosen looks as though it's not got the same amount of plastic shrouding covering the full length of the card. So it appears to be narrower at the end that will clash with things the inside the PC

 

So hopefully the card might fit in without the need to alter the shroud round the heat sink/fan. From what I've read it also runs cooler than the NVidia so if things are tight at least airflow due to the closeness of the card and the plastic shroud might not be as important (I hope).

 

Going by what I've been reading from some other sites the ATI card may also just outrank the NVidia card that I had originally picked out.

 

Thanks again for the advice.

 

John

Edited June 15, 2009 by Finhunter

[Tootech]

Going by what I've been reading from some other sites the ATI card may also just outrank the NVidia card that I had originally picked out.

 

Yep, ATI cards are the pick of the crop at the moment :)

[Finhunter]

Well the card and the power supply have both arrives and have been fitted.

 

Where I though my new choice of card would be slightly smaller in width my jaw nearly hit the floor when I opened the box up. I felt like a fisherman going around telling people "No honestly it is really that size". (lol)

 

It was not only just as wide (only missing the plastic shroud covering the card, it only just fitted in due to it's length. If this had beat me I was totally goosed as I would have been unable to make any adjustments to allow a longer card to fit.

 

The alterations to the inside of the computer weren't too extreme;

 

 

• I was able to remove the Heat Sink and plastic shroud without the need of removing the Motherboard.
  
• I cut away a section of the plastic shroud.
  

 

• The rivet at the back of the casing where the cards fixing plate is was removed by carefully drilling it out from the outside of the case.
  
• I had to alter the fixing plate bolted to the back of the Graphics Card - it was double width which interfered with the USB ports on the the Motherboard.
  
• Problem solved by cutting the plate so that it was just a single width.
  

 

The only other problem I initially hit was with the software supplied, OSD and a Doctor program for clocking the card.

 

This was solved by going to the Asus website and downloading the software from there and reinstalling.

 

 

Thanks for the replies and advice given (although I had hoped for more replies/advice on my choice of card and PSU).

 

 

Will keep on dropping in to see if there is any advice or help I may be able to give for people wanting to make the same changes to the same PC.

 

 

Thanks again,

 

Finhunter