Graphics cards and power supply in old PCs

[czakal]

Hello everyone, new here and hope I'm using the right forum, I use old PCs (Core 2 Duo) because I only need it for everyday browsing, watching low res videos, editing text documents, etc. At the moment my Compaq dc7900 uses integrated graphics, and I realised that I can speed it up a bit if I use some kind of video card so that it doesn't have to share the main memory (8GB). I don't need anything fancy, just something that will take some load off the rest of the system, and I've seen old video cards from that era (Radeon 2000s, GeForce 4 etc). It's running mostly ok but I have a habit of keeping too many tabs open and sometimes I get a little slowdown/thrashing. However I know that mass market PCs (from HP, Dell, etc) often only have just enough power to run the system in stock configuration and they weren't designed to be expanded in any way. If I add a video card does that risk overloading the PSU? HP's manual says that my PC is 240W (compact form factor; I also have in reserve a larger tower dc7900 with 365W, will dust it off if my smaller PC reaches end of life). As these are old PCs that aren't worth a lot, I'm not spending much money or time but if an old video card can give a useful performance boost I think it's worth a try.

Thanks, C

 

[jms198]

A bus powered GPU can pull up to 75w. Without knowing exactly what you've got and doing it's a bit tricky, reviews will tell you how much power you will use but I would make sure the PSU can supply it on the 12v rail. Unless using the GPU for games or computing, it may be a little faster but I think you can get a system all in with your specs for not much more.

On a side note; I assume you're using an SSD and 8gb ram is the maximum you can use? Either would be a good upgrade if possible. Windows 10 loses support in October(?), you will need a work around to run win 11. A move to Linux may give a little boost and still do everything you need the pc for. Windows is only really mandatory for games.

Excuse the rambles.

 

[Tetras]

If I add a video card does that risk overloading the PSU? HP's manual says that my PC is 240W (compact form factor; I also have in reserve a larger tower dc7900 with 365W, will dust it off if my smaller PC reaches end of life). As these are old PCs that aren't worth a lot, I'm not spending much money or time but if an old video card can give a useful performance boost I think it's worth a try.

It shouldn't be a problem, especially if you buy some old card like a 5450.

It's running mostly ok but I have a habit of keeping too many tabs open and sometimes I get a little slowdown/thrashing.

Does it have a hard drive? If you can fit a SSD that would likely help a lot.

I realised that I can speed it up a bit if I use some kind of video card so that it doesn't have to share the main memory (8GB)

Is the memory upgradeable? 8GB is minimal nowadays, especially if you're a tab collector.

 

[czakal]

Hello thanks for the ideas, I checked and I think the dc7900s have more than 8GB limit (unlike many other PCs of that era which max out at 8) and also I'm using a disk hard drive, so that's probably a better bet than freeing maybe 256-512BM of main memory by using a video card.
I'm using Windows 10 at the moment because I need a program for a course I'm taking (Minitab) that only runs on Windows, but I'd been using Linux before and will probably go back to that when I finish my course...