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Graphics card upgrade for XPS Gen 4

shinester184

shinester184

shinester184

Associate
Joined
20 Jan 2009
Posts
708
Location
Worcestershire
A friend has a Dell XPS Gen 4 and is thinking of playing his games through HDMI to his 50" plasma. However his PC only has something like a 6800GT graphics card and I'm guessing this isn't going to be up to much like Dirt 2, Flight Sims etc on 1920x1080!!

PC originally came with 375W PSU but died a while back, and has since been upgraded to a 450W PSU.

Am wondering what would a suitable upgrade in terms of a graphics card for his PC. It cannot be in the 5xxx series as it has Windows XP.

Any help would be great :)
 
shinester184 said:
Am wondering what would a suitable upgrade in terms of a graphics card for his PC. It cannot be in the 5xxx series as it has Windows XP
Click to expand...
You can still use a DX11 5xxx series in XP
The same as many people use a DX10 GPU card in XP (I.E 8800gtx)

What does your friend want to spend ??
 
Emm P4s never were that great and even with a decent graphics card its going to limit gaming a lot.

Ideally I would say he could do with a CPU / Mobo / Ram & Graphics upgrade really... or even better a new PC... its prob 5 years old now and running new games at max res on a plasma... I can't see it tbh...

How much memory does it have?
 
Last edited:
3GB.

He is only just entering the world of PC Gaming. He hasn't attempted to run games thru the tv yet on his PC, so hopefully he'll see some sense when he does and get a new system.

But just for the short term he'd like to know what options are available to him in graphics cards.

Cheers.
 
i would have thought an ati 4850 or a nv gts250 would be an excelent upgrade with out over powering the p4 too much and at around the £80 mark there reasonable too.
 
bru said:
i would have thought an ati 4850 or a nv gts250 would be an excelent upgrade with out over powering the p4 too much and at around the £80 mark there reasonable too.
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, was thinking along same lines too.

How about a 512mb 4870? Or would that start to cause bottlenecking?
 
TBH I would say with that CPU anything over a 8800GT etc would be very similar in performance due to the bottlenck.
 
Get rid of the dell.
Sell the whole thing, you might get ~200 for it. Add the 100-130 and get a new lot better system for ~300.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK Value ATI Radeon HD 4850 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail OcUK Value ATI Radeon HD 4850 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £77.99
(£67.82) £77.99
(£67.82)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5300 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail £52.99
(£46.08) £52.99
(£46.08)
Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £47.99
(£41.73) £47.99
(£41.73)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £39.99
(£34.77) £39.99
(£34.77)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £34.99
(£30.43) £34.99
(£30.43)
Corsair XMS2 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 Memory Module (CM2X2G6400C5B4) Corsair XMS2 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 Memory Module (CM2X2G6400C5B4) £33.99
(£29.56) £33.99
(£29.56)
Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black £30.99
(£26.95) £30.99
(£26.95)
Sub Total : £277.34
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £43.29
Total : £331.88


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Or check members market and you might get similar setup for even less, like 200-250 : ).
Not worth upgrading p4 rig, even 8800GT is too much for that rig.
 
I had a XPS gen5, put a 8800GT (from a 6800) in it and had to pull 2 hard drives and a PCi card for the power supply to cope quoted as 650W (I know you said the system in this case had a new bigger PSU), I rapidly decided to give up as there is always the next problem.

Dell are so minimally specced, I would never do more than add ram before binning one. :cool:
 
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