Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Video card

But yet another computer question
I bought a refurbished Dell Inspirion 518 for a downstairs system and I would like to upgrade the video card from a Intel® Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 to something with DVI and better graphics.
Are they fairly simple to swap? And what would be some recommendations for decent cards.
The computer has a Intel Core 2 Duo - 2660 ,640 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM) and 4g of Ram, max resolution on my monitor is 1680 x 1050, if that info. helps.
Sorry about the dumb questions, but I'm trying to get a little more knowledgeable about computers. Thanks.

Actually a video card is a pretty easy upgrade, you'll probably want to look at something that is HDCP compliant. You will need to decide if you want an Nvidia or an ATI card. The integrated graphics on your system are provided by ATI.

One thing you may have a problem with, is that the power supply in your system is only 300w most video cards today recommend 450w+

Hi Homedad, are you a gamer?
If not, the onboard card will likely provide you with all the 'graphics' power you need if you are referring to resolution. It should be more than suitable for home and office apps and picture or video viewing.

Other than certain special needs (your a graphics designer) the main reason to upgrade is usually for additional 3-D processing power which the latest games demand.

If you are a gamer (there are some WICKED cool looking 3d games out there) then Tom's Hardware produces a 'best card for the money' list every month that is a great way to check out what a good card might be for whatever pricing bracket fits your budget. They usually list both NVidea and ATI choices.

Tom's -- Best Graphic Cards for the Money for January.

Luc, the integrated graphics are what they say--Intel. Also complete and total crap.

Homedad, first you need to determine whether that system has an available PCIe x16 slot. Now, the integrated graphics it's using now are ont he motherboard, so they're not taking up a slot, and you wouldn't be swapping out.

If you have that slot open (it's a long slot, longer than your standard PCI, and much longer than the old AGP graphics slots), then it's just a matter of picking a card that suits you. If you're gaming, then I'd get a Radeon 4850. If you're just going to use it to watch blu-rays (for example), get a lesser card; perhaps a GeForce 9500GT.

Thanks for the great Info. everyone.

Available slots on the back of my computer according to the specs. PCI: 1 Slot, PCIe x1: 2 Slots. I would assume that means the top slot is a PCI and the bottom two are PCIe x1.
Now would something like this work. Low Profile & small PCI Express
I'm probably getting ahead of myself but if a card like this is suitable would I need to do something to override the integrated graphics.

Pop the side off of that thing; I think there's an x16 slot in there, on the top level, at least glancing at the CNET page for it.

Those little cards would be better than the integrated graphics, but not by much. I certainly wouldn't want to try and game on them.

Ken, the 518 on CNET is different than mine, here are my specs. Inspiron 518
I'm not planning on playing games on that setup, but I would like better video and graphics.

I still suspect that you have an x16 slot in there, despite the specs. I don't think Dell would want to deal with a custom x1 video card, and one is available in custom configuration. Best way to find out is to pop the side, maybe take a picture of it so we can look at it.

You're not going to get much better graphics; DVI connections are a little better than VGA, but it's not going to be eye-poppingly different. Blu-ray video acceleration you'll get, but I don't think you have a player in there. I'm not sure if you'll get any acceleration on DVD video.

Doesn't that review on cnet state the best video card this unit is capable of is the ATI 3450? I am guessing that is/was the best Dell was selling at the time. This is a x16 card, so as long as the P/S is strong enough the sky is the limit.

I'd say that's the case, Jay. It's a pretty dinky power supply, though, so I'd want to stick with a lower end card; perhaps a 4650. I have a 4670 in my work machine (an HP dc7900) and that would probably work as well. What you don't want is a card that requires an additional power connector (usually marked as a 6-pin PCIe connector in the specs).

I think even the 3450 would suit his needs for quite sometime.

I seem to remember thinking that the system requirements for networking D*TV content were pretty staggering. They stopped me, anyway.

Yeah, but it's a x4xx card. Blech.

I called Dell Tech. support and according to them a pci express x16 will fit into the pcie x1 slot. Does that sound right?

Err... sometimes. If the PCIe x1 slot has an open back, then yes, it will. If not, well, how good are you with a file?

So if they do indeed fit, will that improve video quality? I guess I should make the purchase from one of Dells recommended cards so if it doesn't fit they won't have a problem with the return.

It depends what you mean by video quality. It might make the screen a bit sharper, and you won't have to use auto adjust on your monitor any more. As far as anything else, I wouldn't count on miracles. What are you dissatisfied with?

I'm looking for a card to make video and pictures sharper, my XPS 420 looks much sharper using a 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3650. I don't know how much improvement if at all a new card will make. I was thinking along the lines of something like this 3650
But if you don't think there would be much of a difference I'll save my $80.00.

$80 is a little rich for that card, but I'm not finding many cheaper options, surprisingly.

I assume your XPS 420 has a DVI output?

The 420 has DVI,HDMI and DisplayPort,I'm using the DisplyPort. My Samsung downstairs that I use with the 518 has DVI and VGA.

Just to follow up, I ended up getting a GeForce 8400GS 256MB DDR2 DMS-59.

I was surprised at how simple it was to install this card, I had never even looked at the insides of a computer before and it took me all of 10 minutes for the installation.

Nothing earth shattering as far as picture improvement, but the results are what I had hoped for, there is a noticeable improvement in pictures, video and browsing, the colors are sharper and more defined. So to me it was a good investment.

Love the GeForce cards, just ordered a new one myself. Congrats!

Glad it is working for you.

I use an older 6600GT GeForce and love it..