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Successful Graphics Card upgrade X51 R1 to PNY GTX 960 4GB
I'm posting this just because I spent hours trying to find this information and just want to record it for the use of some other person in a similar situation.
Last night I successfully replaced my original GTX 555 video card with a PNY GTX 960 4GB (VCGGTX9604XPB) card which cost me $229.99 and included a free copy of Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, a $50 value. It only requires 120w, so is ok for the 330w external PSU. No space modifications were necessary.
There are several YouTube videos on how to go about the process of upgrading the video card, so I'll not go into that here.
A few comments I would add are:
- There is a push lever on the back side of the card cage which retracts the pin which locks the card to the cage.
- Make sure to tuck the two 6-pin power cables under the movable plastic restraining bracket and run the cable along the side of the card so that it doesn't foul the fan.
- Download the latest software from the Nvidia site because the DVD installer, at least for me, didn't find the card, so it wouldn't install the drivers.
Result:
I ran my son's WOW set at Ultimate without a problem.
Also his Steam GTA 5 looked great!
Finally the latest Steam Call of Duty looked great as well.
I had previously upgraded his HDD to an SSD, so when I ran the performance indexer, his PC is now ranked at 7.6 out of a max of 7.9. This should keep him happy for a year or so.
So, my current hardware configuration is now:
Alienware X51-R1 (early 2012), 8GB Ram, 250 GB SSD, 1 TB HDD, PNY GTX 960 4GB, Win7-64, i7-2600, 330w Ext PSU.
Alienware - Rodrigo
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
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4.4K Posts
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May 5th, 2015 14:00
Thank you very much for posting this information on the forum, it could prove very useful. We hope you and your son enjoy the Alienware system.
Best Regards,
l2obot
7 Posts
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July 27th, 2015 15:00
Hi, I would love to have link for the card you used for your son, I can't seem to find it.
rdhinman
5 Posts
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July 28th, 2015 07:00
Hello,
The card was New Egg Number: N82E16814133589
The card model is: PNY VCGGTX9604XPB
The link directly to the card is:
bubdrum
1 Message
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June 24th, 2016 08:00
Thank you for posting this. I am in the process of getting upgraded parts for my x51. Did you use any data software to move the OS install to the SSD?
rdhinman
5 Posts
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June 24th, 2016 09:00
I believe I used Paragon's tools to do a disk migration since the source HDD was 1TB, and the SSD was only 500 GB. You can add the SSD into the x51 without removing the HDD so that you can use the internal sata bus to do the transfer. Much faster. Then unplug the HDD and boot the SSD. If all is well. remove the HDD and put it on a shelf as backup, or if you are sure, wipe it and use it as an internal backup and/or as file storage. Personally, I setup my computers to use a separate SSD or HDD for the MyDocs, files, downloads, etc. Then if the OS craps out, I haven't lost anything. My 2 cents.
Resurrectionist
119 Posts
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June 24th, 2016 10:00
Great post. Thanks.