Help choosing new Graphics card

Hi,

Welcome to the community

Let me share our Parts and Upgrades Feature on our support site. Here is the link ;

accessories.us.dell.com/.../DellPartsFamily.aspx

Choose system and all available upgrade will come out. Hope this helps a little. Let me know if there's anything else.

Regards,

The HD 7850 is a very good card at that resolution for today's games.  HERE are your Sapphire choices.  The more expensive ones have 2GB of video ram versus 1GB.  This card has great performance for the price especially the 1GB version. Alternatively, the HD 7870 is your next step up which may also work on your stock power supply, but you may not gain too much at that resolution.  The difference between the 1GB & 2GB versions might only be 1 or 2 frames rates for most games, but more & more games are needing more video ram today.  

However, if you are willing to spend $200, then you might as well get the HD 7870 HERE since it will obviously run ultra high settings at higher frame rates.  You are probably talking around a 30 watt difference between the two cards.  The HD 7870 requires two 6-pin connections and the HD 7850 only one like your HD 6770. Only in extreme situations will the HD 7870 jump over 150 watts which is why it needs the two connections just in case.   

I'd consider either one with 2gb..I do favor the 7870.  I'm not sure if I would want to risk it on the 460w as they both list minimum 500w needed,I do tend to game enough to stress a card a bit.

So my next question would be if this psu could fit in the 8300 ? www.newegg.com/.../Product.aspx

Also any risks to doing so I've read about some issues pertaining to upgrading dells power  mobo frying and etc.

Pardon my overly cautiousness stance lol & thanks for the reply!

Here were the validated cards for the XPS 8300.  The HD 6950 uses 25 more watts than the HD 7870 so I would feel pretty comfortable that it would work.  As a matter of fact, the XPS 8500 that has the same 460 watt power supply had the HD 7870 offered as an option.  The card is not going to need more than 120 watts if gaming.  If you add everything else in, your entire system will never use more than 300 watts.  Most Dell power supplies are rated as continuous units meaning they can peak higher than 460 watts if needed probably over 500 watts, but it will not be needed.  They just run more efficiently at a certain percentage of their total output.  

Upgrading the power supply will not fry your motherboard.  If you upgrade to a 650 watt power supply, your system will still only draw 300 watts or whatever it needs. You would not want to bother upgrading to just a 500 watt power supply when what you have now will be just as good.  If upgrading, go with a 650 watt unit.   

HWHRN AMD Radeon HD5670
GCJ42 AMD Radeon HD5770
2XTG4 AMD Radeon HD5870
HCVMH AMD Radeon HD6450
8F60V AMD Radeon HD6670
8PJF8 AMD Radeon HD6770
Y9XH7 AMD Radeon HD6870
4VDWW AMD Radeon HD6950
VH86X Nvidia G405
X78HM Nvidia GT420
WGP2G Nvidia GTX560

Hi,

Please refer to Kelbear1's post above for reference.

Thanks Kelbear!