Upgrade for Radeon HD4850?

Might be able to shoehorn a 6850 in there.  750W or better power supply would be recommended.

Sapphire Technology
100315L Radeon HD 6850 1024MB GDDR5 PCIe 2.0 x16 Video Card

Not sure that card will fit.  There are a couple of wires going to the Motherboard below the slot for the video card.  This card will most likely hit them and not fit

The card will fit.  Others have used the HD 6850 in the same system.  They also never changed the stock power supply and it seems to work.  

I have an XFX HD4850 and it has an HDMI output.  A different brand would give you what you want and may not require a power supply upgrade.  

My HD4850 also has built in audio for HDMI.  Some video cards require an S/PDIF connection to the motherboard for HDMI audio and most Dell's do not have the separate motherboard connection.

I am also interested in upgrading the video card in my studio xps.  The HD6850 looks like a useful upgrade for a low cost.  It also has the advantage of a relatively low power requirement and can probably work without changing the power supply.  (If anyone can confirm this I would be grateful.)  However the problem I see is that the PCI-e slot is second from bottom of the case.  The double slot card designs like the one pictured above will have their fans hard up against the bottom of the case (assuming you can get around the cable on the mother board) and the air will have no where to go.

A search seems to indicate that there are single slot HD6850 cards available from PowerColor and Afox.  Afox also seems to have a version with the fan on top of the card.  Does anyone have any knowledge of these cards  Has anyone actually installed a DH6850 – what brand and how did they get around the lack of space below the card.

I ended up going with an EVGA GeForce GTS 450 to avoid all the driver issues I have seen with the AMD/ATI cards.  It fits fine at the bottom of the case and their is enough room to allow for air circulation.

It runs much cooler than the old HD4850.  Here is a link to the card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130572&cm_re=gts_450-_-14-130-572-_-Product

I am also interested in upgrading the video card in my studio xps.  The HD6850 looks like a useful upgrade for a low cost.  It also has the advantage of a relatively low power requirement and can probably work without changing the power supply.  (If anyone can confirm this I would be grateful.)  However the problem I see is that the PCI-e slot is second from bottom of the case.  The double slot card designs like the one pictured above will have their fans hard up against the bottom of the case (assuming you can get around the cable on the mother board) and the air will have no where to go.  It seems thatb this will a) overload the fan, and b) just blow the hot air back onto the card.

A search seems to indicate that there are single slot HD6850 cards available from PowerColor and Afox.  Afox also seems to have a version with the fan on top of the card.  Does anyone have any knowledge of these cards  Has anyone actually installed a DH6850 – what brand and how did they get around the lack of space below the card.

I have a Galaxy GTS450 that I bought to replace my ATI Radeon HD4850 as I was having a problem running a game and NVIDA was not supposed to have the problem.  In addition the GTS450 has 1 GB of DDR3 memory, compared to 500KB of DDR2 memory on the HD4850.  Surprise, my Windows Experience score was lower with the GTS450 and shortly after I installed the GTS450 there was a fix for the gaming problem with ATI Radeon cards.  I reinstalled the HD4850 and have kept the GTS450 in case the HD4850 ever fails.

I decided to get a HD6850 and purchased the Gigabyte GV-R685OC-1GD.  I am guessing any HD6850 will work.  But this model has the advantage of needing one power connector only.  It also exhausts the cooling air out the back (through a grill in the second slot) which is a major plus in this small case.  It come mildly over clocked from the factory compared to the AMD reference design.  It also has an enhanced cooling set up.  There are two fans on the bottom of the card and these are close to the bottom of the case and to the cables coming off the motherboard there.  You need to check that the cables do not fowl the fans.

The HD6850 draws less power than other competing chip sets such as the GTX460 (and seems to sell for less).  Gigabyte say you should use a 500W power supply but my research into tests for this card suggest that the Dell power supply will be fine.  So far there are no problems.  There is a big lift in performance.  I am playing Battlefield 3 on high.

Nice card.  I like it!