Upgrading a Dell Inspiron 546 Questions

Hi asksalot,

I understand that you want to upgrade the computer for gaming purposes .the processor which you have in your computer should be adequate for Gaming. In your computer video card is integrated. SO you will need to upgrade the Video card to make it a gaming system.

 The system has a PCIe 16X slot and you will be able to install any AMD or NVIDIA Video card. However, each video card has its own power requirement. The inspiron 546 has a 300 Watt power supply (250 Watts for Slim Tower). So please check the power supply requirement of a Video card before purchasing it.

I hope your find this useful

Hi and thank you for your response.  

So he doesn't need to upgrade the processor or anything else except the video card?  His complaint is very low fps and freezing up in games on the Inspiron. (not due to internet, other PCs in house work fine with the same games)

Ok, again thank you and I will start looking at video cards with 300w power supply.

The best cards for gaming in order of performance that will work on your 300 watt PSU will be the HD 7750, HD 6670, GT 640 & HD 6570.  All these will work, but will state they need a better power supply.  You probably won't find any video cards where the manufacturer is going to state a 300 watt or less requirement.  If you do, it will not be very good at all with gaming.  The manufacturers overstate what is actually needed.  The HD 7750 for example only uses about 50 watts under stress. 

Thank you for your suggestion on videos cards, that is very helpful to know.

Is there a particular one of these that you would recommend?

ASUS HD7750-1GD5-V2 AMD Radeon HD 7750 VGA 1 GB GDDR5 Graphics Card

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card (11202-00-20G)

Diamond Radeon HD 7750 PCIe 3.0 Graphics Card

VisionTek 900503 Radeon HD 7750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Hi asksalot,

Based on your post, I understand that you want to upgrade the video card in your computer.  As per the earlier suggestion the VisionTEK HD 7750, VisionTEK HD 6670, PNY GT 640 and VisionTEK HD 6570 are available on our dell website. The HD 7750 is the ideal choice from a performance perspective. The HD 6570 will be the best budget option. You can refer to the links below for more details on the above cards.

http://dell.to/P5fSdV   (VisionTEK HD6570)

http://dell.to/OLr5ie    (VisionTEK HD 6670)

               
http://dell.to/VjHNtR  (VisionTEK HD 7750)

http://dell.to/SdHv9j  (PNY NVidia GT 640)

I hope you find this useful.

If I compare the cards HERE, they are all pretty much the same except the Asus is overclocked a bit.  The Diamond card is almost identical in design with Sapphire so I would choose the Sapphire as it is less money and a much better selling brand. The VisionTek seems identical to the HIS card, but HIS has a $10 rebate and VisionTek does not even show this card on their web site.  I like the Asus the best because of price and its cooler, but the choice is yours.  

This thread has been locked due to inactivity.For assistance,with same issue or a different issue,please click New Post on the top right to start a New Thread.