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Dell Inspiron 620 - Graphics Card Upgrade
Hey,
I currently own a Dell Inspiron 620 desktop, with a 300 Watt power supply, and AMD HD Radeon 6450 as my graphics card. I am thinking about upgrading my graphics card, but I want to avoid upgrading my power supply unit as well. Can anyone suggest some good graphics cards that a 300 Watt power supply would work on? I know its low, but I don't have enough budget to upgrade the PSU as well. Games I play include NFS Hot Pursuit, COD: MW2, L4D2, Portal 2. (I'm thinking about getting MW3 and BF3)
Other Specs:
2nd Gen Intel Core i5
6GB RAM
Also, are all graphics card the same in size, or are they different. I would also like to know the size of the video card required for my Inspiron 620, too if anyone knows.
Thanks for reading.
=]
tgsmith
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November 17th, 2011 04:00
Agoraptor,
I'm not a gamer myself, but the Nvidia 9800GT gets pretty good reviews.
Unfortunately, the minimum power supply recommended for the 9800GT is 400 watts. It would work in your 620 if it's the mini-tower version and you upgraded the power supply.
All graphics cards are not the same size. If your 620 is the mini-tower version, you shouldn't have any problems installing the 9800GT if you upgrade the power supply to 400+ watts.
Information on the 9800GT can be found here: www.nvidia.com/.../product_geforce_9800gt_us.html
Note that the 9800GT requires two 6-pin supplementary power connectors as do many high-end graphics cards. Be sure your replacement power supply has these. Some of the 400+ power supply only have one 6-pin supplementary power connector, requiring the use of a power adapter for the second one. I recently ran into this problem on a client's graphics card upgrade for his gaming system.
Hope this information helps.
Tony
speedstep
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November 17th, 2011 04:00
You need single slot cards. Radeon HD6670 works fine and is about the max you can do. For the TOWER version of the 620.
Some Double Slot cards will be (TOO LONG) to fit in the case and will REQUIRE a non stock 650W power supply.
speedstep
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November 17th, 2011 05:00
Actually 2 Slot wide Versions of the 9800GT will not FIT into the 620 without Upgrading the power supply. There are versions of the 9800GT that are
ENERGY Efficient that work. Aka 9800 GT EE version. I have used these as well. There is a 2 slot version from Zotac or the PNY VCG98GTEE1XPB.
tgsmith
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November 17th, 2011 08:00
Speedstep,
Agreed! Two-slot versions such as the Gigabyte 9800GT which has that huge Zalman heat sink would not be recommended. The Nvidia 9800GT to which I made reference is a single slot card. The Zotac card which you referenced was the card I installed in my client's custom-built full tower system.
Tony
speedstep
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November 17th, 2011 11:00
I have no issues with the Zotac card that I got. Its an uneasy feeling hacking off the bracket to shoehorn one into a GX620.
www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml
Agoraptor
41 Posts
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November 17th, 2011 14:00
I'm confused! You said that the Radeon HD 6670 works fine, it says here that the minimum power requirement is 400w.
www.amd.com/.../amd-radeon-hd-6670-overview.aspx
I have the tower version, and I want to try to avoid upgrading my PSU.
Thanks
rdunnill
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November 17th, 2011 15:00
The power requirements are overstated.
Agoraptor
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November 17th, 2011 15:00
K, but what about the sizes? I'm not sure which size I should get, and which size graphics card is mine (AMD HD Radeon 6450)
speedstep
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November 17th, 2011 17:00
Single slot cards only. Some Double wide ones (Too Long) do not physically fit. Double Wide Cards also need a Bigger Power Supply.
The 6670 5670 4670 all work fine with stock power supply.
Agoraptor
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November 17th, 2011 21:00
Ok, cool thanks for the info. I will most likely get the AMD 6670, single slot. (Is that the best one?)
speedstep
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November 18th, 2011 11:00
That card is one of the best that do not require an upgrade to the power supply.
Double slot cards will not physically fit into the case so there are not a lot of Better cards that are also Single slot therefore upgrading the power supply is probably not worthwhile for some. There are always exceptions. The INSPIRON 620 can shoehorn in some cards but then requires Antec High current Gamer 620W power supply.
You have to cut the bracket with Tin Snips on the ZOTAC card above due to the dual slot design of the bracket to fit into OPTIPLEX 620. Inspiron 620 does not have that issue.
Installation of the June 2010 DirectX patch is Highly recommended BEFORE trying to install the Card Drivers.
DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) - Microsoft
Agoraptor
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November 18th, 2011 16:00
Ok cool, I think that's all I need. I'll get an AMD Radeon 6670, single slot, and it won't require any modifications to fit in my Inspiron 620, yeah?
Thanks
Agoraptor
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November 22nd, 2011 00:00
Hey Speedstep, are you sure that dual slot graphic cards do not fit in the MT version of the 620? 'Cause I'm also considering the GTX560 (with an upgrade to a higher watt PSU of course.)
speedstep
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November 22nd, 2011 06:00
The Mini Tower INSPIRON 620 will fit an EVGA GTX560 but you must upgrade the power supply. AKA the Dual Slot Cards require 2 PCI-E power connections.
The Optiplex 620 has the same issue that the Optiplex 745 and 755 has being that dual slot cards won't go in at all.
Some cards are too long. The ATI cards come with an extra piece of plastic that gets in the way of where the hard drives are.
I used an Antec High Current Gamer 620 and an EVGA GTX560 TI and it fit but it was VERY Tight fit.
If the card is too long it may be impossible to get the PCI-E power connectors in. Also be careful about the SATA power connections being right angle for the hard drives. Its possible to break off the power connections closing the cover when the sata power is not the Right angle low profile variety.
The top card you could hacksaw the plastic off the bottom card just wont go into the slot on an Inspiron 620 MT unless you remove the hard drive bays and put the hard drive up in the optical drive bay area.
Agoraptor
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November 23rd, 2011 02:00
Hey Speedstep, thanks for replying. You wrote, 'The Mini Tower INSPIRON 620 will fit an EVGA GTX560', but you also said that dual slot cards will not fit into the Dell Inspiron 620 MT? Or do you mean the slim version of the Inspiron 620? Because I'm really keen on getting the GTX 560. I'm prepared to buy a 600W PSU from Corsair (btw, does having more watts on your PSU make your system overloaded?). I've made sure that this PSU has 2 6-pin connectors.