Need advice on graphics cards...

The hottest card that I think can fit into an E510 is the Gigabyte GV-N250OC-1GI.  Nvidia GTS250 with 1 GB video memory.  It just fits.  You will want an updated PSU in the 500W range.  This is the card that I put in to my E510.  It gets a respectable 660 on the video benchmark listed in this forum.

David

The PSU... is that the PC's power supply that your reffering too? I don't mind replacing the system's power supply if it's current one can't power a more powerful graphics card without getting overloaded. However, since that might cost extra, I will need to research the issue in more detail before I make any choices. Would the current power supply's wattage be indicated anywhere on it, in a spot that would be visible?

I wasn't familiar with the e510's specs so i looked them up at Dell ... e510 specs page

your system has a 305watt power supply and one pcie 16 graphic slot ....

with that set up about the best card your could get without changing the power supply is an ATI 4670

saphire HD 4670

food for thought: the spec page said your pc is running the old Pentium 4 CPU ... that is a very slow CPU even by today's lower end celeron standards ... it is not worth replacing your power supply and adding a mega zippy modern video card ... that CPU will bottleneck the experience.  I would pull a modern system out of the dell outlet center before buying a new power supply and graphic card for the old pentium 4 system.

Configuring and buying a new PC is pretty much out of the question right now. I am disabled and unemployed, rellying on disability benefits for my income. Back in '05 when I configured this current PC, I was in much better financial shape. Right now in this economy, there would be no way for me to afford a new PC. My disability benifits barely cover my basic living expenses and don't leave much room for extras.

Right now, my best option financewise would be to see how much this PC can be upgraded before I begin conscidering buying a new one.

Thanks for all the info everyone. I've got a lot of research to do and I'll keep the issue of the card's physical size and the power supply wattage requirement in mind when I am ready to start shopping for a more powerful graphics card. There is a Geeksquad service center at my local Best Buy, I think I'll take the PC to them and have them help me choose a suitable graphics card when I am ready.

The 305W supply does not directly support PCI Express.  I put in a 520W OCZ supply which worked great with the Gigabyte video card.  The GTS520 is the same as the 9800GTX+ and really zips along.  I have this machine set up for folding and it does 6000 ppd.  A good 500W PSU is around $50 - $60.  The overclocked GTS200 from Gigabyte is $130 after rebate this month.  I have my e510 also set up with 3 GB RAM and it is quite a nice performer.  I am sure that I will get several more years out of it before switching to a new machine.  By then, today's machines will be starting to become obsolete, so I can end up saving a lot of money by delaying a few years.

BTW, not all GTS250s will fit.  I have measured and got the Gigabyte because it is within 1/8" of the CPU fan shroud.  These BTX cases are a little tough to get a video card fit.

The zalman fan on the GTS250 is a work of art in itself.

The 4670 is a fine lower power video card.  It benches around 1/4 of a GTS250.  But the extra cost of the GTS250 will extend the enjoyable life of your system.  And you could always move the GTS250 into a future machine.

David

Which video card do you have now?  I sort of agree with the other posters that the Radeon HD4670 512 mb card would be an excellent upgrade for your current system.  It also would be the most economical since it will run fine with your existing power supply.  Also it would not be as severely bottlenecked by your current CPU.  You can darn near buy a new 4670 for what an appropriate power supply to run a 250GTS.  I think I paid about $65 after rebate for mine.  If you feel you need a bang for the buck upgrade to enhance your machine's 3D gaming ability, you really should take a good look at the Radeon HD4670.

It's a question of bang for the buck short term or long term.  With a GTS250, one might not want to upgrade the computer for several years.  If you have had a chance to run a current game on a 4670 class card versus a GTS250 you would see the enormous difference.  The GTS250 would feel like a new PC instead of just an upgrade.  Now, the 4870 is a different story.  It is more in the GTS250 class.  But it is a bit more expensive and doesn't fit into an E510.

David

The PC's current graphics card is an ATI Radeon X600. It's original equipment, that is this was the card I chose when I configured and ordered this PC Back in 2005. The system's processor according to the hardware manager is a 3.40 GHz Pentium 4. There are two entries listed for the processor, so I am guessing that the PC has a dual-core processor.

It could also be a P4 HyperThread.  Either way, the 3.4 is no slouch.  The nice thing about the X600 is that it supports two monitors and can go to 1920x1200 (a little higher VGA).  It is just not a gaming card.  The first upgrade I did on an E510 was to a 6600GT.  I then upgraded to a 7900GT within the year.  The 6600GT at the time was $200 and the 7900GT was $300.  When I did the 7900GT, I also upgraded the PSU to a 520.  The point is that I spent the $200 on the 6600GT when I should have gone straight to the 7800GT immediately.  What I learned from this was to go to the 256 bit GPUs and get as fast a GPU as I could reasonably.  Realize that with $200 1000W PSUs and $600 dual GPU GTX295s, $800 total, that a total of $200 for a 500W PSU and a 1 GB GTS250 is not an unrealistic amount of money.  And the point is that it buys time.  With that GPU, you will not need to upgrade for years.

David

My point, David, is that the original poster probably doesn't have the funds available at this time for a $140 power supply and a $150 video card.  The HD4670 like this one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125277  runs about $72 after rebate, and would be a nice upgrade for gaming up to about 1440x900 resolution, without the need for a power supply upgrade.  Is it optimal?  No.  Will it run Crysis on high at 1920x1080? No, and definitely not with his current system.  But, the 4670 will give him a huge upgrade, performance wise.  And I am confident it will be compatible with the rest of his system.

Here is a comparison of his current card with the 4670:

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=88&card2=579

Another more modern and slightly more expensive option would be one of the new Radeon 5670 cards, like this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871

For $90 shipped, it is a bargain and even supports direct X 11.

Here is the comparison of the 5670 vs the 4670:

It provides almost double the memory bandwidth with almost identical peak power draw.  Sounds like a great bargain card, the only concern I have about it is that it could have some compatability issues with the original poster's older system.  But if he is at all adventurous, it might be worth the risk, as it should significantly outperform the 4670.  But even the 4670 totally destroys the X600.  That would be his choice.

Chuck

I did replace a 256MB video card that came with my Dell E510 2 years ago by a GeForce NVIDIA 7300LE (512 MB) one. It worked fine; but 3 months ago I upgraded my Adobe to Ps  CS4 Extended with Bridge and Lightrom 2; this 512Mb looks slow down my workflows a little bit. Therefore; I searched and finally bought (at newegg.com) a 1TB GeForce NVIDIA 9500GT that works great. So far so good. My E510 came with a 305W PS and this PSU works fine. however I have a 400W one for spare; in case i need it. To me, if you install a card that needs a seperate source of power / comes with its own power terminals or cable, then you have to upgrade PSU to a higher wattage unit, otherwise no need to upgrade the PSU (It'll power from PCI-e 16). Hopefully this message helps.

Good luck.

T. Le

I am not planning to upgrade the graphics card right now, I plan to upgrade this PC a little bit at a time. This month I have enough space in my finances to cover a few upgrades, maybe a few more next month, and then maybe a few more in April.

For now, I need to upgrade the PC's hard drive. The current hard drive is a 160 GB that's been formatted as two partitions. The larger of the two has about 65 GB of free space avaliable on it at the most. The flight sim I am into requires atleast 70 to 72 GB of hard drive space just by itself! I'm going to replace it with a 320 GB hard drive and also replace both of the system's optical drives. The first optical drive (the upper one) is a very old DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive and it has taken a lot of wear-n-tear and has lost the ability to read DVD media altogether. The lower optical drive is a single layer DVD burner, it feels outdated and I plan to replace it with a new Dual Layer DVD burner.

I recently installed a Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB drive in my Dell Vostro.  It seems faster than the original Seagate 250 GB drive.  Easy install and Acronius software available from the WD website made cloning my existing drive to the new drive very painless.  I picked mine up at Staples.com for $59.95.  FYI, even though it was a retail boxed drive, it did not include a SATA cable, so you will need to pick up an extra SATA cable if you are planning on adding an additional hard drive to your system, or if you want to clone your existing drive onto the new one.  (I recommend cloning your old drive to the new one.  Usually the newer drives are faster than the older drives)  Unless of course, you want to do a clean install of windows, in which case you will have to install all your old programs and files after you reinstall your operating system.