XPS 8500, video card, power supply, upgrades

See Link here.  I bought my PSU form Amazon.  It's a Corsair 650w - 80plus Bronze.  Only $80.  

www.amazon.com/.../ref=sr_1_1

1. Basically they just don't ever install. CCC as well as the driver itself never installs with the latest drivers from AMD. It doesn't even recognize that the card is present. 2. the drivers supplied by Dell ... install ... But performance wise, the card crashes frequently when going full screen with Flash videos

Even looking at both events as isolated events ... both point to a bad video card. With clean installed Catalyst 13.1 drivers, neither should happen.

I posted earlier in this thread that I installed a PNY GTX 680 with a Corsair 650w 80plus Bronze PSU.  Here goes the picture.  Everythings been running great.  Playing Dishonored and Skyrim on Ultra High Settings 60fps.  No issues so far.  Installation was very easy. 

Dell XPS 8500

Intel Core i7-3770 - 3.40 ghz (up to 3.90 Turbo Boost)

Windows 8

16GB DDR3 SDRAM

1TB Hard Drive

PNY GTX 680 - 2GB GDDR5

I installed a PNY GTX 680 with a Corsair 650w 80plus Bronze PSU ... No issues so far.  Installation was very easy.  Dell XPS 8500 Intel Core i7-3770 - 3.40 ghz (up to 3.90 Turbo Boost) Windows 8 16GB DDR3 SDRAM 1TB Hard Drive PNY GRX 680 - 2GB GDDR5

See Link here.  I bought my PSU form Amazon.  It's a 650w - 80plus Bronze.  Only $80.   www.amazon.com/.../ref=sr_1_1

Corsair TX Series 650w ... nice. Ya, that is what I've been using. 2 of those and one was a 750w model because it was on sale.

The next model up is kinda nice too because it has removable cables (so you don't have to find a good place to stash the extra ones).

Thanks!  I was gonna get a new PC, the Alienware Aurora that you have.  But I thought I'd save some money right now and just keep the XPS 8500 and do a few upgrades.  But those Alienware's look pretty sweet!

Anything is possible, but again, the card works mostly with the Dell supplied drivers. That card is OEM so AMD doesn't offer support on it. I have read of others having similar issues in that you can only install the Dell drivers with this card. TE interesting part is that if I remove the drivers completely and just go with the Windows stock drivers, I don't get the crashing with flash. But obviously the performance when gaming is way down and pretty much unusable. So I think it's mainly a driver thing on Win8.

Just wanted to post my successful upgrade:

Graphic card manufacturer and model number: 2GB Radeon 7850

HIS IceQ X H785QN2G2M Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Bios:  A10 (Would not post with A06, worked after A10 flash)

Operating System:  W8 Pro x64

Power supply manufacturer if not Dell 460w PSU :  Stock Dell 460W

Compatible:  Works with AMD 13.1 after A10 BIOS upgrade

Original card with system that worked:  Radeon HD 7570

I posted earlier in this thread that I installed a PNY GTX 680 with a Corsair 650w 80plus Bronze PSU.  Here goes the picture.  Everythings been running great.  Playing Dishonored and Skyrim on Ultra High Settings 60fps.  No issues so far.  Installation was very easy.  Dell XPS 8500 Intel Core i7-3770 - 3.40 ghz (up to 3.90 Turbo Boost) Windows 8 16GB DDR3 SDRAM 1TB Hard Drive PNY GTX 680 - 2GB GDDR5

Nice!! 

Give us some more feedback on the performance.

Im actually thinking about going the same route as you,

Did you get your PNY card from dell?

Ive got some gift card balance left so I want to use that to buy the 680 from dell.

And of course will be upgrading my PSU as well to the one you are using.

Was there any difficulty getting the 680 or the PSU to run properly?? 

Was it hard installing the new PSU in the 8500 case?

Would love to hear back from you 

Thanksin advance

Hey  jmsp0511, so far everything is running great! Playing Skyrim (with HD Texture MOD) and Dishonored on Ultra settings and getting over 60fps!  Gonna test out the new BioShock today.  As far as installing; everything was pretty easy to do. Everything fits.  No problems getting them to run properply.  Just make sure you update your Dell BIOS.  Also, remember were everything is plugged into when replacing the PSU.  You'll need longer SATA cables for the Hard Drive and DVD Drive.  The hardest thing was unpluging the motherboard cable, it was pretty tight even when holding back the clamp, but other than that it was simple.  It was my first time installing a GPU and PSU.  Hope this helps. 

Also "Yes" I did get my PNY GTX 680 from Dell. 

Hello Everyone, 

Great feed for 8500 GPU upgrades. I wish I would have read these before placing my order a few hours ago. In a few days I'll be installing the following:

• Galaxy GeForce GTX 660 Ti GC 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x 16 HDCP
• SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS Bronze Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Sounds like I didn't need the PSU but I might as well for the price I got on it. Can anyone tell me if I might run into any problems about this build aside from the possible BIOS update and possibly needing longer cables from the PSU?

I will let everyone know how it goes. 

My current stats:

Graphic card manufacturer and model number: Currently AMD 7570

Bios: Not sure, will update when I get home to check

Operating System: W7 x64

Power supply manufacturer if not Dell 460w PSU : Stock

Compatible:  Yes or No

Original card with system that worked: AMD 7570

Links in case anyone wants to clone this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151096&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162120

Hello,

I wanted to post some information on here as there seems to be some confusion regarding what cards will work with the XPS 8500. Dell's reference to it being able to run any card up to 225 watts is accurate. I've personally run everything up to a GTX 680 in it without PSU problems. The PSU is actually pretty high quality considering this is a pre-fab PC. That's not to say I didn't run into other problems which I'll mention here. Let me first state that I only recommend running these cards with the A10 BIOS revision for the Dell motherboard in the XPS 8500. This means flashing the motherboard's BIOS to A10 after installing Windows 8. Now the problem I came across was getting the motherboard's PCI-E 3.0 slot to run at the full PCI-E 3.0 specs needed to support fast after market cards. What does this mean? It means that although the card should have gotten "perfect" frame rates for the material I used to test it with it simply did not because the motherboard was holding it back. Does this mean that the PCI-E slot on the motherboard doesn't really support 3.0? I'm not sure. What I am sure of is that you won't be able to get the same potential performance out of a after market card as you would pairing that card with any after market motherboard. In my opinion the Dell XPS 8500 is a well built machine except for the motherboard which skimps when it comes to its meeting PCI-E 3.0 specs.

Graphic card manufacturer and model number:

ASUS GTX660-DC2-2GD5  (GTX 660 with 2 GB RAM), with 10.2" length (256mm from back panel to edge)

Bios:

A10, as my stocked bios (received at 2013-04-10)

Operating System:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit edition (stocked) and Windows 8 Professional 64bit edition (fresh installed on 2nd hard drive)

Power supply manufacturer if not Dell 460w PSU :

Stocked DELL PSU

Compatible: 

Nvidia drive 314.22. (I Installed that asap so have no idea of stocked driver)

Original card with system that worked:

stocked Nvidia GT 640

Other setup beside graphics card:

Intel Core i7-3770 - 3.40 ghz (up to 3.90 Turbo Boost).

8GB DDR3 RAM.

I also have a secondary WD Black 640GB hard drive installed within this system.

Some extra information regarding to install new graphics card on XPS 8500 posted in the other thread

**UPDATE** to my 3-26 Post 

-Updated my BIOS to A10 before attempting everything. 

-Power supply and Galaxy GTX 66 TI GC plugged in with no problems. You do need to pick up a longer SATA3 cable when you replace the stock Graphics card. The much longer card required the longer cable to go around the 10" card. I also installed a 128 GB Vertex 3 SSD while I was in there. 

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR STARTING THIS FEED! THIS WAS A BIG HELP. 

Just got my new 8500...wanting to upgrade the PSU. Read a good number of people on here have used "Corsair 650-Watt 80 Plus Bronze Certified". Was looking at this one on Amazon...www.amazon.com/.../B0064XAIXQ     Does anyone know if this would fit into the 8500 case?