XPS 420 and ATI RADEON HD 5770 Questions

I did not realize the XPS 420 came with a 450W power supply.  The XPS 420 came with a 375W power supply and if you got the 8800 GTX video card they put in the 425W power supply.  Most likely you have the 375W.  The instructions for installing and removing the PCI Express video card can be found HERE. You should still be able to easily run the HD 5770 on the 375 watt PSU as others have run the HD 4870 on the power supply which uses a lot more power.

Thank you, and sorry my mistake I have 425w checked it now... but I have HD 4650 strange.

Doesn't that card need a reserve? Will the PC be able to handle it even on maximum power usage? 

On the cards website there was a recommended power supply 500w.

I don't want to mess something up so I'm just asking.

If you look at this chart here, you have more than enough power since you are only looking at 272 watts for the entire system under load load with the HD 5770.  The manufacturers always overstate what is actually needed.   

Thank you very much for your help :emotion-1:.

Not sure, but more than likely it is 1.1.  However, it will still run fine and really not effect the performance of the card much. 

I just installed an XFX 5770 in my stock XPS 420 (375 PSU), no issues at all and a nice performance gain from my old 8800GT.  Used the new 9.12 Catalyst drivers.

My System:

XPS 420

Windows 7 64bit

Thanks so much guys, I googled something like "will a dell 425W power supply work with a video card recommending 450W" and up pops this thread, with people already installing the very Radeon HD5770 I have on order on the same XPS420 I have! 

I was *pretty* sure the power supply and size were okay, but great to get confirmation.

Should be installing tomorrow. I really want to run GTA IV on full settings and my old 8800GT just can't handle it.

Also, I did a little checking -- it appears the XPS420 uses the X38 chipset, which means it has PCIE 2.0. 

http://www.lifeatmost.com/pc/dell-xps-420/

http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Chipsets/X38/X38-overview.htm

It's hard to tell if it really matters. The max bandwidth of the 5770 is 73.6 GB/sec, but the 2.0 16-pin PCIE is only 8GB/s.  I'm not sure if this means processor bandwidth is unrelated to the PCIE bandwidth, or the processor is so rarely fully utilized it doesn't matter, or the PCIE bandwidth is bottlenecking the processor (seems unlikely), but it looks like GPU bandwidth always greatly exceeds PCIE bandwidth. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIE#PCI_Express_2.0

Maybe someone more familiar with these issues can elucidate.

Great Chart.

Thanks

Also, I did a little checking -- it appears the XPS420 uses the X38 chipset, which means it has PCIE 2.0.  http://www.lifeatmost.com/pc/dell-xps-420/ http://www.intel.com/Products/Desktop/Chipsets/X38/X38-overview.htm It's hard to tell if it really matters. The max bandwidth of the 5770 is 73.6 GB/sec, but the 2.0 16-pin PCIE is only 8GB/s.  I'm not sure if this means processor bandwidth is unrelated to the PCIE bandwidth, or the processor is so rarely fully utilized it doesn't matter, or the PCIE bandwidth is bottlenecking the processor (seems unlikely), but it looks like GPU bandwidth always greatly exceeds PCIE bandwidth.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIE#PCI_Express_2.0 Maybe someone more familiar with these issues can elucidate.

daveprice74,

The figure quoted by graphics vendors is the GPU-to-graphics-card-RAM bandwidth and has nothing to do with the CPU-to-graphics-card bandwidth. There are a number of tests conducted by such worthies as tomshardware.com or anandtech.com which have demonstrated none to minimal real world difference between PCIe 2.0 and 1.1.

Masi_GC

Hello,

Do you have any idea if one of the ATI HD 5850 will fit into the case? It seems to me they're ok as far as the length is concerned, but I'm not sure about the height...

Thanks

Still going strong with that 5770?  I'm about to purchase one since my 8800GT is done for I believe.

I went for the 5770 in the end, my 8800gt died as well. I bought the cheapest one ASUS EAH5770 and I was surprised how silent it was. It's basically inaudible.

The performance gained is decent but nothing stellar. It's ok if you play with a resolution under 1920x1200. It will even work with 1920x1200, but only for a short while and probably with reduced settings only.

So yeah, it offers a lot of bang for the buck. Oh and btw, also try overclocking your Q6600 CPU to 3GHZ using this guide:

http://uploaded.to/file/6idwdf

It's definitely worth it to overclock your cpu. I got SC2 going at max settings 1680x1050 with fps 40-60. It only chokes a little during 4v4 battles, but other than that I am very happy with both "upgrades"

dumping3

Could you please upload the file again? The link (http://uploaded.to/file/6idwdf) does not work anymore. Thanks.