My friend has a couple year old dell desktop and wants to get a new video card. The problem is the psu only puts out 250 watts. He needs an agp card so he was thinking of a 7600gt which I thought would be a nice bump up from his current fx5200, especially for the price. However, the 7600gt in particular (an XFX) claims to need a minimum of a 350 watt psu. Now I've heard this card only uses something around 36 watts, so could his current psu handle it?

It probably could but I really would not want to risk it. The AGP 7600GT also uses a bit more power than the regular one(which you probably found the power draw for) hence the added molex connector on the card. I'd shoot for at least a good quality 300w psu. You can grab this 300w FSP Group PSU from newegg and it'll run his setup perfectly. He'll also have peace of mind knowing that he has a rock solid PSU in his rig instead of some Cheap-O Dell PSU that could bomb at any moment.

I may want to mention that I recommended that 300w psu assuming that all his other parts were as old as his FX5200. List the rest of his parts and we can probably find a better match for his rig.

yeah dont trust dell psu's their not rated very well....ask me how I know lol

Yeah, that 250W Dell PSU is like a 150W good quality one. The suggested 300W PSU should work. However, after you get the PSU and video card, you're spending $150 upgrading a Dell. Not only that, but the processor and memory are likely old as hell and need to be replaced too. Quite frankly, I don't think this is a good solution. Maybe you should kindly suggest to him that he'd be better of saving for a new system... Seriously, $400 could probably buy something much better than what he has now.

EDIT: How do you know?!

I'll ask him tomorrow for the exact model number so I can give the specs.

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I've never ran across ATX300. Is that the small form factor that would fit in his dell case?


Edit - My sister is basically doing the same thing as my friend except just with an HP. I'm gonna do what you mentioned bleeble except I'd get myself a new $500 cpu, ram, mobo, and vid card combo and give her my rig for like $100. Problem is I don't think my friend wants to spend that much money but I'll run the same idea by him.

That's just their model number for it. It's a "standard" size psu. It'll fit in any case that takes normal psus.

how do i know, my supposed old gaming rig dell's psu POPPED and then took out my 9800xt and sound card AND fried the mobo.....yeah it was supposubly 350w, and the 9800xt needed llike 380 watts.....it was pretty sh1tty


be careful with dell psu's btw they sometimes like to reverse their 4 pin 12v plug. and if U try and plug in a normal one....yeah just trust me it isnt good

Guess that would make sense since its a 300 watt psu

That's right, I forgot to mention that. Dell likes to change the power pins around on their PSUs and mobos. That means if you try to use a good PSU or mobo with a Dell product, something is going to fry!

That sounds like user error to me...

Yes, Dell likes to use non-standard psu connectors. So standard psu's can be a problem.

Dell do like to use different power connecters, you would probably be better off saving up for a new rig.

No it came with the 9800xt dude, where u upgrade it on their website, thats what was all included

They sell adaptors for odd Dell PSUs. Ive got one for an older computer. Im not sure if dell still uses that funky PSU pin out though. The computer Ive got the adaptor for is a P2, but I dont need an adaptor for my 8300 dimension (4 or 5 years old).

From what I have read, there were a few models that were made with standard psu's, but the majority are all proprietary crap.

Double checked with my friend and he has a dimension 4600:

P4 2.8
512 Mb (he might have gotten 1 gig)
1 CD drive + 1 DVD drive
80gb hdd
fx5200 ultra

Basically I don't think he wants a new computer right now being as though he'll be getting a new laptop for college next year, so if there is any graphics card upgrade thats worth the money? I think he wants to play Left 4 Dead in November so hes looking for a cheap upgrade.


Also should a start a new post if I want to run some specs by for that $500 upgrade I mentioned earlier or can I just do it here?

Left 4 Dead? I had to google that one. Wikipedia tells me that it's not going to be released until 2008, and it's usually pretty accurate with release dates. Unless he has an immediate need for it, just tell him to wait. If you buy something on Black Friday or around Christmas, you can get some killer deals. That's in addition to the standard technology price drops over time.


You can do it here or make a new topic, whatever you feel like doing. I'm tempted to say that you may get more responses if you start a new topic, but if you ask here, you get answers from all/most of the people that are following this thread... Just don't do both.

So what? hold off the PSU till that current one dies..

If the DELL can't cut it, it'll just die from being overdrawn in wattage. If you're gonna replace it might as well let it die.

You should really know better than that. Dying PSUs have a tendency to take everything else with them, especially the worthless crap that Dell uses.

Wow. That is horrible advice. Not only is there a high likelihood of damaging other components when the PSU goes (especially with cheap-o models), but in the meantime the PSU will probably be under-volting everything else in the PC which can seriously reduce the lifespan of the parts.

Um a regular mainstream PSU will work in that computer. My aunts Dimension 4550 Power supply died, so I picked up a cheap rosewill plugged it up and it worked just fine, had to modify the case with a dremel to get the power supply to fit in the case with the switch on the back. Before you plug it up compare the wires of the main plug with the dell one to make sure it has the same color wire at each hole.

but you have to remember, dell doesn't stick to one exact motherboard / psu per model line. feature set will stay the same but how they get there can vary wildly.



this is one of those times I'd rather error on the side of caution than go leaping into this and make a mistake.