New Graphics Card?

This is what I like about Dell: Manuals Online!

And pretty detailed.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xps410/en/SM_EN/techov.htm

As you scroll down, you'll see where they all connect, & you'll notice they're all made to plug in only 1 way (unless you're really forceful- which is bad)

Excellent.

Ok...I'm confused here.....I've been keeping my fiance informed about the puter issues (he's in Iraq) and he said "Rememeber I bought a nice 512mb card for that computer" So....I went to the Nvidia site cause I know for sure I had the GeForce7600.....but on the product listings it says the 7600 series is only 256mb.

So.....scratching my head here. I know the computer has 2G memory and SL ran like a dream with that card. So....shouldn't that dell be able to support the 8800 series card? My fiance doesn't usually goof on details like that, but if the Nvidia site says the 7600 is only 256, then I'm guessing they know.

I'm gonna go check out the Dell site now.... thanks for all the good info. I actually really enjoy learning all this stuff.....and I love the idea of being able to do it all myself.

There were 512MB versions of the 7600. A 7200 is in no way an acceptable replacement card. Especially not trying to run SL on it.

I'm pretty sure you can look up your computer's original configuration as it was sold to you on Dell's web site. They can tell from the service tag number on the case.

The 8800 is the current standard for all the latest graphics platforms, and upgrade your powersupply as well, because if it runs it marginally you'll get funky stuff happen and being as old as your card and done a lot of hours on SL it's probably ready to make horrible fan noises soon any way (waiting for his own 2yo powersupply to quiten down, on this weeks shopping list new PSU)

Thanks Tegg....the folks on the Dell forums are saying I don't need a new PSU to use the 8800 so now I'm totally confused. LOL My fan has been noisy off and on since I got the dam thing....initially I was told to simplify my start up (as usual when I got it it started up with every flippen program running...so it's pretty standard to eliminate most of that crap) anyway...that quieted the fan considerably.....basically to near silence.
Here and there she gets noisy....but most of the time seems to run smooth. I'm just trying to be well informed here. I could 'try' the 8800 without the PSU upgrade and if it's a bum deal...I can get the PSU.

Which 8800 card should I be looking at here btw???

I have a 7600 512Mb card here too, it actually used to handle SL in multiple mode better than my 8800 320Mb but of course cranked up in single account mode, the 8800 512Mb is the go, I regret not spending extra to get the 512Mb 8800 2 years ago.
Also 400w is minimum, I'd go bigger for sure, I put a 500w in when I added my 8800, and imediately found my UPS was no longer able to handle running it,
And while you are upgradding consider dropping a couple more RAM stick s on board too 2Gb would be my recommended minimum for SL if you want to be able to get the benifit of a high end graphics card.

I have 2gb of RAM already on that PC. It barely uses the memory it has.....it's been a good machine really....but now my fiance is getting all kinds of crazy upgrade ideas LOL stay tuned. LOL

An add-on question to the ongoing graphics card debate: given that SL involves shunting a lot of textures, is a big chunk of graphics memory more useful than being able to render a lot of polys? And if so, how do some of the 1Gb cards, like a 9600GT/9800GT compare to the similarly priced 8800 cards?

Edit: And does SL still hate ATi cards, or given the recent hassle with NVidia drivers, are they an even bet now?

Also be careful with Dell's some of the old ones in the 90's used to have PSU's that looked like normal PSU's with normal plugs but the the voltages were swapped on the output pins, so using another brand could blow up your motherboard or using a Dell powersupply on a Non-Dell motherboard would do the same.
I recently tried SL on a friends 6200 256Mb with only 1 Gb of ram, and a 1.5GHz processor, it seem to handle SL fine at lower resolution,
I am now using a 9600 to replace by dead 8800, and really I don't see a great deal of difference.

That's a question that's getting tougher and tougher to answer as SL continues to evolve. If you're looking at a scene with a lot of sculpties in it, or a lot avs with flexi hoochie hair, etc., the you're gonna need to crunch a lot of polygons at speed to mantain decent frame rates. But textures will likely always be easier to abuse than poly counts, so I'd say memory will probably always trump processing power, if you absolutely have to choose one or the other. Really, though, the only good answer to say both. Get a card that has a good amount of memory AND a good GPU in it.


Processing wise, the 9800M GT is virtually identical to the 8800M GTX, and the 9600M GT is almost exactly the same as 8700M GT. (I assume you're talking about mobile cards, since there's no such thing as a 9800 GT without the M.) The main thing that separates the 9 series from the 8 series is newer manufacturing techniques and lower power consumption. As far as actual performance goes, there's little to no difference.


ATI still doesn't follow certain OpenGL standards, so the answer is yes. You can still run SL on ATI cards, though, just not as well as on nVidia (recent driver issues notwithstanding).

Dont get an ATI card sl graphics are written for nvidia
on the nvidia get a min of 9800 it will run real time shadows really good the 8600's will but barley anything lower wont and max the memory ya can.
evga and xfx make some killer cards with evga being the better of the 2.

Thanks for all the advice; it's set me straight on a few things, and confirmed my suspicions about the NVIDIA/ATi debate.



I'm not so sure about this though. None of the cards have an 'M' or 'mobile' in their specs, but they are certainly listed as 9800GT and are full-size cards for a tower machine. I've seen a variety of that model from several suppliers including Gainward, XFX, Inno3D and Asus. This one http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150574 among others.