Updating the graphics card on a Lenovo i5 H520S PC with a 240W power supply

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janeholmes

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Apr 23, 2013
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I am being given conflicting advice about which graphics card I can buy for my PC which is a Lenovo i5 H520S. I know I need a low profile card because it is a slimline model, but am concerned that the power supply is only 240W and the cards I have looked at all say a minimum requirement of 300W. I have been given horror stories of computer's blowing up because the wrong card was installed. I have contacted Lenovo who were unable to advise because the support desk was for the existing machine and upgrading the graphics card is customising the machine. My son wants to be able to play games such as Battlefield 3 and Armour 3. He plays Armour 2 at the moment but complains that it lags and can only play it on the lowest settings.
Can any one help please.
 
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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Dec 10, 2012
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In research of your make/model PC, the power supply must be replaced to get the better cards. The power supply is unique to Lenovo, so you will have to replace it with the upgraded power supply from Lenovo. Their site requires both the model and serial number to look up replacement parts.

The major drawback to buy a non-standard ATX case is the parts required for replacement aren't readily available except through the manufacturer....
 
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janeholmes

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Apr 23, 2013
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Thank you for your answer, but I am now more confused than ever. Other advice suggest I need to increase the power supply -who do I believe? I have gone onto the link you provided and unfortunately this is a USA website whereas I am in the UK. I can't find a website in the UK that sells an identical card although Amazon .co.uk do have a very similar one called Sapphire 11202-10-20G AMD RADEON HD 7750 1GB DDR5 LOW PROFILE GRAPHICS CARD. Forgive my ignorance but is this same card but with a different manufacturers number? I am still concerned as one website says I need 400W of power and even 500W to use certain parts. Is this safe?
 
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rwpritchett

rwpritchett

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Mar 17, 2006
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That is the same card on Amazon.co.uk. There's also a VTX3D low profile card you can find on Amazon.co.uk that would work.

Officially, AMD lists the card as needing a minimum 400W power supply. They do that to cover their @$$ for #1 junk power supplies that do not put out their advertised power and #2 people who plan to install the card in a system with a 130W Pentium D already and a bunch of hard drives running at 300W at idle. A newer sandy bridge based computer like your lenovo is not going to draw much power.

I have the 7750 card that I linked and I run it on a 150W power supply with only 10A on its +12V rail. I have measured the system power draw from this card using a power meter and the whole thing stays under 100W most of the time. The card pulls 43W maximum (source), and therefore needs to pull about 4 amps from the +12V rail.

Read through the Newegg reviews from my first link. There are several people running that card on power supplies ≤240W without having issues.
 
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G

Guest

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I'm in the same boat as the original poster, but am not looking for gaming ability, just better streaming video quality than Intel HD2500. And I don't want to spend $100 for it. So in my case, what about this card?

> SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 5450 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102882
 
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