decent agp card w/o extra power connectors, dell Workstation 450?

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prkfsz

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Feb 3, 2014
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Have a Dell Workstation 450 (dual xeon 2.6, 3GB ram, 120+300 GB IDE HDD, DVDRW + CDRW, 360 (or was it 380?)Watt proprietary non-upgradable PSU ). Had an original GPU that came with it and recently replaced it with a XFX 6200 256MB AGP, mostly cos i got it for free. Figured it's couple of generations newer, but not sure if it made a helluva difference, fact is it seems almost be performing worse on some internet pages.

I know the rig is old but i like the damn thing, been using it for couple of years, hade it up and running for months at the time and it's damn near undestructable, aside couple of 2 front USB ports that went numb.
Been searching the web for decent advices and this place seems to house ppl with best knowledge so i figured, what the hell, i might as well drop my question here.

The thing is i want to put a decent AGP graphic card in it. I don't play games, i want to be able to use the comp for hdtv, graphic processing (not extremely demanding), and such. I know 4670 is regarded as the best agp, but here (sweden) the only place i can get it it's like $200. (amazon sold out, newegg too and they don't even ship outside US), but that's not the only issue here. All the cards that seem to be worth something (4670, 4650, 3850..) appear to be requiring extra power connectors, which i understand mean increased load on the PSU. As i mentioned, my PSU is not upgradable. I know many say that those cards should work on a Dell PSU even at 360Watts, but i don't really want to mess with extra power connectors, especially since i can't find any extra molex plugs or any other ones on the mobo. So i'm wondering if anyone can:

1. recommend some decent AGP card for my configuration and for my needs, that does not require extra connectors. I could lose one HDD and the CDRW if necessary..
2. If it's not a good idea, then i'd appriciate some SIMPLE basic step-by-step how to-info on installing those cards that do require extra connectors.
3. am also a bit curious as to how much of a bottleneck the CPU would be in relation to those cards (the above mentioned 4650, 4670, 3850, or others you'll perhaps be suggesting.)
4. advantages of perhaps getting a second CPU (the mobo supports two), over getting another GPU? if it would perhaps work in combination with the GPU in question and the current PSU.

Perhaps i should mention that I am running winXP and probably won't be switching to win7 for perhaps a year or so, if i don't absolutely have to, cos i got all the stuff working as it should as it is and have no need for upgrading for now.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
 
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prkfsz

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Thanx for the reply! All the more since I know the questions on AGP are not so popular.
Know all about the AGP being pretty much obsolete and pricey, and the price itself is not necessarily a deal breaker.. More the limitations of the PSU and to preferably avoid the hassle with the extra power connectors..

So the main question would be if the card without the need for extra power would be enough for my needs. Not sure i see how that one you suggested would work. Like i said i have now XFX Geforce 6200 256MB and it lags fiercely when i try to watch for instance files in 1080p. And in all reviews i checked on how 6200 stacks up against FX 5500 you suggested, the 6200 comes out as a better card in most parameters. So 5500 would be a downgrade..

Checked out the 3450, but it too seems to require extra power connectors. And the required power 600w?!? FFS...
 
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hang-the-9

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A 3450 will run on a much lower PSU than a 600 watt, a 300 is fine. You can always get a splitter for the power if it needs it. 3450 is only a little bit faster than the 6200. Any AGP card that does not need extra power will be slow. The higher end older cards can handle 1080 resolution videos well, but they will also need a lot more power. The low power AGP cards are not only old but were slow when new which makes them REALLY slow compared to the needs of modern games and HD video.
 
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prkfsz

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ok, so it seems like i can't really get away from the hassle with the connectors. Then i migth as well go for some good stuff, so if 3450 is not that much better then the 6200, perhaps i should go for the one of those i had in mind from the beginning, the 4670, 4650 or the 3850.

hd3850 - it comes across like a one of the most competent agp cards, true? think I can get a good deal on the slightly used one for like $50, so perhaps i would go for that one, since i'm not sure the 4670 would be worth the $200 for me. but 3850 is supposed to be power hungry - like i said, i cant upgrade the PSU, will 360Watts be enough? and will it work on dell, i undestand dell machines don't really play well with all the other components.. a bit unsure about the physical size, and which one of those would fit? How do i know that?

Besides, I'm not really sure how the physical install would go, the power splitter you're talking about, and other connectors - i haven't really played with that stuff before, and there are no extra power connectors of any kind on the mobo. Does it mean l take a molex from one of the HDDs and split it to the GPU as well as the HDD? Do all the AGP GPUs have the same 4-pin connectors? Also curious - the lack of extra connectors on the mobo - does that mean one should avoid installing the new stuff?

And are the PCI-E cards equally power demanding as the AGPs?
 
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3850 uses about 100 watts of power so that may be a bit much for the power supply, but should be safe. If you can find a 4670, it uses almost half the power and will be plenty to help play HD movies.



The power to the video card does not go from the motherboard but from the power supply. If the power supply does not have any more power leads, you can unhook it from the DVD drive, connect the power splitter on it and connect it to the video card and DVD drive. Not all video cards have the same connection, some have a regular 4 pin molex as the hard drives, some have a smaller 4 pin connector like the floppy drive uses. The connectors on the motherboard don't have anything to do with what you can add, only the expantion slots.



The new video cards are more power efficient and the PCIe slot also can send more power to the card without additional connectors than the AGP slot.
 
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prkfsz

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ok, thanx a bunch, you just solved a lot of my confusion. :)
Still wondering tho if the size could be the issue, as i understand it could be sometimes (some cards are double size or whatever).. What to look for there and how can i know if there is enough room for the new GPU on the motherboard - is it just simply physical space, or do i have to have in mind other factors as well?

one more thing - should i consider upgrading to win7 from the XP? I often came across comments on radeon cards having issues with drivers, so considering the win7 is considerably newer i figure perhaps there are less driver issues?
 
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You do want to check if the card will fit, just open the case and look, the workstation cases are made to hold extra equipment and larger video cards, so just about any card should fit.

Going to Windows 7 may be a good idea for security, but you need to make sure the computer has Windows 7 drivers, just check with Dell support site, can find what drivers are available by your service tag number.
 
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