Dell Precision 490 Graphics Card Upgrade

i think nvidia requires to run their cards on 8x gen 3.0 (16x gen 2.0) to function. that is probably your problem - that you have a 16x gen 1.0 slot.

it is backwards compatible, yet its nvidia's problem that doesnt let you run the card in your PC. i don't think amd has that problem, so an amd card is a good choice. what is your CPU, and what is your budget for the GPU?

I had an hd 7770 (pci e 3.0) running on a pci e 1.0 slot and it worked great, so that should not effect anything. I would recommend a r7 260x. It is a slightly slower than the gtx 750 ti, but it is also cheaper. It should work well with your computer.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Express-260X-Graphics-GDDR5/dp/B00GI2EZ7I/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1420842772&sr=1-1&keywords=r7+260x

+1; the R7 260X is not too bad at all.

No worries! Tell us how the build goes.

Hi - I have been trying to find an answer to a lag problem in Windows 7 64 bit with my Dell Precision 490 with Nvidia video cards. It has always had a small lag in menus since I got it used and put my dual monitor card in it. Here is the copy of the post I have been posting to various forums and tech support pages for Nvidia, Gigabyte, etc...



I have a Dell Precision 490 Workstation - I had issues with it
shutting itself off very frequently. It was strange, it could work
all day no problem. I would come down in the morning, and it might
be shut down, or I try to log in, and it shuts down. When I try to
restart it, it starts, then dies, sometimes before the POST test can
even really start. Other times about 10 seconds in, and sometimes
even after I've logged in and just started working. It barely ever
shut down after that. I could work all day no problem. I have a
128Gb Kingston SSD drive as a boot drive, and a 1 Terabyte Seagate as
another for data. I tried swapping both (I don't feel bad about
spending the money on these, they were over a year old, it's nice to
have spares lying around). Neither made a difference.

Another issue I was having was basically a worsening of what I was
used to. For some reason when I set this computer up (Windows 7 Pro
64 bit, btw) it always had this short little lag in places, like pull
down menus would take a second in some browsers.. I use Explorer ++
as my file manager.. and usually when I start browsing directories
the second level I get to hangs for a couple seconds.. I thought
nothing of it, it's been doing that all year and other than that the
system is very speedy, I handle multiple large PDF files at a time
with ease...

Lately the pull down menus take much longer

I bought a new video card. I had an nVidia 8400GS handling two
monitors. I put in a Radeon 240 with 2Gb. I didn't like the
software and for some reason I couldn't get it to work with my two
monitors, and my DVI-VGA adapter has some extra pins that won't fit in
the ATI...
Despite this my system started working great! No crashing, and for
once my pulldowns were instant...

I picked up a GV-N730-2GI (Gigabyte nVidia 730 2Gb) and tried that..
The software I am used to, everything worked great.. But now I am
getting the hangs again. Has anyone heard of this? I'm not a gamer,
I use my pc for work, for browsing, for logging into work sites,
managing sometimes large pdf documents, etc... I just want speed and
reliability..

It's obviously an nVidia thing since two cards so far apart in quality
exhibit this.. or just an nVidia incompatibility with my system?
Maybe just a simple setting somewhere? I use to be in hardware for
many years but I dropped out of that business over a decade ago.. lol
- I just want it to work now...