Dell E510 and radeon x1600

What's your PSU? I have a dell E520 setting around, and I upgraded the GPU of that to a 7600GT. Although I've heard it can handle the 7800GT and 9600GT just fine. (not sure about the 7950 since it requires extra power calbes)

The e520 has a 300watt PSU. What is your PSU?

sorry but how do you find our PSU... added the that was it is as well... am a bit blind when it comes to computers
cheers

the E510 comes with the same PSU as the E520.

Why the radeon X1600 xt? The card is rather old. You have a PCI-E x 16, get a 4650 or 4670 if you want to stay with ATI.

Open your case and read the specs.

The 305watt Dell PSU is pretty good, and should support many mid-ranged graphics cards. (you just need an adapter)

what exactly is the PSU though, like what does it mean/do and where inside would it most likely be.

what kind of adapter is that by any chance (like a power adapter that plugs in inside or is it like an adapter that means it can be pluged in to the slot, what should i be looking for... am currently looking at getting a Nvidia 8600GT 512MB DDR2 card would that need an adapter and also do you know if it would play Empire Total War

Power Supply Unit
What it does is pretty much self explanatory
Kind of hard to miss if you open the case

or you can simply check Dell's web site for specs

Power

DC power supply:

Wattage


305 W

Heat dissipation


1041 BTU/hr

Voltage (see the safety instructions in the Product Information Guide for important voltage setting information)


90 to 135 V and 180 to 265 V at 50/60 Hz

8600GT is crap. You can get much better cards with adapaters, and much better cards that don't even need adapters/power plugs.

No, If I remember correctly the 8600GT doesn't need a PCIe power adapter.

any chance of recommending one that would do the trick, just know absolutely nothing about this stuff so am a bit in the dark, sadly no position to break the bank though so found this one for around £10 (hopefully) could you recomend one and i can have a scout around...

For £10 it's not bad, it just wont play any new games reasonably. Older stuff like Half Life 2 and other games from 3-4 years ago will generally be playable on an 8600gt.

The bottom rung of real 'gaming' cards is the HD 4670 and that is gonna set you back £55 still. As cheap as graphics cards are getting, you still need to spend that sort of money at least if you want to game at any decent level with modern games. Anything less than a 4670 just won't cut it.

Also, check out ebay. If you really are stuck at the £10 mark you might just be able to pick up an x1950 pro for £15 mby, and that will beat an 8600gt in anything.

Yeh, 4650 minimum for playing recent games at 1280x1024 (no Crysis or Farcry2 though)...or maybe a 9500GT if it has DDR3

9500gt is basically the same card as an 8600gt. The 4650 isn't bad and it will game some games ok but there will be too many that just won't play acceptably on it imo.

to continue have about £30 now to spend on the card. Also could anyone point me in the correct direction for finding a better PSU as mine is only 250w, was looking maybe for 400w or above, is that a good unit or would i need better if i was looking for a better graphics card in about 4/5 months
cheers

two solid PSU for you to look at
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152505
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150985

what card are you looking at though? the 4650? It doesn't need 400w.

cheers, got the problem that my computer is a slimline one so only got about 90mm in width/ hight to play with.... both of these fit it i think but can you just confirm... it says 86mm height so am pretty sure.

was looking at this card but it says it needs 400watt or grater so was a bit annoyed when i found out mine was only 250watt, really low http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageN...

Niether of those will fit a "slim line" computer, you need TFX not ATX, and then the dimensions need to match.
What model computer ?

what delluser said, I did not know your PC was a slimline

I thought the E510 was a mini-tower. Are you sure this is not your case?
http://images.newsfactor.com/images/id/7673/dell-window...

no sorry mine is a 530s it's much slimer than that one and can stand either horizonatally or vertically hence my predicament with the height/ width thing... not sure which was would be the 'proper' one to take measurements from

ah, I mistook you for the OP. My fault.

Case measurements would do you no good, you need the psu measurements.
http://www.seasonicusa.com/tfx.htm
You may have access to higher wattage versions ( upto 450 watts I believe ), we don't here in the US.