Looking for AGP 2x/4x 360 watt power supply card

[WilliamKF]

Hello,

I am looking to upgrade my original AGP card that came with my Dell Precision WorkStation 450. I would like to get the best card available that my current system can handle. I have 1.5 GB of memory and two 2.4 Ghz CPUs with hyper-threading enabled on each. I believe it has a 360 Watts Power Factor Correcting (PFC) power supply.

It appears the best card would be an HIS Hightech H385F512ANP Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 8X HDCP Ready Video Card available from newegg. However, I am concerned about my power supply. It appears this card wants 450 Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express®. I don't have any six pin connectors and the supply is only rated 360. I believe you can get an adapter to take two 4-pin power connectors and make a six pin one. However, the wattage would still be too low.

What is the best AGP 8x card I could get given the power supply limitation of 360 watts?

Thanks.

-William

 

[janxta]

You may be able to upgrade to a nvidia 6200 card for around 40 USD from newegg. They only require a 300 watt PSU.

 

[coozie7]

For what purpose?
AGP is getting old for games but this has just been released:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125281

It might be a little slower than the 3850 but then again it draws only 50W at full load, and it's cheaper.

And accodrding to Dell, your system has a AGP Pro slot, which is longer than normal but standard cards will fit and work normally.

 

[WilliamKF]

This would be for gaming purposes (such as running Guild Wars or Spore).

Note that I already made the mistake of getting this PCI card but it seems no better perhaps due to bandwidth limitations of PCI?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187058

According to that newegg page, the above recommend GIGABYTE GV-R465D2-1GI Radeon HD 4650 1GB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X requires:

"Minimum 400W or greater system power supply." so I think that one is not okay.

So would an AGP pro card provide better performance? The only one at new egg is this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129096

Thanks.

-William

 

[bsecksmonster]

Lol get a new computer is all i have to say
good luck find an AGP card these days.

 

[edeawillrule]

Geez you people and your dinosaur AGP systems.
Get a new pc!

 

[AKM880]

Woah! The 4650 in AGP!

 

[mikeymcmk]

i have the same system as WilliamKF
i am also looking for a better graphics card.
Dell recomended these AGP graphics cards

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?q=agp

but they did say get in touch with the manufacturar and see which are compatible with the 360Watt power.

hope this helps.