Upgrading graphics card / PSU

First you will NEED to upgrade the psu to get any serious card in there....now lets point out that we don't have a budget nor resolution...

AND other then i telling you that you will need a new psu you can find the rest of the info in google or search here....but that would be to hard wouldn't it....

Do you have to be an ass to everyone?

@ justant: This is a bit long but should help you out on the PSU questions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_power_supply

Do not worry about the PCI-E version, unless you want to install a massively powerful card it is not a problem, the slot has more than enough capacity.

Without changing the PSU, a GTS250 or 9800GTX+/GTX would be as much as I would recommend from Nvidia or a HD4850/4770/4830 from ATI (all from high to low).

So if I've read the info on the PSU (and another page on supply rails), then the most important bit I need to know from the info on the side of the PSU is this line:

Max combined power on +12V (a,b): 165W

The nvidia site states this for the GTS 250
Maximum Graphics Card Power (W) 150 W

Or do I need that power on a single rail? (I don't have anything in the second PCIe slot on the m/board)

It's the one HP provided. If the 2 CPU rails are unusual then it's probably cos of the 2 physical CPUs (rather than 2 cores) which you don't see much these days!

Thanks for the very fast replies everyone, I might be able to order for delivery tomorrow

GTS250 arrived this morning... and needs 2 PCIe power connectors, but my PSU only has one.

Currently searching for places which sell old PC components in the hope of finding something useful to sort out the PSU issue (most modern PSUs don't have the right connectors for a dual xeon system)

I saw this thread a little too late to help Justant, but thought I can at least give the information I know to anyone else thinking of installing a mainstream graphics card, or upgrading the PSU of an xw6200/8200. I have a few of these xw6200’s, they are old now, but I mainly use them for network rendering in 3ds max, not for gaming, I have newer systems for that. They are designed for professionals like 3d artists and engineers, so they are more comfortable with a fireGL or Quadro card inside them, but have a lot of problems running mainstream video cards, especially new ones, possibly because of the bios and weak PSU. As for upgrading the PSU, that’s a big NO for installing a mainstream PSU. The xw6200’s PSU is specially designed for the xw6200 and the 24pin connector does not have the same voltage pin outputs as a mainstream PSU. It also requires an extra auxiliary connector for the motherboard that does not come with standard PSU’s. If you really must upgrade the PSU, you are in luck, but at a price. PC Power and Cooling will modify one of there retail PSU’s with the extra harness you need for the auxiliary connector, I think for around $40 to $60 on top of the retail price of whatever PSU you choose e.g. silencer 750w, plus you have to pay postage which can be around $50 depending on your country location, so not sure if $160 for PSU, plus $40-$60 MOD, plus posting, plus the graphics card is really worth spending on an old machine. I was also tempted to convert one of the xw6200’s I have into a media/gaming PC, and I don’t see why it cant handle at least a hd4850 or gts250, but again the xw6200’s outdated bios, and poor 12v rail specs could be a problem. I noticed Justant brought a gts250 needing 2 x 75w pci-e power connectors. The overclocked gts250’s have 2, but the standard gts250’s only need one power connector. EVGA do a 1gb gts250 with only 1x 75w connector needed, and it has good performance compared to most other gts250s, including the overclocked ones. Anyways... Did Justant have any luck installing the gts250 in the xw6200? If not, I know some xw8200 owners have had luck installing hd4850’s in their machines, it has a 600w PSU though, but almost identical motherboard, chipset and bios to the xw6200, so may work but with a possible cost of loosing onboard audio.

PC Power & Cooling are the only company that will mod one of their PSU’S. I wrote to all the other manufacturers last year.

IF you do want to go down the road of ordering a custom PSU, the one I had designed was a PC Power & Cooling silencer quad 750w. I checked the schematics first from the xw6200 tech documentation and sent PCP&C the specs, and they came back to me in just a few days with the drawn up specs. The part number is S75B-PS1. It has one pci-e 6 pin power connector and one 8 pin break away power connector, so you should be able to put almost any pci-e graphics card in there. Plus it has the modified pin outs for the 24-pin motherboard connector and the extra harness auxiliary connector, PCP&C may not have the specs anymore as it was last year, but I have the schematics PCP&C sent me, so if anyone wants to try this, just send me a PM and I will e-mail the schematics to you for PCP&C to use. I decided in the end not to order it, because it was not worth spending $290 for PSU I chose, which included MOD and posting, plus the new graphics card on top of that, and there was a very large possibility that after all this effort, the new card would not work anyway because of the chipset or bios issues, so left it alone. I have also heard that putting a graphics card that has built in 7.1 surround, disables the built in motherboard audio chip on a xw6200/8200, and that there is no fix other than putting in an extra audio card, that will put a little more strain on the xw6200’s outdated PSU. Hope that helps someone!

If anyone has had luck putting one of the latest mainstream graphics cards in the xw6200 without PSU upgrade, please let us know the exact card used, manufacturer P/N etc. Thanks!