Radeon HD 4850 OC 1GB on Dell 350W PSU

[evilsooty]

Hello everyone,

I was recently given a Dell XPS Studio 8100 (my parents’ hobby of entering every competition known to man finally paid off!) with the below specs:

Intel® Core i7 860
6GBDDR3
1TB 7200 RPM
350W PSU
GT220 1GB

The obvious weak links in an otherwise decent machine are the pathetic GT 220 and low PSU. I am hoping to upgrade to this Radeon HD 4850 IGB OC:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-radeon-hd-4850-1gb-gvr485oc1gi-review/1

Do you think it will run on 350W? I have read that Dell PSUs are well made and can handle more than their stated wattage. I also read that there is only one 6 pin connector available for the GPU when this card needs two. Are there any adaptors that I could get to solve this?

Here is a photo of the PSU:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48921551@N03/4481582520/sizes/l/

And do you think I will have trouble squeezing it in? Dell doesn’t seem to want people to upgrade considering the limited space:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48921551@N03/4480932607/sizes/l/in/photostream/

I will greatly appreciate any help that anyone can give. I am a complete novice at all of this! Hopefully my computer doesn't end up a smoking charred mess by the end of my tinkering.

Daniel

 

[rolli59]

It would be pushing it with that PSU it has about 25amps on the +12 volt rail. It is at least rated on continuous power so it might work but not recommended.

 

[evilsooty]

Thanks for your answer.

I am going to go with a 5770 as someone in another topic said that it has a lower power consumption than the 4850 and so should work on a quality 350w PSU.

 

[evilsooty]

UPDATE:

Bought the below 5770 and, apart from a little wriggling, it fit into my case without any trouble. After a few weeks it is still running fine, even with games like Crysis at max settings for several hours at a time.

http://www.provantage.com/msi-r5770-pmd1g~7MSTI0AW.htm