Dell Inspiron 519 & Radeon HD5670 or HD4670

[thewebshark]

I'm wanting to know if a Radeon HD5670 will work properly in a Dell Inspiron 519. The Dell 519 came default with a 300W power supply, so I plan on upping that to a 500W power supply as part of my upgrade. But a Dell rep said that DDR3 was as high as I could go, and I wanted to get confirmation from some smarter people (Everyone who goes to Tom's Hardware)

The other option I was considering is a Radeon HD4670.

Please note that I am familiar with the differences of each of these cards and have already read the comparisons.

I'm just thrown by the info I received from Dell and want to confirm if a GDDR5 Radeon HD5670 will work properly in a Dell Inspiron 519, or would I need to get the GDDR3 Radeon HD4670 instead.

Any input/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Cardless in Phoenix

 

[COLGeek]

The memory on the video card has nothing to do with the type of memory the motherboard uses. With the upgraded power supply, your intended HD5670 will work just fine.

Good luck!

 

[purple stain]

I agree with COLGeek.The type of memory of the card has no impact at all on the system.The only thing that matters is what version the PCI-Expressx16 slot is.

With a 5670 you don't actually need to upgrade your PSU.Dell is one of the few PC companies that provide good PSU's with their PC's.I would suggest making sure you look for a 5670 that is 2.0.Try to stay away from 2.1 cards because they are known to have issues with 1.0 slots.

Do you happen to know the speed/version of your PCI slot?

 

[COLGeek]

The 519 is a PCI Express 2.0 system (as found on Dell's support site). A 2.1 or 2.0 card will have no trouble here.

Dell PSUs can indeed be okay, but I have had issues with some as well. As this is an older system, a new PSU with a new GPU is not a bad idea.

Still, as purple stank says, you should be okay with the old one. At least for a while.

 

[thewebshark]

Dell Inspiron 519 has one PCI-e 2.0 x16 slot.

It is my understanding that all the GDDR5 cards use PCI-e 2.1????

So, is a 2.1 card going to work in a 2.0 slot?

 

[thewebshark]

sorry, i didn't see the last reply from COL Geek when i was typing my reply to purple stank.

Thanks for the info.

 

[thewebshark]

so if I stay with the current 300W power supply then my better option would be to go with the HD5670 because it uses 61W....compared to the 70W that the HD4670 uses.

Does this logic make sense?

 

[purple stain]

Technically your PSU can support a 5750/6750 but it's much safer to go with a 5670/6670.Running a PSU at it's maximum rated wattage for long periods of time isn't a good idea.In the end it just wears it down faster.Going with a 5670/6670 is much better for power sake.

If your PCI slot is ineed 2.0,I couldn't find anything on Dells website about it,then I would suggest getting one of the newer models the 6670.The 6670 has improved clock speeds and more shaders making it an overall slighty better card but still uses the same amount of power as the 5670.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000048&IsNodeId=1&Description=6670&bop=And&Order=RATING&PageSize=20

 

[jaguarskx]

The Dell's 300w PSU will be fine for the HD 5670. Not only is it faster than the HD 4670, but it also consumes less power.

The HD 6670 would work fine too. It is about 10% on average faster than the HD 5670, but the lowest price seems to be around $75 after rebate for the HD 6670 vs. around $53 for the HD 5670. So you need to determine if spending the extra money is worth extra 10% performance.

 

[purple stain]

Isn't their increased DX11/Crossfire performance with the 6670?

 

[jaguarskx]

I believe XFire scales better in the HD 6xxx series, but I haven't really looked into it since I prefer a single powerful card solution.

 

[purple stain]

I also heard that too but someone told me that only the 68xx and 69xx series have the improved crossfire.All of the other cards in the 6xxx series are just relabeld with the exception of the 6670.

 

[thewebshark]

Thanks everyone. Your input has been very helpful.

I ended up ordering the following from Amazon...

Sapphire Radeon HD 5670, PCI-E 2.1 x16, 512 MB, 126-bit, DDR5 - 100287VGAL

Being shipped to me as we speak (or type).

I'll be setting it all up next week and report back how it goes after that.

Thank again!

Soon To Be Gaming In Phoenix