Recommend a graphics card to fit A2620?

[simrus]

I have a new Packard Bell A2620. I'd like to upgrade the graphics card.

By poking around inside the case I've determined that there is 250W PSU and that there is a full-height, but single width, PCI-E slot.

Can anyone recommend a graphics card, or point me to information on low-power single width cards?

I did find this page http://mark.zoomcities.com/images/gfx/GFXpowerchartby3d.png which provides information on power consumption. Unfortunately its very difficult to make use of the info. The data is provided in an image file so you can't search for a particular card, and there is no cross reference to information such as performance, size and price.

Thanks

simon

 

[xerxius]

i'm wondering the same thing here. I have the same computer and it's confusing as to which card I should buy to upgrade it. I looked on packard bell's own website and the area showing you how to upgrade this pc with new cards shows a different tower completely! a bit deceptive if you ask me.
all the cards I see claim to only require one bay in the tower but the heatsinks are so large they'll make the card take up two. and there's next to no room at the bottom of the tower to fit one of these cards.

anyone have any advice? thanks.

 

[simrus]

I did come up with a solution -

It drove me half mad trying to find an answer. The tech support at Packard Bell didn't know, nor did "The Tech Guys" that provide support for PCWorld. Lets simply say it was soon apparent that I knew considerably more than they did and they had no facility for getting info from someone that might be able to provide an answer. Anyhow...

The solution ended up being quite simple. The specs for a PCI-E slot require that it be able to provide 75W. So, if you assume that your computer meets the spec (turned out that was a reasonable assumption here), then all you need to do is find a card that draws less than 75W.

You'll find websites that list the power draw of different cards. The two decent (<75W) cards I identified were the ATI 4670 - but make sure you get one that fits as some of the "super-charged" ones have ridiculously large fans so they don't fit in a standard width PCI-E slot - or a nVidia 9600 GT. The former is faster but I went for the latter because I wanted to be able to use the stereo driver.

 

[xerxius]

thanks for the reply!
I was looking at cards like that. my only worry is that I will buy a card and it won't fit in the tower, since the PCI-E slot is at the bottom and the heatsink on the card faces down.
have you got your card and does it fit? thanks again!

 

[simrus]

Yes, its in the computer and working fine. If you want to get exactly the same part, I bought a

512MB XFX 9600 GT, PCI-E 2.0(x16), 1 £48.46

from Scan computers.

 

[xerxius]

thanks for the info! i think i'll get a 9600! did you also have a large wire at the bottom of the tower very close to the PCI-E slot? and was it any trouble getting it in to the slot? Sorry to bug you but the mini towers are always troublesome for upgrading and I don't want to spend money and have things go south