Upgrade Video Card for E310

[Cronus]

Hey all. I've been reading through the last thread on video cards for the Dell E310, but most of the cards aren't carried by NewEgg anymore. Basically I have a fairly base model 310 with very minor upgrades. I've been looking through NewEgg for a video card, but I don't want to buy the HIS130 cards because the comments say that's it really can't handle any 3d graphics. That being said, the games I'm looking at use a fair amount of 3d, like Rome: Total War and I'm thinking about getting Age of Empires 3 and maybe Company of Heros. I've been looking at possibly getting this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161079 I know it wastes to ports, but I don't plan on adding anything else to this pc. I also plan on upgrading to at least a 250W power supply. Is that the card I need to get or is there a better one? Finding a good card for a pci express x1 slot is extremely difficult.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

That's the best available for PCI-E x1 AFAIK. And I you will need at least a 350-400W PSU, since the PCI version requires 420W. I'm not sure about that though so wait for other replies. But it is the best card for PCI-E x1, that I'm sure of and will play those games acceptably well.

 

[nickslick74]

Looks like a decent card given your limited upgrade options. You can get a decent 400 watt psu for about $40 at newegg (look at the FSP models). One other thing to consider with the card you listed above is that it will use up to 256MB of your ram as video memory. This can hinder system performance, especially if you don't have much ram to begin with.

 

[Cronus]

Thanks for the replies. Like I told a buddy of mine, if I'm going to spend the money I might as well get the best I can cause it's going to be another year or two before I get another pc. As far as memory, I have a gig at the moment, but I'm also considering swapping one of the ram sticks for a 1G to give me 1.5G. My current on board graphics plays Rome pretty well, but when you get three or four large armies on the field, you can tell that it's straining to keep up. So, anything is an improvement. Again, thanks for the help and anything you guys can guide me with is appreciated.

 

[nickslick74]

If you swap the ram like that you may not (I'm not 100% sure) have your ram running in dual channel mode anymore. If this is the case then the extra half gig won't make much of a difference.

The new gpu and power supply will make a good difference though.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

That depends if it was running in dual-channel to start with.

 

[Cronus]

I couldn't really tell you if it's dual channel or not. I can tell you that there's only two ram slots and both tabs are white.