Video Card Upgrade

Bob C

Posts: 12   +0
Hi Guys, I am trying to upgrade an old DELL Dimension 9200 tower. I am running Win 7 and it currently has an ATI X1650 video card. I have recently been given 2 cards; the first is a BFG Tech GeForce 7800 series and the other (I think because I can not find any numbers that make sense) is an ATI 9800. My question is which one is a better fit? Do I need to find a driver and if so where?
Thanks guys and take care
 
Sorry guys, I was told these would fit but the connectors are different in length between the 1650 and the 2 cards I was given. What is the best card for me to purchase to replace the 1650? Again sorry.
 
Unless your X1650 has stopped working, I'd hold off replacing it - prices and availability of graphics cards are both very poor at the moment, and will remain so for a good while yet.

Out of the two that were given to you, the GeForce 7800 is a better card than your current X1650, but both it and the 9800 are older models than the X1650 (so not worth changing to).
 
Thanks for info neeyik. In the event that the 1650 fails would you have a suggestion as to what would be a good replacement both for performance and cost? Thanks again and take care
 
If the rest of the PC is from the same era, or older, as the Radeon X1650 is, then it may struggle to cope with a new card. This is because the likes of the X1650 didn't use much power, drawing everything it needed from the PCI Express slot it gets plugged into. This has a limit of 75 W -- if the card needs more than this, it needs to have additional power connectors applied to it, from the power supply unit (PSU) in the PC.

If the PSU in your machine doesn't have any (and they're in the form of 6 or 8 pin connector blocks), then you'll need to select a card that requires less than 75W. There are plenty to choose from but do note that anything new, or even just a few years old, will such a generational change from the X1650, you'll need to remove all traces of the previous drivers and get the very latest ones from AMD or Nvidia (depending on what brand you pick).

Good low power cards? Any of the following will do, as they are all enormously better than the X1650:

  • AMD Radeon RX 550
  • AMD Radeon RX 460
  • Nvidia GeForce GT 1030
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050

Compared to what one can get these days, the above cards are considered to be very low spec, but getting anything better will almost certainly require a completely new PC.
 
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If the rest of the PC is from the same era, or older, as the Radeon X1650 is, then it may struggle to cope with a new card. This is because the likes of the X1650 didn't use much power, drawing everything it needed from the PCI Express slot it gets plugged into. This has a limit of 75 W -- if the card needs more than this, it needs to have additional power connectors applied to it, from the power supply unit (PSU) in the PC.

If the PSU in your machine doesn't have any (and they're in the form of 6 or 8 pin connector blocks), then you'll need to select a card that requires less than 75W. There are plenty to choose from but do note that anything new, or even just a few years old, will such a generational change from the X1650, you'll need to remove all traces of the previous drivers and get the very latest ones from AMD or Nvidia (depending on what brand you pick).

Good low power cards? Any of the following will do, as they are all enormously better than the X1650:

  • AMD Radeon RX 550
  • AMD Radeon RX 460
  • Nvidia GeForce GT 1030
  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050

Compared to what one can get these days, the above cards are considered to be very low spec, but getting anything better will almost certainly require a completely new PC.
Also, the 9800 wouldn't work anyway... it's an AGP card. The Radeon X1650 is PCIe 1.0, cannot use AGP cards in it's place. The Geforce 7800 could be either one as it came in both flavors of AGP (with bridge chip) or PCIe (native).
 
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