My CPU dual core Xeon 1.6Ghz with 6gig of ram. all drivers come vNidia or for MS.
My experence with W7 is it's VERY graphic intensive. You need a mid range card with at least 512 meg memory. My 690 which i got for almost free is going to be a Win Home Server.
Ken
I'll entertain suggestions on a replacement.. I've considered a few ATI and at least one nVidia.
Can the P690 even support > 512MB memory? I'm working w/out benefit of coffee so might not be thinking clearly... put the first cup down on the Dell P690 Data Sheet and just happened to notice the "up to 512MB" text in the graphics card section.
Thanks again for the help
From Dell's siteP690 Product Details, the P690 has one or two PCI-e x16 slots (if you have the 1kw chassis), so it should support >512mb gfx cards. I didn't see the limitation of "up to 512mb" .. shrug.
edit: I checked wikipedia & Intels site for info on the 5000x chipset, and I didn't see 512mb limitation on the PCIs x16.
edit2: I did find out that the PCIe x16 has a limit of up to 150w supported.
edit3: Dang! for S&G I checked Dells site for upgrades & replacement gfx cards for the P690 .. the FX3450 sold there is $1149.99 USD!
Last edited by Joshatdot; 19 May 2010 at 17:01.
Not sure if the 6800GS is the same but, I'm using one of those on 7 pro 64 bit and manage okay scores with WEI.. I was using a pair of these with my older socket 939 which squeaked perhaps a bit more on the gaming graphics score but with current hardware I get 5.9 (graphics) and 5.1 (gaming graphics)
"almost" lol. What do I need to watch out for?
Is PCIe 2.0 compatible for example? I see a few of these at NewEgg that interest me. Most > 512MB say PCIe 2.0, which I one reason I'm asking.
Replacing the card to solve the Win7 64 bit problem is an option. I'd rather use the machine then deal with getting this to work.
Right now I can't get a WEI to complete using 64 bit with the latest (see a few posts back for specific) drivers.
One thing that was strange.... After using the drivers from nVidia site, via device manager I let it check for updates. It said my driver was out of date. The date according to the release notes (from memory) is 2-3 weeks ago. Since I'm still kicking tires until things are stable, I let device manager update. What I ended up with for a driver is from 2009.
I re-installed I I just pulled from nVidia to at least get back to where I was. I don't see this problem on the 32bit version of Win7 (again, same system, swap SATA C: disk.)
As for the 512MB memory limit, that's on the pdf data sheet I printed out. I'll scan it in if needed just to show.
I think I commented/responded to everything. As always, thanks to all for your help and education. I appreciate it. This is the first place I come for info. More often than not, never need to ask a question.
Time to pop something to get me through the root canal I just hadNo hurry to get back to me, I'm gonna be out (zzz) for the night.
As for you "512 memory limit" it my just apply to the 3400. You should be able to use any PCIe board listed comparable with W7.
Don't lose to much sleep about the WEI number. As long as it's above 2 Areo will work and that's all you need.
Ken
Things look OK with Win7 32 bit. But I want to use all 16GB of RAM.
On 64bit, the screen goes blank often. C-A-D needed to get the systems attention, then typically I need to "lock" the computer, then re-logon. Then move a window (i.e. task manager) to get the entire desktop to show.
I posted about this when I first installed Win7 (my initial joining this site.)
I'm looking at the FX 1800 w/7xxMB RAM (on NewEgg). It is PCIe 2.0.... I'm sure the card is backward compatible, but still am trying to educate myself on what I loose. Does all the memory get used for example? The FX 1700 cost more, but isn't PCIe v2.0. So that might be a safer bet.
Thanks
I went with the nVidia FX 580.... the system screams. NOT ONE ISSUE so far. Not even the slightest hint of a lockup or problem at all. My only gripe is the retail upgrade bs one is forced to go through to activate since XPSP3 is long ago gone to to re-format. But that's out of scope of this thread.
NO other mods to the HW described in prior posts, in sum this is pretty much a stock P690 with 16GB RAM vs. 4GB typically shipped.
Fresh install of Win7 64bit on a new 1TB disk (using just 500GB, the rest unallocated.) No need to find any driver from Dell or elsewhere.... every chip, pci card etc. detected from boot DVD (or magically found via install), including the FX 580 driver. One exception is the WinTV card (HVR-2250) which was dealt with just find via device manager finding the driver.
Note: the prior installs with the old video card did find the HVR-2250 the first time, go figure.
Thanks to all for your help. I hope this thread helps someone else not have to deal with any of these issues. My WEI is 6.4 for both video categories... low score is now 5.9 for the SATA disk. I would have just replaced the video card initially if I knew (vs. suspected)... and would have with an even higher end card.
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