Graphic Card Help Please

[Swampus]

Hi, I’mhoping that someone on the forum will be able to give me some much neededadvice regarding a Graphics Card Upgrade.

I will tryto be as short and accurate as possible but basically a then new PC and cardwere recommended to us but when the new card was fitted it failed to work, wewere told after that, the new card was to powerful for the motherboard so wefitted a different card, which worked but as any PC gamer will know this is nownot up to what is needed for today’s games.

My son isnow desperate to upgrade his card once again but we don’t want to be in thesame situation again.

His currentPC is as follows,

DellInspiron.660 (bought in 2012)

i5-3330 CPU3.00 GHZ

Motherboard084J0R

Windows 8.1

We upgradedthe PSU to a XFX 650W

The cardthat he had bought but failed to work was a VTX3D BlackEdition Radeon HD 7870 (Tahiti LE) OC 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card [VX78702GBD5-2DHV3E]

The card that he currently has is Radeon 6870

The card that he would like to fit into his PC is EVGAGTX 970 SSC



Can anyone see any problems that we may come up againstfitting the EVGA card.



Regards Swamps

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi and welcome to SevenForums,
The evga card requires a 500watt power supply
If you have a 750 you should be fine like most gpu's you need some over head to power the rest of the machine/ monitor/...

So if you look at the power supply/ psu it will have a tag on it which will state what wattage it is
Post that info you might have to upgrade it as well to get a better gpu/ graphic's card to work properly

That is the first time I've heard that a card is too powerful for the mother board
Usually it would be too powerful for the psu.


For the record you're better off with a NVidia card than a AMD anyway
Which the AMD also requires a 500watt psu as well but the evga card will perform better

So yes you'll need to look into modular power supplies I would look at evga psu's in the above stated 750-1000w range and a P2
EVGA - Products - Power Supplies - Power Supplies - 850 Watts

 

[Swampus]

Many thanks for a quick reply, The PSU is a XFX 650W, so assuming that it is 650 watt, should I double check ?

Pic should be attached.

Swamps

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Well that isn't much over head to power the rest of the system 750 would be a minimum but the prices for 850P2 evga are pretty cheap well worth the investment
I wouldn't go more than 400w gpu with that psu

Heck you can get a evga 980 card if you have the power to push it and yes kids will push/ push/ push it

If you wiring to that psu has removable connections you're all set to hook it up with a new
If not the case would have to be rewired
Show a new picture of the wiring to the psu

 

[Swampus]

Hi,
Well that isn't much over head to power the rest of the system 750 would be a minimum but the prices for 850P2 evga are pretty cheap well worth the investment
I wouldn't go more than 400w gpu with that psu

Heck you can get a evga 980 card if you have the power to push it and yes kids will push/ push/ push it

If you wiring to that psu has removable connections you're all set to hook it up with a new
If not the case would have to be rewired
Show a new picture of the wiring to the psu

Hi again,
Am I correct in saying that you think that the PSU is under powered and I should have a minimum of 750 watt.

Regards

 

[ThrashZone]

Yes
I might be missing something on the mother board I'm not finding much info on it as far as how much power to the main rail is 12volts minimum is required for these cards.

So who ever said the amd card was too powerful might be correct ?
Wattage wise they are the same 500w

 

[ThrashZone]

I guess this is the psu you have now,
XFX P1-650X-XXB9 650W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com

12volts to the main rail but it only is a single so just upgrading it to a 850P2 will be better it will have 2
Deal might be you need 2 power connections to the new card instead of just 1 that this 650 psu has.

 

[Swampus]

I guess this is the psu you have now,
XFX P1-650X-XXB9 650W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com

12volts to the main rail but it only is a single so just upgrading it to a 850P2 will be better it will have 2
Deal might be you need 2 power connections to the new card instead of just 1 that this 650 psu has.

Hi and thanks for all your help, sorry for the late reply but it was time for work
The link above looks like his PSU and I shall see if we can find out anymore info on his motherboard.
I think the best we can do is to purschase both card and a new more powerful PSU and to take it from there.

Once again thanks for your advice and I shall post details as I said about his board & how we get on.

Regards Swamps

 

[ThrashZone]

No problem
I'm guess that is what the other fellow was referring to as not powerful enough,
He just said mother board and not psu
These cards have external plugs that go directly to the power supply so the mother board really doesn't supply much power to them
Cheers.

 

[Boozad]

Two more things to take into account. First is the case size, you must make sure that the card you're going ot buy will fit into the case. 970s are big cards and a manufacturer's aftermarket card may well be substantially bigger than the reference card.

Also it would be worth checking whether the CPU will bottleneck a high end card or not. I'm not sure of the performance of the 3330 but I'll look into it.

 

[Swampus]

Two more things to take into account. First is the case size, you must make sure that the card you're going ot buy will fit into the case. 970s are big cards and a manufacturer's aftermarket card may well be substantially bigger than the reference card.

Also it would be worth checking whether the CPU will bottleneck a high end card or not. I'm not sure of the performance of the 3330 but I'll look into it.

Boozad
Size has been what we have been looking at as when we tried to install the Radeon HD 7870 we had no end of problems as it was a tad large, we ended cutting out some of the internal casing to make it fit.
The EVGAGTX 970 SSC that he was wanting to fit is a similar size to what he has installed at the moment and we have 1.75cm's to play with still.
As for the CPU that's when we need the help of you guys as I can honestly say I don't have a clue, If it helps I can post the Tag/Service code for Dell so that you can see all the specs etc of the PC?


Regards Swamps

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yes please also measure the case as well
Height/ width/ depth

Anything for gaming usually it's worth looking into liquid cooling options which Corsair has some very nice plug and play cpu cooler systems
Best of all they take up very little room but do need one case fan position
Corsair website is out for me but here's a inexpensive one here,
CORSAIR Hydro Series H75 CW-9060015-WW Water/Liquid CPU Cooler 120 MM - Newegg.com

 

[Swampus]

I thought that i should update you with my sons card update.We fitted a Geforce GTX 970 4 GB card in the end, kept the same PSU. Poppedstraight in with no issues with the size. Card didn’t plug & play straightaway. Had a few issues but nothing major.
Basically card was found in devicemanager but not working, disabled onboard graph card but that didn’t help.
TookGTX card out to get onboard card working again, replaced GTX card for thesecond time and it decided to work.
Has been running for a week now with no problems at all.

One happy son and just want to say thank you to all thathelped.



Regards Swamps

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi good deal
Should of checked for windows update one for the new card might of showed up for a driver,
Refer to this in the future
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/327414-nvidia-drivers-avoid-problems.html

 

[Swampus]

Hi good deal
Should of checked for windows update one for the new card might of showed up for a driver,
Refer to this in the future
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/327414-nvidia-drivers-avoid-problems.html

We did, It didn't find one, infact it couldn't help us at all...
Think we downloaded from EVGA in the end.

Swamps

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Well you did the right thing removed and reinstalled
Game on