best video card for a DELL e510?

[slug420]

I am looking at buying a dell e510 since with the current 40% off coupon i can get one with a lot of crap i would like for the same price as just a cpu/mobo/ram combo from monarch..

the problem is I think they only come with crappy video cards...

can someone tell me how these cards compare to each other and to what is currenty available/needed for current games (like bf2) and how they compare to what i have now, a ATI 9800pro AIW



128MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X300 SE
256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X600 SE
256MB nVidia Geforce 7300LE TurboCache


does anyone have first hand experience with the dell e510? am I going to be able to fit in a "good" video card if i buy one after the fact?

thanks

 

[unbiased4u]

Actually, I think your 9800Pro is better than these. These are low end cards, so yours is better...

 

[angry_ducky]

A couple things:

1) Those are all $h!tty cards that'll be a downgrade from a 9800
2) If you want a new card for that Dell, you'll need a new power supply
3) Dell, HP and all other makers load the hard drive with bloatware which slows down the HD and also gives you nasty background tasks which suck up your system resources. The easiest way to eliminate bloatware is to format the drive and reinstall Windows.

 

[NumenorLord]

Yeah don't go with Dell. What is your price range? We may be able to help you out. I see that the E510 is $699 for a Pentium D 820, 2x512 mb DDR 533 Ram, and a 128mb ATI Radeon X300 with hypermemory. If you go to VigorGaming.com, you can get the "Hornet" model for $992, but it includes an AMD Athlon 64 3200+, an Asus A8N-E motherboard (so you'll actually be able to get even more performance out of your parts), 2x512 mb Patriot DDR 400 Ram (with undoubtedly much tighter timings, which is faster), and a 256 mb GeForce 7600 GT graphics card. It's up to you to decide if you want to spend nearly $300 more. I'd just have to say that you'd be a lot more pleased wih spending that much more for actually a pretty decent rig with the faster processor, faster Ram, better motherboard, and faster graphics card. I know that I'd go with Vigor over Dell any day. Besides, if you want to upgrade the graphics card, that will cost you like another $150 at least.

 

[angry_ducky]

If you're building, get the parts from newegg. Or wait a little bit for Conroe and AM2.

 

[slug420]

ok...here is my situation and my last few weeks....more info than you need im sure..

Saw a super deal on a 24" Dell LCD so i jumped on it, then the next morning amidst my buyer's remorse I saw an even better deal on 20"ws from dell so i bought a pair under the impression my 9800pro has one DVI and one VGA connection, and i returned the 24".

While waiting for the monitors to arrive....i am using my PC like usual and make one click and get my first BSOD in about 2 or 3 years. I reboot and "cannot find c:windowssystem". I didnt know if it was my HD that died or just the windows install, but didnt have a spare HD to install windows on (didnt wanna risk losing addtl data on my primary drive at the time) so I bought a new HD, and since I have suspected my power supply was a little on the weak side for some time and was not sure if the HD was in fact dead - possibly a result of inconsistent power from the PS- I bought a new PS in a new antec case with new fans (bunch of my fans had crapped out over time in my old case...really wanted to make sure whatever caused the problem IF it was a HD failure, was fixed before i put in a new one).

So now i have a new case PS and HD.

hook it all up with my new monitor and WOOPS, my 9800pro only has one dvi connector so I cant hook up both of my monitors.

I get one monitor hooked up with the new HD in the new case and im playing some games and cruising along and all of a sudden after about a week of use, my PC develops this tendency to do one of two things:
1) screen flickers and goes all screwy like, then recovers but PC runs super slow until I reboot it after that.
2) PC appears to die at random - monitor goes black and any audio stops indicating to me the cpu basically shut off (but power remains on as I can still hear all fans). PC must be pwoered off and back on again to recover. This also happened while installing sp2 on my new system so now it is completely hosed once again.

My friend and I were confident this was a hardware problem, is it my video card? #2 doesnt sound like it but #1 might be.....is it memory or mobo or cpu? I dont know, but I am running a mobo im not too happy with (no usb 2.0 or onboard firewire among other things). So i could spend money to get new memory, or a new cpu but if those werent the culprit then i need to buy a new mobo and i will have spent a pile of money on all old crap. So I figure my best option is to get a new CPU/Mobo/Mem combo.....but since I have an AGP video card and any decent new mobo, or mobo worth buying is going to have PCI-E, I also need a new video card - and one with dual DVI while im at it....

SO here I thing myself looking at monarch where I usually buy my stuff from and a AMD x2 3800+ with some random mobo, 2 gigs of ram, is around 650-700, plus a video card with dual dvi that is better than my 9800 so thats 200-300 im looking at almost 1000 bucks.

I have this 40% off coupon for dell desktops over 999 (except for xps). So for like 700 i could get a dual core pentium 2.8 gz, with 3 gigs of ram, new HD, all the usb and firewire connections i need, dual DVD drives (could really use a DVD-writer/reader) not to mention a valid copy of windows that would make for one less headache......but the video card sucks!!

so i have no idea what to do now but i need to do something....

I wasnt planning on spending ANY money other than the new monitors so i want to keep the cost down if possible, but at the same time if im buying all new crap its gonna have to be noticably better than what i have now....

 

[angry_ducky]

The 7900GT is a dual DVI card for 300 bucks. So is the X1800XT.

 

[angry_ducky]

ok...here is my situation and my last few weeks....more info than you need im sure..

Saw a super deal on a 24" Dell LCD so i jumped on it, then the next morning amidst my buyer's remorse I saw an even better deal on 20"ws from dell so i bought a pair under the impression my 9800pro has one DVI and one VGA connection, and i returned the 24".

While waiting for the monitors to arrive....i am using my PC like usual and make one click and get my first BSOD in about 2 or 3 years. I reboot and "cannot find c:windowssystem". I didnt know if it was my HD that died or just the windows install, but didnt have a spare HD to install windows on (didnt wanna risk losing addtl data on my primary drive at the time) so I bought a new HD, and since I have suspected my power supply was a little on the weak side for some time and was not sure if the HD was in fact dead - possibly a result of inconsistent power from the PS- I bought a new PS in a new antec case with new fans (bunch of my fans had crapped out over time in my old case...really wanted to make sure whatever caused the problem IF it was a HD failure, was fixed before i put in a new one).

So now i have a new case PS and HD.

hook it all up with my new monitor and WOOPS, my 9800pro only has one dvi connector so I cant hook up both of my monitors.

I get one monitor hooked up with the new HD in the new case and im playing some games and cruising along and all of a sudden after about a week of use, my PC develops this tendency to do one of two things:
1) screen flickers and goes all screwy like, then recovers but PC runs super slow until I reboot it after that.
2) PC appears to die at random - monitor goes black and any audio stops indicating to me the cpu basically shut off (but power remains on as I can still hear all fans). PC must be pwoered off and back on again to recover. This also happened while installing sp2 on my new system so now it is completely hosed once again.

My friend and I were confident this was a hardware problem, is it my video card? #2 doesnt sound like it but #1 might be.....is it memory or mobo or cpu? I dont know, but I am running a mobo im not too happy with (no usb 2.0 or onboard firewire among other things). So i could spend money to get new memory, or a new cpu but if those werent the culprit then i need to buy a new mobo and i will have spent a pile of money on all old crap. So I figure my best option is to get a new CPU/Mobo/Mem combo.....but since I have an AGP video card and any decent new mobo, or mobo worth buying is going to have PCI-E, I also need a new video card - and one with dual DVI while im at it....

SO here I thing myself looking at monarch where I usually buy my stuff from and a AMD x2 3800+ with some random mobo, 2 gigs of ram, is around 650-700, plus a video card with dual dvi that is better than my 9800 so thats 200-300 im looking at almost 1000 bucks.

I have this 40% off coupon for dell desktops over 999 (except for xps). So for like 700 i could get a dual core pentium 2.8 gz, with 3 gigs of ram, new HD, all the usb and firewire connections i need, dual DVD drives (could really use a DVD-writer/reader) not to mention a valid copy of windows that would make for one less headache......but the video card sucks!!

so i have no idea what to do now but i need to do something....

I wasnt planning on spending ANY money other than the new monitors so i want to keep the cost down if possible, but at the same time if im buying all new crap its gonna have to be noticably better than what i have now....

Damn; that's one fu***ng long post .

 

[slug420]

hehe, i know. I have posted like 4 diff threads in the past couple weeks in the cpu and video card sectoins here each at a different stage of the experience i just described so i figured i would just lay it all out there and in hopes that you guys could guide me in the right direction.....im really bummed i cant get a good video card with the e510, that would be such an easy solution....I suppose I could move it all from the dell case and PS the the antec case and PS i just bought but i bet i would run into some dell proprietary headache along the way...

 

[slug420]

Yeah don't go with Dell. What is your price range? We may be able to help you out. I see that the E510 is $699 for a Pentium D 820, 2x512 mb DDR 533 Ram, and a 128mb ATI Radeon X300 with hypermemory. If you go to VigorGaming.com, you can get the "Hornet" model for $992, but it includes an AMD Athlon 64 3200+, an Asus A8N-E motherboard (so you'll actually be able to get even more performance out of your parts), 2x512 mb Patriot DDR 400 Ram (with undoubtedly much tighter timings, which is faster), and a 256 mb GeForce 7600 GT graphics card. It's up to you to decide if you want to spend nearly $300 more. I'd just have to say that you'd be a lot more pleased wih spending that much more for actually a pretty decent rig with the faster processor, faster Ram, better motherboard, and faster graphics card. I know that I'd go with Vigor over Dell any day. Besides, if you want to upgrade the graphics card, that will cost you like another $150 at least.

any advice?

 

[mr_fnord]

You can buy the cheapest video card option on that Dell and replace it with something off newegg pretty easily. You will never get SLI or overclocking from a Dell, though. The manual on Dell's site shows that it has a PCI-e slot.

The Dell will have the advantage of plug in, turn on. It also means that everything but your video card will have a warrantee from one place, and if you ever have strange problems like the ones you describe with your current system, Dell will troubleshoot the entire package and replace whatever part is broken (after you pull your vid card...).

Dells do not come with 600w P/S's so extremely power hungry cards might pose a problem. Generally you can drop in a 'typical' video card with no problems at all. Drop in a $150-250 video card and you'd have a decent setup.

If you want the maximum performance and customization, you will have to build it yourself. If you want fast and easy, the Dell is your pick.