graphics card upgrade

samuri1983

Honorable
Sep 8, 2013
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Hi I hope somebody may be able to help me. I am trying to upgrade my pc and am having abit of trouble to find out if the graphics card that I want to get is compatible with my computer. My system is a Dell Precision 690 Workstation. 0MY171 mobo. It currently has 1 Intel Xeon 5060 processor 3.20Ghz, 4GB of RAM and a Geforce 8800GTX 512Mb GPU and a 1Kw PSU. I am upgrading it to have a second Intel Xeon 5060 processor 3.20Ghz, an additional 16GB of Ram bringing it up to 20GB and want to change my GPU to a Geforce GTX 660. Will the GTX 660 be compatible with my system?
 
It'll work just fine. That board has a 16x PCI-E slot and with a 1000w PSU you'll have no trouble with the Dual Xeon's, 20GB RAM and a 660.

Since any 660 will be compatible with that system, I would recommend choosing a non-reference version to make sure the card stays as cool as possible in that case.

Something like this would work great: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125443
 
Solution


Sure, no problem. Reference refers to the design of the cooling system on the GTX 660. Here is an example of a reference design:

660_2GB_sm.png


This is an example of a non-reference card. As you can see the cooling system is completely different:

index.php


Since you're using a Dell workstation case I would recommend going with a non-reference design to keep the card as cool as possible. The cost is the same but the cooling performance will be much better on a card like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125443 I hope this helped!