Gary said:
Please direct me to a better place to post this if I am in the wrong place.
I have a Dell 4700 with pcie and need to get the fastest card possible to
work on this board. I've searched all over and can't get a difinitive
answer. Without regard to power supply can someone give me a recomendation?
Well, on the one hand, chances are good that the "fastest card" will plug
in and fit the video card slot. But there are a number of issues around
the fit, that may make it less than practical for you.
Depending on what you're going to do with the card, your processor could be
the rate limiting component. This article is old now, but they did some
benchmarks to compare graphics cards using a slow processor and a fast
processor. The slow processor erodes the level of performance to be
expected. If you're spending $400 for a card, and the processor helps throw
away $200 worth of performance, then you may be less than completely
satisfied. Can you still use the "fastest card" ? Yes. You can treat
it as an investment, where your next PCI Express computer will be able
to get more from the card.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vga-charts-ii,579-6.html
So let's say, for the sake of argument, you get the fastest card. First
thing you'll likely need, is another power supply. Everything looks
standard on this supply, except the connector labeled "P4". it is a
2x3 connector with GND, GND, 3.3, 5, 12V on it. That is similar in
concept to the "Aux" connector on supplies many years ago, except
I don't have any connector like that on my ATX supply. Your first
research item, is checking where "P4" goes and seeing whether the
loads on there are "optional" or not. The voltages might be used,
for example, in some kind of "drive bay", as a power source. If you're
not using whatever "P4" powers, then that is one less thing to worry about.
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4700/sm/techov.htm#wp1052362
OK. I found this picture, and I see that "P4" isn't being used. That is clever
So you don't really need to get a supply with that 2x3 connector on it,
if this picture is accurate and matches your machine. Looking at the power
supply casing, it looks like an ATX supply. ATX supplies have two dimensions
standard, plus a particular four hole pattern for the screws that hold the supply
in place. Many computer cases will also have a feature, like a "rail" or
a "shelf", to provide some support for the supply, so the screws don't have
to hold all the weight. You'll notice that in this picture, if you make
the replacement supply too long (the "variable" dimension on ATX supplies),
the supply could bump into the connectors on the back of the optical drive.
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/7017/dell4700inside.jpg
"Fast cards" tend to be around 10" long. Sometimes the power cables on
the video card, make the card even longer. To give some scale to this,
your microATX motherboard is 9.6" long, so the "Fast Card" will extend
past the edge of the motherboard. I think ATI cards put power connectors
on the end of the card, while this card puts the power connectors upward.
In actual fact, this card is 27cm long or 10.6".
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gigabyte-gf-gtx400_4.html#sect0
The card is going to cover the connector on your motherboard, that
connects to the control panel. You'll have to check whether that cable
assembly fits flat enough, such that the video card doesn't bind on it.
Flat out, the GTX 480 draws 262 watts. In that article, they used an
Enermax 620 Watt supply while doing their review. The card draws
power mainly from 12V rail(s). It draws 2.7A through the video card
slot connector (which in turn, is powered by the two yellow wires on
your 24 pin main power connector). That isn't a significant load.
You could use a lesser supply than that Enermax, but by the time you find
a supply with enough PCI Express video card connectors on it,
you'll likely be above 500W capacity. It won't be using 620 watts
all the time - the power number is the upper limit for what it
can provide on the output when under stress.
The two PCI Express video power connectors are a six pin and an eight pin.
You'll need to check that the replacement supply, has matching connectors.
Some supplies come with more than one eight pin PCIE connector, where
two pins on the end slide off to make a six pin PCIE when one is
needed (that is a 6+2 connector). The six pin connector supplies 6.2A max
in this case, while the eight pin PCIE provides 12.8 amps. So that is
19 amps on the end connectors, and will likely be coming from a separately
labeled rail on the power supply. (Your existing supply has a combined 12V
rail limit of 19A, which is why your current supply must be replaced. There
is no current left to run the processor
Only enough for the monster
video card.)
In this example, the card is a double slot width. That means it will
likely interfere with the two adjacent PCI slots. Whatever cards
are in those slots, will have to come out. You remove the second
card, so the air intake on the video card is not compromised.
Exhaust air, goes out through the holes in the second slot faceplate area.
This is a good thing, since recirculating 262 watts inside your tiny case,
would turn it into a furnace.
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-121-373-Z02?$S640W$
A 5970 has power connectors on the end of the card, making the 10"
issue even worse.
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-125-303-Z03?$S640W$
The 5970 uses the same cooling concept, of putting the exhaust air
out through the second slot.
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/14-125-303-Z02?$S640W$
If the card dumped the hot air back into the computer case, you'd need
enough case cooling capacity, for the video card power and the processor
power dissipation. To give an example of the formula for that,
if we had an 80 watt processor and a 260 watt video card, that would be
340 watts heat load. To keep the air temperature rise inside the computer
case at 10 degrees Fahrenheit above ambient, we'd need
CFM = 3.16 * Watts / Delta_T_degrees_F
= 3.16 * 340W/10F = 107 CFM
The purpose of the 10 F case air temp rise, is to try to keep the
hard drives at a decent temperature. If your hard drives were external,
like ESATA, perhaps you could afford to let the case temp climb.
Some Dell case fans are rated to deliver that kind of airflow, but
the noise level would be out of this world. It would be like
a vacuum cleaner. Since the video card dumps most of its heat
through the slot vent, then we no longer have to cool 340W, but
some lesser number above the sample 80W processor number. So there
is no need to panic about case cooling quite yet. When you see that
"slot cooler" concept, 100% of the air doesn't go through that
hole, and some air leaks into the case and recirculates. So some
proportion of the 260W figure, could be contributing to computer
case heating.
I picked a power supply at random, for your upgrade. This one is
a single rail 12V output, meaning no lost capacity due to the output
being split into separate rails. A potential downside to this
kind of design, is the 12V output is like an arc welder, and in
a fault situation, could "make smoke". Internally, the power
supply will have overtemperature protection (so it is protected),
but something burning on the motherboard (accidental short circuit),
may not trigger the overcurrent (i.e. >52 amps). So the power supply
could easily cook something, given a chance. I have yet to hear any
interesting stories, of a "Three Mile Island" involving supplies of
this type. I've seen a picture of one motherboard that was charred,
but it was burned using an "ordinary" supply, with lower overcurrent
ratings. So I'm still waiting for an amusing tale involving a TMI
from a single rail monster supply.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005
+3.3V @ 24A, +5V @ 30A, +12V @ 52A, -12V @ 0.8A, +5VSB @ 3.0A
This is the original HP spec for comparison. Computers don't draw significant
power from -12V, so the rating of that rail is not too important.
On one of my previous motherboards, only the RS232 level shifter
chip for my serial port, used -12V (a TI GD75232 chip, which doesn't
use charge pumps to make its I/O voltages).
+3.3V @ 17A, +5V @ 22A, +12V @ 19A, -12V @ 1.0A, +5VSB @ 2.0A
That supply is a bit on the long side, so you'd take a ruler,
and the length dimension from the Newegg page, and compare to what
you find inside the computer case.
Anyway, that is a brief intro to "fitting a video card", to give
you some idea what to watch for.
In terms of video card drivers, support for Win2K is very thin,
and WinXP is really the minimum OS to consider. It pays to
keep an eye out, for advanced warnings that driver support
is going away. Microsoft is doing their best, to shuffle
the older OSes off into the distance (subtle incompatibilities,
or software that is no longer offered for their older OSes),
so that is always a consideration when shopping for your
video upgrade.
That Xbitlabs article should have enough benchmark results,
to help you choose a card. I picked the GTX 480 as an example,
purely because of its status as a power glutton.
I don't feel a P4 processor is enough for a card like that,
but who knows, maybe you're a CUDA or GPGPU guru, and
want the card for its computing capabilities. So I can't
pre-judge how useful the card is going to be. What I can
tell you though, is you'll feel the effects on your power
bill and in terms of heating up the air in your room
The GTX 480 runs the GPU at 91 C, so it'll make a nice
cup of hot coffee for you
As always with the high end cards, you can find versions
with water cooling plumbing. For example, this one runs
the GPU at 42 C, when the water is flowing through it. But
then you'd need to read up on how to set up a water cooling
system without leaks, to be able to complete your build.
http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/14-130-561-02.jpg
One other tiny word of warning. The last Nvidia card I bought,
has a software controlled fan on it. If I boot a Linux LiveCD, the
video card fan runs 100% speed for the entire Linux session. For
me to stop it, I'd have to install Linux on a hard drive, install
the tainted Nvidia driver, install a tweaker program, which controls
fan speed, and then I could stop it from doing that. When the
computer first starts, while sitting in the BIOS, the fan runs
100%. Once the Windows driver is running, the fan drops to 20%
speed.
I got so pissed off at the poor engineering, that I "fixed" the
fan speed at 20%. I can do that, because I benchmarked the card
and determined how much fan it would need under all circumstances,
and 20% was enough. At least now, I can boot Linux, and the fan
doesn't make a peep. It spins at a constant 20% now, no matter
what I do. If I need a different speed setting, then 10 minutes
work with the soldering iron, and I can select some other speed.
I didn't bother with a knob to set the speed, because I don't plan
on playing with it all the time. I selected a fixed voltage drop,
to give the desired fan speed.
I don't recommend doing that with the GTX 480, because
it's "on the edge" as it is. If I were to fix the fan speed,
I'd have to leave it in "noisy mode" all the time.
HTH,
Paul
