ilie

my computer is a dell DIM4400 with


Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 1700 MHz (17 x 100)
Motherboard Name Intel Pendleton D845PT (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 2 DIMM, Audio)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Brookdale i845D
System Memory 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type AMI (03/14/02)

Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (64 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400


what's the best VD out there that i can upgrade my comp with?
thanx

ilie

i've looked around and decided to get a Asus geforce 6600GT how do i know if my PC would be able to handle it

ilie

not necessarily Asus

UncleMacro

Your motherboard uses the Intel 845 chipset which supports AGP 4X video cards at 1.5 volts. It's compatible with all but ancient AGP video cards so you could add a card which is much faster than a GeForce 6600GT. But your CPU is a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 which isn't the fastest CPU in the world. If you're considering playing games, your CPU will be the bottleneck so there's no point in getting a super fast video card. I think a 6600GT is about the fastest video card you should consider. A 6600GT will work fine in your motherboard although it will run at AGP 4X instead of AGP 8X. Running at AGP 4X instead of 8X only slows it down a few percent in real life so that's not a problem.

However, your computer has a 250 watt Dell power supply which may not be able to handle a 6600GT. You should open the case and take a look at the sticker on the power supply to see how many amps the power supply can deliver at 12 volts. You're likely to be looking at a pretty low number (less than 10 amps) for the 12 volt rail.

Dell power supplies don't have the highest wattage ratings but they tend to rated pretty conservatively so it's possible that it could work fine with a 6600GT. But the computer may be unreliable with a 6600GT and your 250 watt supply. The only way to know for sure is to try. Fortunately, a Dell Dimension 4400 uses standard ATX power supplies (some older Dells use non-standard power supplies) so you could get a new one if you have to. If you want to play it safe then getting a new power supply would be a very good idea.

ricer333

What the last poster said is all true. I just went through the same deal, actually ended up spending a lot more money than I should have to update the entire system, but it was a good experiment and experience. Anyways, give the card a try. I have an older Dell with a 200W power supply and it's powering everything fine (as to the best of my knowledge). I have 2 optical devices, 2 HDD, Radeon 9000 card, Zip drive, floppy drive, ethernet card, and an older modem still in the PCI slot.

As you can tell, I have a lot in this computer as far as devices. So far haven't seen anything resembling power outages... although I don't know what one would look like or how to tell if everything is getting enough power. But until it fails, or I hear otherwise, I'll stick with it all.