Upgrading a Dell Optiplex GX240

8879 Views 6 Replies 2 Participants Last post by emosun, Jun 6, 2008

dude101

Discussion Starter · Jun 4, 2008

I need to upgrade a Dell Optiplex small mini-tower computer to run Second Life decently (don't ask me why). The machine has a 4X AGP slot and PCI but no PCI-E. I'll obviously be upgrading to 1 GB of memory (the maximum it supports) but I'm concerned that the power supply may not be good enough to support a powerful enough video card. I'm not positive, but I think the power supply it came with is 250W max output. Anyone have any suggestions for a a video card that this system will support and be able to run Second Life?

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emosun

· #2 · Jun 5, 2008

Welcome to tsf. Integrated graphics should be fine for second life. It doesn't require any kind of heavy graphics power.

But if you still want to get one anyway heres a few. None require psu upgrades.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2918660&CatId=1603
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2563226&CatId=1603

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dude101

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 5, 2008

Thank you.

Well, actually the system requirements http://secondlife.com/support/sysreqs.php
for Second Life rule out the integrated graphics. Those cards are nice but I'm looking for something cheaper as I actually need to upgrade 6 machines. Someone has suggested the Radeon HD 2400 PRO 256MB 64-bit GDDR2. The only thing that worries me about it is the memory width. 64-bit sounds kind of paltry by modern standards. How does an older card, such as the Radeon 9600 PRO, which is 128-bit compare to this one ?

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emosun

· #4 · Jun 5, 2008

The radeon 9 series is pretty old , we don;t even recommend them anymore as there are several chocies that can replace them. The 2400 pro is kind of risky. The agp 200 series has about a 65 to 70% chance of working. There mostly made for newer machines and might not work at all in the old 4x agp slots.

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dude101

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jun 5, 2008

65-70%? are you serious?

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emosun

· #6 · Jun 5, 2008

Yes, several people I see here all the time having driver issues. Some have gotten them to work on old machines but they mostly only work on newer agp machines. And since low profile agp cards are either expensive or hard to find with low profile brackets , I recommended the pci x1300 or x1550.

Although I could try harder to see if I can't find any cheaper low profile agp cards.

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emosun

· #7 · Jun 6, 2008

Well the low profile agp cards I found really are not very good and are kind of old. mostly geforce 4's and radeon 9 series.

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