Dell Optiplex 755 MiniTower

[Technocrat]

Okay I have a Dell Optiplex 755 MiniTower with a 305watt power supply. I don't want to upgrade the power supply but rather just get the fastest card that I can. It's hard to find a real fast one with the limit of the 300 watt PS. Currently I have a HD 3650 PCIe in there and I'd like to be faster.

Also, I don't do anything but Photoshop and watch DVD's on my computer that would be graphic intensive. I will say that I do run Dual DVI monitor setup.

Suggestions?

 

[Zap]

Faster graphics card would really only be useful in games. IIRC Photoshop supports OpenGL acceleration so it should take advantage of your existing card. If it turns out that there are actual CUDA plugins that you would like to use, then you would need an Nvidia card. Oh yeah, also depending on version as I think older versions didn't support any graphics acceleration at all. You may be better off upgrading CPU and RAM to as fast as it'll go, and making sure you are using 64-bit operating system and software.

If you do determine that a better graphics card will help your tasks, then probably a low powered 9800 GT may be a decent choice.

BTW, does your mini tower take normal sized expansion cards, or low profile?

 

[Technocrat]

Well I had bought a HD 4350 and heck it didn't perform much better so I returned it. I am currently running a E8400 CPU and 4GB of ram in my computer.

I suppose the reason why I looked at upgrading the video card was because I use dual monitors exclusively. I ran the Windows 7 prescan to see if my computer could handle it and it said that my graphics adapter wouldn't do Aero properly. However I now have Windows 7 on my machine and it does Aero just fine. Weird huh?

 

[Denithor]

If you're not playing games you honestly wouldn't see much difference between your current 3650 and say a GTX 295. Except for more heat generated and a higher power bill every month.

A 4350 would actually be a step down from a 3650 unless I'm mistaken.

And I agree with the earlier post - a low power 9800GT (one without the six pin plug) is your best bet if you just have to upgrade.

 

[lopri]

Another vote for a low power 9800 GT.

 

[betasub]

If for some reason graphics card performance matters to OP, then HD4350 was not a good purchase. Courtesy of gpureview.com:

Card_______HD3650__HD4350
GPU________RV635___RV710
FLOPS______174_____96_____GFLOPS
Pixel fill_____2900____2400___MPixels/sec
Texture fill___5800___4800___MTexels/sec
Memory
Bandwidth____25.6___8.0____GB/sec
___________________ 64bit memory FTL.

So, from what was a low/mid-range card to a true low-end card.

 

[her209]

I bought a 4670 off of eBay for my Optiplex 755 Desktop.

* crosses fingers that it won't exceed the PS output capabilities *

 

[Denithor]

I bought a 4670 off of eBay for my Optiplex 755 Desktop.

* crosses fingers that it won't exceed the PS output capabilities *

You'll be fine.

 

[Technocrat]

Is the HD 4670 better than my HD 3650?

Also does anyone have a suggestion on a GeForce 9800 GT card or something that might be an upgrade from my HD 3650 for the 305 watt power supply that I'm running?