Low profile nVidia video card?

[Throckmorton]

I bought a Dell 660ST from Craigslist for $300, and I want to upgrade it to run games decently. It has a quad core i5 2.7ghz and 8gb RAM so I figure with a low end video card it should do OK for games like Teamfortress 2 and Battlefield 3.

The PSU it comes with is 220W and the only graphics card Dell recommends is a GT620 which is TOO low end. If I upgrade to a 350W Seasonic TFX power supply, what are my nVidia options?

I know there are various GT 640 and GT 630 cards, but the specs don't seem to be consistent between makers, and retailers don't list the specs. Is there some super bang-for-the-buck one with extra cores, or extra bandwidth, or GDDR5 instead of DDR3?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

The answer really depends on weather or not you have room for a two slot cooler. Zotac makes a low-profile GTX650, but it requires two slots. Other then that, your options are either a GT640 or HD7750. There are a few manufactures that make low-profile 7750's. Performance wise the 7750 and GTX650 are about equal, with the GT640 being somewhat slower.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814500290

 

[Throckmorton]

The answer really depends on weather or not you have room for a two slot cooler. Zotac makes a low-profile GTX650, but it requires two slots. Other then that, your options are either a GT640 or HD7750. There are a few manufactures that make low-profile 7750's. Performance wise the 7750 and GTX650 are about equal, with the GT640 being somewhat slower.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814500290

Thanks, that's what I was hoping to find. I had googled for "low profile GTX 650" and found a pre-release article about the Zotac but I didn't know it was available. Will it be OK on a 350W power supply?

The 660ST does have 2 PCIE slots but I'll have to make sure it has enough clearance for the card.

 

[Eureka]

The 350W power supply should be able to handle any low-profile card (given the limited choices).

There's even an AFOX 7850 low profile floating around somewhere in the world, but it seems near impossible to find.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Thanks, that's what I was hoping to find. I had googled for "low profile GTX 650" and found a pre-release article about the Zotac but I didn't know it was available. Will it be OK on a 350W power supply?

Zotac says "350W PSU recommended". Not sure what they mean by that, as the card can only draw 75W from the PCIe socket, without additional connectors. You should be fine.

There's even a 7850 low profile floating around somewhere in the world, but it seems near impossible to find.

I don't know about the US, but I can vouch for it being impossible to find in Europe. Believe me, I've tried...

 

[Throckmorton]

I'm trying to figure out if the low profile Zotac GTX 650 has a 6 pin PEG connector, but no luck. The pictures on Newegg and other sites don't show the rear. A molex->6 pin adapter is listed on Newegg and Tigerdirect, but it could easily be a copy/paste mistake.

Edit: Found a picture of the card here, looks like no 6 pin http://kakaku.com/item/K0000456308/images/page=ka_4/

 

[Throckmorton]

Update for Googlers who stumble upon this thread... The Dell 660s PSU is NOT TFX. Threads in various other places lead me to beleive it was (with some screw hole mismatches), but I measured it today and it's 1cm shorter. The case can't physically fit a TFX one because the motherboard is in the way.

 

[Throckmorton]

The GTX650 had a TDP of 64w vs 49w for the GT620 that Dell recommends. Why such a small difference when the GTX650 has 3x as many cores?

Common sense says that the 650 should be fine with my 220w power supply because it's only 1.25a more, but what's the worse that could happen? What if it's a piece of junk and can't handle the wattage? Would the PSU just shut down if too much power is drawn?

 

[Zap]

A reasonable quality PSU with the proper protections would shut itself off if too much power is drawn.

The strict number of cores is not the only determining factor in power draw. The video memory takes some, onboard VRM efficiency, etc.

Have you considered a Radeon 7750? Similar performance, but lower power draw. Best part is that you can get them as a single slot low profile.

 

[Throckmorton]

I didn't realize the 7750 used less power. Looks like 55w, nice! I prefer nvidia but this card is probably worth switching for

 

[XavierMace]

Yeah, Dell rarely uses standard sized power supplies.

 

[Throckmorton]

Got it up and running with the 7750. So far so good. I scratched a trace on my motherboard because I didn't realize I had to SLIDE out the PCIE slot protector from the case, so I pushed it out into the case. Dell uses these little nubs to hold it in place, and it looked like it was attached and had to be snapped out. Well it did snap out and scratch right across the trace that goes along the bottom edge of the motherboard. It works fine but I put some conductive pen "ink" on the trace just in case.

I realized that the Zotac GTX 560 wouldn't have fit. I forgot which way PCIE cards face, and the fan would have gone the opposite direction from the empty slot. It's pretty clever how the 660S has a big vent right where the graphics card HSF is.

I'm going to stress test and see what happens to the 12v line with a multimeter. I'm curious to see how well the 220W PSU handles a 55W video card.

 

[cbn]

Got it up and running with the 7750. So far so good. I scratched a trace on my motherboard because I didn't realize I had to SLIDE out the PCIE slot protector from the case, so I pushed it out into the case. Dell uses these little nubs to hold it in place, and it looked like it was attached and had to be snapped out. Well it did snap out and scratch right across the trace that goes along the bottom edge of the motherboard. It works fine but I put some conductive pen "ink" on the trace just in case.

I realized that the Zotac GTX 560 wouldn't have fit. I forgot which way PCIE cards face, and the fan would have gone the opposite direction from the empty slot. It's pretty clever how the 660S has a big vent right where the graphics card HSF is.

I'm going to stress test and see what happens to the 12v line with a multimeter. I'm curious to see how well the 220W PSU handles a 55W video card.

Any updates?

 

[Throckmorton]

Any updates?

Works fine, at least the psu hasn't exploded yet