Will this video card work in my Dell Dimension 3000?

Question

I want to buy the best PCI video card for my crappy Dell Dimension 3000. I can't buy PCI-Express or AGP because I don't have those slots. Here is the one I'm looking at:

Visiontek Radeon X1300 SFF / 256MB DDR2 / PCI / DVI / HDTV / Small Form Factor

(http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2563226&Tab=2&NoMapp=0)

I read this is one of the best PCI video cards out there but I don't want to order it to find out it doesn't work.


Can you please tell me if this will work in my Dimension 3000?
Also, do more powerful video cards require more computer memory? I'm thinking about buying some of that too.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Well the guy giving the last answer was correct on compatibility, but incorrect on the rest. For the record, the video card in question is by no means a high end video card, it is a low end budget card. It will work perfectly fine with your current power supply, and will not require a memory upgrade (although I would recommend one anyway, it will improve performance). Just for the record, if you are purchasing this card with the intention of doing gaming, forget about it, this card is not a gaming card.

Answer 2

According to the description it should be compatible with older versions of PCI, which is the only thing that would be technically incompatible. Unless your motherboard has some fluke where it doesn't work with specific video cards and that happens to be one of them, although that is unlikely.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is the a more powerful video card uses more power. A power supply that comes with a Dimension 3000 probably isn't nearly powerful enough to not die within a few weeks of heavy use of that video card. I would recommend upgrading to at least a 350-400W power supply before getting this card.

Another thing to consider is performance, a really good video card only works really well if you have a good enough processor and enough memory to support that performance. You would probably want at least 2GHz processor and 512MB memory.