Alright, recently i bought a Dell Dimension 9200 that will have 4 GBs of ram (667), alteast 2 hard drives, a nVidea 8800 GTS 640mb graphics (just one) BUT only the stock cooling equipment that comes with the 9200. Therefore, should I but a seperate cooling fan or cooling system for the nVidea or just upgrade the cooling system all together or will the stock be okay??
2007-08-21 06:30:11 · 5 answers · asked by Phil G 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
Nice card, you'll like it a lot. I suggest increasing air flow thru case with quality 80mm case fans front and back with air coming in the front and out the back. If you have a PCI card directly under the card move it down to a different slot so your video card can cool better and the air flow to fan on the video card isn't obstructed. I trust you replaced or had Dell upgrade the power supply because an 8800GTS requires a power supply with a minimum of 400 watts and +12V rails with at least 26amps. It will be on sticker on power supply. If it shows more than one +12v that means it has multiple +12v rails and you would add the power for the rails together to get the rating. If you run with an underpowered power supply your video card won't run at 100% efficiency and you have a chance of damaging your system components. Perhaps while doing hard core gaming that presses the card you can go into the Nvidia GUI for the card and make sure the GPU temp isn't too high. You may not have to do anything but those cards are hot and can warm the inside of a case up real easy if you don't have good air flow.
2007-08-21 06:49:37 · answer #1 · answered by s j 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i have an xps 400 (not sure what dimension equivalent is, but its about 1 and 1/2 year old) and i put a 8800 gts in it and i have no problems with overheating, the only change to cooling system i made was to put in a new psu that has 2 fans where the stock only had 1
if dell is putting the 8800 in, then no u dont have to do anything they are professionals lol they make sure it has sufficient cooling, and it will be covered by warranty if it is not sufficient
also dells use some proprietary parts so performing modifications yourself is not always doable.
2007-08-21 13:40:34 · answer #2 · answered by icmp 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not familiar with the Dimension 9200, but generally the stock cooling is fine on Dell's full-size towers. The little mini-towers like the Dimension 4000 series have pretty bad (almost non-existent) airflow.
I suspect if Dell offers the 8800GTS as an option when you purchase it, the cooling *should* be ok. That card does run hot.
2007-08-21 13:49:41 · answer #3 · answered by Proto 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
generally speaking, dell cases have at least decent airflow. So, stock might be just fine. If you want you can check out www.newegg.com for some after-market fans and heatsinks. Zalman always makes good stuff. These heatsink/fan combos will tend to be bigger than the stock components and also use copper instead of aluminum for a heatsink which is more efficient. You can get a good video/gpu cooler for under $50 so take a look. Just make sure that it will fit on the 8800 before you buy (it will give a list for compatibility.)
2007-08-21 13:38:02 · answer #4 · answered by djfear123 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It depends on what you are going to be doing with it.
If you are running hardcore 3d games (and especially if you are going to try overclocking the video card) then definitely get some cooling for it.
2007-08-21 13:36:57 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋