Dell Upgrade?

Question

can you upgrade a dell computer using products not developed by dell. I want to upgrade my video card

I have a dell eimension 8250 and Im trying to upgrade to play call of duty 4

Answer 1

That system comes with a 250watt PSU so first thing I would check is that it doesn't have any proprietory connectors as some Dell PSUs do. If it does and you want to upgrade to a high-end video card you'd have to get a PSU that's bigger and designed for your 8250 with the proper connectors. Your system runs an AGP 4X graphics slot. If you're running XP I suggest this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161071
As you can see in the reviews the second guy is playing COD4 with all the settings maxed out.
It's an awesome card that runs DDR3 thru a 256bit memory bus and is sometimes pretty hard to find in stock anywhere.
If you have Vista I suggest the 2600Pro or XT so you can run DX10 but be sure that, if you get one of those cards you get a 4X/8X card as they also come in versions that are just 8X and they wont work with your system. You will need a big quality PSU for any of these cards.

Answer 2

Like everyone said, depends on what your computer can handle. There are three types of cards:

1. PCI - Old and slow, but still used for many other computer accesories.
2. AGP 2x/4x/8x - First graphics-only slot on a computer. Midrange stuff at best.
3. PCI-e (16x, 2.0) - Current version of graphics slot for PCs.

If you're lucky enough to have PCI-e, you have pretty much the world of video cards at your disposal. I'd recommend one of the Nvidia 8-series as it gives you the most bang and bang-for-the-buck. ATi doesn't currently have a card out that can surpass these.

If you've got an AGP, you still have some decent options at your disposal. You can get up to a GeForce 7900GS, the former top card before the 8-series was released. Rumor also has it that ATI will have a scaled back version of their new 3800 card available for AGP in the future.

If PCI is all you have, then you're stuck with the bottom rung of 3D graphics cards. You'll run most games on low settings, but with a poor framerate. You won't be able to run new games, like Crysis, at all. You can probably get the GeForce MX 5500 or so in PCI... or the ATI equivalent. They're more or less equivalent.

Answer 3

video card yes, it depends ont he systemboard, does it have PCI, x16 expres or agp card? what model is it? you can upgrade the computer's video card but depends in the model of your computer what mode is it? NVIDIA and ATI are good video cards developers that are compatible with Dell Computer

Answer 4

I have personally done so. Just make sure you get a card compatible with the hardware that is staying (mother board, power supply). make sure to get an ATI or PCI-E video card depending on the board.

Answer 5

If the motherboard has either a VGA or a PCIe slot, then yes you can. You may need to enter the BIOS and set it so it look to the VGA port first for video.

Answer 6

Yes.