Best card for a 5150c / XPS 200

optiplexgx270

Hi I've ordered a 5150c from Dell for 550€ and want to get a good card for it. It comes with a x600 se 128Mb card which should be ok I guess but i'd prefer a 256Mb card tbh. But here's the thing it have to be PCIe and also HALF HEIGHT / Low profile.

I've looked around but know damn all about GPU and cards and the like. I expect this to be a challange for ye.... Good luck

8T8

If you wanted to upgrade you would have better off going with the 5150 over the 5150c which allows full height cards.

Low profile cards are not easy to come by, the best at the usual stores I can find is a 7300GS though seeing as it is an X600SE in your system which is actually worse it is automatically a step up.

This one comes with 256MB I believe.
A few more here the 512MB one is "fake" they are just taking the memory amount if you include Turbocache where it uses the system RAM it actually comes with a real amount of 256MB.

Kustom PC's have a low profile 6600 with 128MB but that heatpipe might get in the way and last I heard Kustom PC's dont ship to IE.

Dabs are also selling a 6500 256MB low profile card they do ship to IE.

They are roughly in the same ball park performance wise though the 6600 would be the fastest, of the obtainable ones the 7300GS & 6500 should be very close to each other performance wise due to their spec's.

With the 7300GS some current games (mostly FPS were talkin about) should be playable at 800x600 or 640x480 with medium details.

Cant find any low profile ATI cards that are any better than any of the above.

optiplexgx270

Was thinking of this maybe (http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=314196) and as the system has 1Gb of 533Mhz Ram and a 3Ghz dual core P4 how do you think it would perform? Battlefield 2 and the likes if its a non runner ill upgrade my current pc's 128Mb card as its old but still a 3.2Ghz with 1Gb 533Mhz ram also.

You sure the 7300GS is low profile? read up its a half height card with full height bracket

What about the http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=312068

8T8

As far as I'm aware all of them are half height cards with a full bracket including the 6500 you linked to unless we are getting our wires crossed with terminology. I consider the bracket the metal plate at the end where the video output is located & low profile = half height ??

You can see from the screenshot this XFX 7300GS is a half height model. The 6500 and 7300GS are really the same bar the clock speed see the specs;

GeForce 7300GS
Core: 550Mhz
Mem: 350Mhz
Memory bus: 64-bit
Pixels per clock: 4
Textures per clock: 4
Vertex shaders: 3


GeForce 6500
Core: 400Mhz
Mem: 333Mhz
Memory bus: 64-bit
Pixels per clock: 4
Textures per clock: 4
Vertex shaders: 3

[Some information suggests that the real memory on the 6500 is 32MB and the 256MB is the TC addressable amount also clock speed seems to vary from vendor to vendor with these 6500’s]

Radeon X550
Core: 400Mhz
Mem: 250Mhz
Memory bus: 64-bit or 128-bit
Pixels per clock: 4
Textures per clock: 4
Vertex shaders: 2

On paper the X550 seems to have an advantage if you got the one with a 128-bit memory bus, but I have [url=http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=17636528510&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=95818
]strong feeling[/url] that the low profile version uses a 64-bit memory bus negating any advantage the X550 had over the 7300GS.

You can see benchmarks of some various low end GPU’s with Battlefield 2 at this link. At 800x600 with medium details BF2 is just about playable with a 7300GS and seeing as the other two are all in the same area you can safely assume their performance will be the same.

I'd go with the 7300GS or X550 as they both seem to indicate that they come with an actual amount of 256MB RAM and if the X550 has a 64-bit bus then the 7300GS is the performance leader, hope that clears things up.

Now if it is a half height card without a full height bracket you are after then I'm afraid good luck on that one as I have not seen anything like that around.