Low power video card for a 1920x1200 display?

[Pat]

I'm considering buying a large widescreen LCD display that has a maximum
resolution of 1920x1200. I would like to run this off my Dell 8200, but
will need to upgrade the video card. This machine supports AGP 4X.

The problem I'm running into is that all the video cards I've come across
that support a 1920x1200 resolution require (or recommend) the PC have at
least a 300W power supply. This Dell only has a 250W supply. Does anyone
know of any AGP cards that would work with the existing supply and support
this monitor resolution?

Thanks for any suggestions! I appreciate it.

Pat

 

[Shinnokxz]

Have you considered buying a new power supply? It's not like they're
ungodly expensive and a pain to install...

 

[Bob Knowlden]

Except maybe on a Dell.

I'm not familiar with the 8200, but the older Dimensions used nonstandard
power supply wiring. (It wouldn't be impossible to rewire a standard PS, but
it would be a significant complication.) A quick look at support.dell.com
suggests that the machine may use a standard ATX PS, though. I see that
third-party suppliers (PC Power & Cooling) sell supplies that are designed
to match the 8200, if need be.

However, the original poster may not need a new PS. It appears that Dell
sold the machine with a Radeon 9700 Pro as an option. The 9700 Pro used
auxiliary power, like the newer cards. ATI recommended a 300W supply for it.
Not all power supplies are equal at a given rating, and apparently the 250W
Dell PS was up to the task. A little Googling will show that people have
successfully run cards with the nVidia 6600GT GPU on 8200 machines.

The semi-conservative approach would be to try a new card, knowing that the
PS can be replaced (for a price) if there's not enough margin to run it
reliably.


Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

 

[Pat]

Except maybe on a Dell.

I'm not familiar with the 8200, but the older Dimensions used nonstandard
power supply wiring. (It wouldn't be impossible to rewire a standard PS,
but it would be a significant complication.) A quick look at
support.dell.com suggests that the machine may use a standard ATX PS,
though. I see that third-party suppliers (PC Power & Cooling) sell
supplies that are designed to match the 8200, if need be.

However, the original poster may not need a new PS. It appears that Dell
sold the machine with a Radeon 9700 Pro as an option. The 9700 Pro used
auxiliary power, like the newer cards. ATI recommended a 300W supply for
it. Not all power supplies are equal at a given rating, and apparently the
250W Dell PS was up to the task. A little Googling will show that people
have successfully run cards with the nVidia 6600GT GPU on 8200 machines.

The semi-conservative approach would be to try a new card, knowing that
the PS can be replaced (for a price) if there's not enough margin to run
it reliably.


Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

Thanks for the replies.

The thought of upgrading the power supply did cross my mind, but was hoping
there would be a card that wouldn't require that. The system is old enough
that rather than upgrade both the video card and power supply I'd probably
be better off just buying a new system. The monitor I'm considering is a
Dell 2405fwp, and I've seen promotions where buying this monitor bundle with
a new computer only added $300 or so to the cost, compared to buying it
stand alone. When I consider the cost of the graphics card and power
supply, plus what I could probably get for my 8200 on eBay, I'm probably
close to break even. In fact, assuming I can't find some cheap card off
eBay that do it, this probably the way to go.

Thanks again for the input. -Pat

 

[J. Clarke]

Thanks for the replies.

The thought of upgrading the power supply did cross my mind, but was
hoping
there would be a card that wouldn't require that. The system is old
enough that rather than upgrade both the video card and power supply I'd
probably
be better off just buying a new system. The monitor I'm considering is a
Dell 2405fwp, and I've seen promotions where buying this monitor bundle
with a new computer only added $300 or so to the cost, compared to buying
it
stand alone. When I consider the cost of the graphics card and power
supply, plus what I could probably get for my 8200 on eBay, I'm probably
close to break even. In fact, assuming I can't find some cheap card off
eBay that do it, this probably the way to go.

I'm surprised that you're having a problem. What leads you to believe that
your existing board won't support 1920x1200? That's not all that far past
1900x1200 and even the low end board for the 8200 should handle that at 80
Hz.

You might need to download a copy of Powerstrip
<http://www.entechtaiwan.net> to configure the exact resolution
required--note that after you configure you don't have to run Powerstrip
anymore and can remove it from your system if you want to, however it's
exceedingly well behaved so there's no real reason to.

 

[Pat]

I'm surprised that you're having a problem. What leads you to believe
that
your existing board won't support 1920x1200? That's not all that far past
1900x1200 and even the low end board for the 8200 should handle that at 80
Hz.

You might need to download a copy of Powerstrip
<http://www.entechtaiwan.net> to configure the exact resolution
required--note that after you configure you don't have to run Powerstrip
anymore and can remove it from your system if you want to, however it's
exceedingly well behaved so there's no real reason to.

The existing card is analog (NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, 64mb) and I wanted to drive
it with a digital signal, assuming (perhaps wrongly) that would provide
better display quality. But maybe this isn't necessary. According to Dell,
the monitor supports 24-Pin DVI-D / S-Video / Composite Video / Component
Video inputs. So if the existing card can drive this at 1920x1600 in
analog, I would certainly give that a try to start.

Thanks for the help. -Pat

 

[J. Clarke]

The existing card is analog (NVIDIA GeForce2 MX, 64mb) and I wanted to
drive it with a digital signal, assuming (perhaps wrongly) that would
provide
better display quality. But maybe this isn't necessary. According to
Dell,
the monitor supports 24-Pin DVI-D / S-Video / Composite Video / Component
Video inputs. So if the existing card can drive this at 1920x1600 in
analog, I would certainly give that a try to start.

You chip is capable of 2048x1536--whether the other components on your board
are up to it is an open question--only way to find out is to try it, and
that is what I would do.

The limitation that you are going to hit is that the DVI single-link
interface can't handle resolutions higher than 1920x1080--to go beyond that
you need dual link--your existing board doesn't have dual-link support--the
cheapest you're going to get that unless you luck out on ebay would
probably be a Radeon 9600 Pro PC and Mac Edition (note that this is a
different board from the ones that don't say "PC and Mac Edition") for not
quite 200 bucks--until recently dual link pretty much put you in
workstation-board territory.

This was a significant issue at one time--these days LCD displays usually do
fine with analog inputs.

 

[rjn]

The limitation that you are going to hit is that the DVI
single-link interface can't handle resolutions higher than
1920x1080--to go beyond that you need dual link--your
existing board doesn't have dual-link support-- ...

Are you suggesting that the chip in question can't go above
1900x1080, or DVI-D generally?

Single-link DVD-D can hit 1920x1200 using reduced blanking
interval (aka CVT?, my reference mtls are boxed up at the
moment). I'm running exactly this config right now, off a
Matrox Parhelia. It worked on the 1st try, no tweaks rq'd.

Both card and display need to support this.

Regarding dual-link, I suspect that the majority of displays
and cards don't support it. It is also necessary to check
the DVI-D cable to ensure that link2 is even populated.

 

[J. Clarke]

Are you suggesting that the chip in question can't go above
1900x1080, or DVI-D generally?

Single-link DVD-D can hit 1920x1200 using reduced blanking
interval (aka CVT?, my reference mtls are boxed up at the
moment). I'm running exactly this config right now, off a
Matrox Parhelia. It worked on the 1st try, no tweaks rq'd.

Both card and display need to support this.

Interesting--was not aware of that.

Regarding dual-link, I suspect that the majority of displays
and cards don't support it. It is also necessary to check
the DVI-D cable to ensure that link2 is even populated.

The majority of boards don't, as I believe I mentioned. The majority of LCD
displays don't have a native resolution of 1920x1200 and so would not need
it.