Bought a new PC but need to know if I can upgrade the graphics cards

TPSou

Just bought an Advent DT1310b on a whim (it was on offer) and it comes with a Geforce GT 530. Now I have read on the internet that this is a pretty poor graphics card. Thinking of upgrading to a GTX550 Ti (I think that's right) and am slightly worried as to whether it will fit. Opened up the case and there is a heatsink slightly above the PCI slot where the 530 now sits. The PSU is big enough (says 450) but is the space for a graphics card likely to be an issue? I don't have a ruler or anything and it's hard to tell without actually seeing a 550. Any ideas?

TychoCelchuuu

We're going to need a picture, and you'll probably also want to check the brand of the PSU, because wattage isn't everything (although if you're just running one hard drive and no other special stuff it might not matter).

AgentX

Check out NVidia's website for details on the GTX550ti:

http://www.geforce.com/Hardware/GPUs/geforce-gtx-550ti/specifications

According to that it is a dual slot card so make sure you have free PCI slots around the slot. It looks like the GT530 is a single slot card so imagine 2 of those stacked for an estimate on space. The specific measurements of the 550ti are 8.25" long and 4.376" wide. Also NVidia recommends at least a 400w power supply for the card so your PSU MIGHT work but it depends on how many peripherals you have, any overclocks, and the actual quality of the PSU.

TPSou

Downloading things at the moment so won't take pictures just yet, but if it needs two PCI slots then I'm out of luck, there's only one slot like the one my cad is in, then there's two much smaller white slots above that, so far the 530 has been fine with the games I have tried it on, just guess I'm not going to be playing BF3 on it! It's a 2.8ghz i5 with 8Gb Ram, is there really going to be a need to upgrade the graphics card or is that just for the hardcore?

TPSou

Put images up here http://imgur.com/a/fjqZC sorry some are blurry, just used my old iPhone to take them, but still hopefully you can see how much space there is. That heatsink ( I think that's what it is) is only a couple of mm higher than the edge of the PCI slot so it might be ok, I have read that the 550ti only requires one PCI slot, so when it says double, does that just mean it takes up the space of two? Any help would be appreciated, might be going to go buy one in the morning.

TychoCelchuuu

Yeah... maybe you'll be able to fit a new card in there. Double slot cards don't literally require 2 PCI slots, but they do need space. It might even come down to which card you get: this thing might fit, for instance. Like we've said, though, your PSU might not be able to handle it.

Donovan Puppyfucker

Yeah, you can upgrade your video card to a dual or even triple-slot width card. Make sure the card is not too long or tall for the case (most card listings on Newegg have the dimensions listed, and that it won't draw too much power from your PSU, and you'll be golden. For Battlefield 3 I'd get a 560Ti, personally. That game is going to look better and better relative to how much computing horsepower you can throw at it.

TPSou

just to update, the PNY 550ti fits just about, just had to move some cables out of the way but it sits over the heatsink, hopefully that won't cause too many problems down the line, also boots up so hopefully power won't be an issue either!

harvest

From the pics it looks like you're talking about the chipset heatsink. That's a passively cooled affair that won't be any worse off for having a video card in the way.

grouch993

Has PNYs quality improved drastically in the last few years?

TPSou

thanks for the help, everything is working well, turned it on with BF3 and it automatically put everything up to high on 1280x720 and runs at about 50fps so I'm happy, everything is still staying cold inside too, not even warm, so as far as I can tell, while the 550ti might have been a bit expensive (£125 but I didn't want to wait as I was in my week off work) the PNY model seems pretty good.