Any reason I couldn't add a Quadro FX 3500 to a Dell PC?

[e_dawg]

I'm looking at a good deal on a Dimension E521, but it doesn't offer the option of a Quadro FX 3500 video card that their Precision workstations offer. The Quadro is needed for CAD/CAM work.

Is there any technical limitation of the Dimension E521 that doesn't allow the Quadro to be used? i.e., availability of full-height PCIe x16 slot, CPU/chipset compatibility, enclosure size, etc?

The Dimension E521 would be about half the price of an equivalent Precision workstation, and with the Quadro video card, it should be competitive with CAD/CAM work.

Dimension E521 specs
A64x2 5000+
2 GB DDR2 / 250 GB SATA
19" LCD
Vista HP
$720 US

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=ca&CS=cadhs1&l=en&OC=E521A2P_F_2E

 

[P5-133XL]

The Dell E521 only has a 305W PS and the Quattro uses 95W. I don't think the PS can handle it.

 

[e_dawg]

Are you serious? Yikes. Would you know if Dell still uses proprietary PSU sizes these days, or can you replace them with normal ATX compliant PSUs?

 

[timwhit]

Are you serious? Yikes. Would you know if Dell still uses proprietary PSU sizes these days, or can you replace them with normal ATX compliant PSUs?

Quite doubtful. I think almost all or all are proprietary.

 

[CougTek]

Dimension E521 specs
A64x2 5000+
2 GB DDR2 / 250 GB SATA
19" LCD
Vista HP
$720 US

I tried, but I cannot beat that price with components I trust. In fact, this is lower than my cost. If only you didn't need the OS or the monitor, then maybe I could have worked out something.

 

[P5-133XL]

You can go to PC Power and cooling. They sell larger power supplies that are compatible with Dell. I believe that for the Dell E521 they offer a 470W for $149 US + shipping: That would be enough to additionally power your video card.

 

[P5-133XL]

The second issue with the Dell E521 may be heat. The E521, I believe, routes the CPU heat directly outside with a dedicated shroud. The case has no other case fan. If your card is not a two-slot video card, then its heat goes entirely into the case. This will cause the interior ambient temp to sky-rocket till the CPU can no longer cool itself.

 

[CougTek]

If you have to add a 149U$ PSU to the kit and still end up with a case with poor heat evacuation, you would be better off with a custom-made system with a good enclosure, like a Antec NSK6500 for instance. Even a SLK3000B with a 550W Seasonic power supply almost fits into the price of the PC Power & Cooling unit.

 

[P5-133XL]

If you have to add a 149U$ PSU to the kit and still end up with a case with poor heat evacuation, you would be better off with a custom-made system with a good enclosure, like a Antec NSK6500 for instance. Even a SLK3000B with a 550W Seasonic power supply almost fits into the price of the PC Power & Cooling unit.

I'm not going to argue that point, because I agree. PS's and heat are the main limitation, for the upgrading, of most low-end machines and particularly Dell with their proprietary PS's, MB's. People buy these machines, on the cheap, and then are unpleasently surprised when they try to add a gaming video card to make them equivilent to much more expensive machines.

There's good reason why Dell does not offer high-end cards to these low-end machines. It's called $$$: they want more. It would cost Dell very little to make these low-end machines gaming upgradable (or in this case CAD upgradable), but then they wouldn't sell nearly the number of high-profit upper-end machines.

 

[e_dawg]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your help. Just got the Dell E521 today. It's actually my friend who wanted the Quadro, not me, but we were ordering together, and I said I would ask around for him. He ended up getting the C2D based E520. Another friend of mine wanted to order with us, but the C2D he wanted wasn't on sale. Not sure why, but all 3 of my friends who were looking to buy new computers did not want to buy AMD. One of them even chose a Pentium D over the A64. Oh well, i got a great deal anyway, and got another 4-5% off the promo price due to an employee discount.

Anyways, I popped open the case to see what Frankenstein was like on the inside, but I am pleasantly surprised. Looks like it's well-designed, with almost everything mounted via a quick-release carrier system. Good cable management too, with plastic tracks and clips keeping everything neat and out of the way. The HDD's are cooled by the airflow generated the front case fan.

The components seem decent: 2 sticks of Hynix PC5300 RAM, Seagate 7200.10 SATA drive, TSST (Toshiba/Samsung) DVD-RW, Sony DVD-ROM, TEAC 13-in-1 media reader, nForce 410 chipset C51/MCP51 mobo, and 3 PCIe slots.

The front case fan also doubles as a CPU fan. It looks like a 120 mm fan which sucks in cool air from the front of the case and directs it over the CPU heatsink via a shroud. The air subsequently passes over the northbridge and then the video card heat sink in almost a straight line. The back of the case is a stamped with a cross-hatch grid pattern, so the air can pass straight through from front to back in almost a straight shot.

The 305 W PSU (just as Mark said) has a low-speed fan that sucks in air from the top of the enclosure and blows it out the back.

I honestly don't think it should have problems with cooling. With the GF 7300LE and the A64x2 5000+, running FAH makes the air coming out the back a little warm, but it's no worse than my old PC with an Athlon XP 2200+ Thunderbird core OC'ed to the edge of stability, 3 HDD's, Radeon 9500 Pro, and 4 PCI cards.

If it gets too hot, you can always jury rig a 92 mm case fan on the back.

What I worry about the most is the 305 W capacity of the PSU. The cooling can be addressed cheaply. The PSU? Not so much.

 

[e_dawg]

Just to clarify, myself, I'm not worried about the PSU, as I don't want to add a high-end video card to this machine. It is designed for general office/internet usage, with the most taxing application being RAW photo editing.

 

[P5-133XL]

The machine should work just fine for you, as long as you skip the high-performance video card. Even then, there are options, as long as you replace the PS and get a two-slot video card.

You should be able to fold without a problem. One minor thing of note, low-end Dell's typically don't have any enviornmental monitoring chips on the MB: So, you can't run any MB monitoring SW.

 

[e_dawg]

By environmental monitoring, you mean case temp and fan speed?

 

[ddrueding]

Case and CPU temp and fan speed (there is only one)

 

[P5-133XL]

By environmental monitoring, you mean case temp and fan speed?

Case temp, CPU Temp, Chipset temp, Fan(s), Voltages ...
None of that data is accessible using any MB monitoring SW.

 

[e_dawg]

Fair enough. I did manage to get the CPU temps using a utility called CoreTemp. It shows the core temps individually on the taskbar.

Running FAH causes my CPU temps to peak at about 56 C, which is about the same as my old OC'ed Athlon Thunderbird 2200+.

So far, the lack of case temp and fan speeds do not bother me. I cracked open the case to see how warm it was inside after a couple hours of FAH, and it was surprisingly cool! Not noticeably warmer than ambient.