Dell Dimension 3000 and Radeon Hd 4550 Graphics Card

March 30th · **Posted:** April 3rd, 2011, 5:14 pm

Hey guys I just bought a Radeon 4550 graphics card for my other computer which is a dell dimension 3000. I don't know much about installing graphics cards and when I opened my computer I couldn't find anywhere to put it and didn't see where the old one was. Now i'm wondering if the Radeon 4550 graphics card is even compatible
with the dell dimension 3000. If you could tell me whether it's compatible, where it goes, and if it's not compatible with it then what graphic cards are available that would be great. Thanks in advance!

Adbot · **Posted:** April 3rd, 2011, 5:14 pm

newhero · **Posted:** April 3rd, 2011, 5:43 pm

can u upload a pic of the inside case ?

March 30th · **Posted:** April 3rd, 2011, 6:28 pm

Um, yea I can take a pic tommorow but this is what it looks like (from google).
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... :72&biw=1366&bih=667

Duke Juker · RSBandB Donor since 07/01/2010

Near the bottom left of that picture is the card. Also, think about it this way. The place where you plug in your monitor is the card (unless you are using an integrated graphics card).

Picture

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

Your computer is...old. I've got a similar vintage system, and they're almost on par with eachother. They're not worth upgrading much at this point, and the graphics card is going to be limited by pretty much anything else you've already got.

The interface you've got for expansion is PCI, not PCI Express. That being said, if you want to buy a graphics card for your desktop, you'll have to get something that will be compatible. Looking at Newegg, here are your options. According to the spec sheet located below, along with the tech specs of PCI, even a very low end card will saturate your bus. The maximum transfer speed of PCI @ 33mhz (which your desktop has) is 133mb/s, whereas the HD4550 uses PCI Express v2 x16 that can handle up to 8 GB/s (64 Gb/s). This would mean that even a low end current graphics card is more powerful than anything you can put in your desktop currently.

Long story short, I wouldn't put more than $30 into that computer. Even then, it's not worth it given the performance you'd get by upgrading the entire unit. You could spend $250-$300 on a basic desktop that could blow what you've got out of the water.

Documentation + Tech Specs for your desktop

For the 4550

March 30th · **Posted:** April 4th, 2011, 12:12 pm

Thanks I have a brand new laptop and I just wanted to see how I could upgrade my old computer. But now I understand thanks for explaining.

Adbot · **Posted:** April 4th, 2011, 12:12 pm

Pfkninenines · Global Moderator 12/4/08

What I did for my desktop was buy a used processor ($10 on ebay) and upgraded the RAM. I went from a 1.6ghz Celeron to a 2ghz Pentium 4 (max I can get with the FSB on my motherboard is a 2.8ghz version, but I'm not going to bother for the minimal amount of work I do on it anymore) and from 256mb of ram to 1152mb of RAM. Nice benefits all around on an Server 2k3 system, but it's still ages slower than my laptop from 2007.