Video Card Questions

[Haole Boy]

Aloha! I'm working on a Dell XPS 630i. The motherboard has two PCIe slots, each populated with an nVidia graphics card to drive two monitors. The customer has been using it in this configuration for a few years, but it seems like once a year one of the graphics cards died. His warranty has now expired so Dell won't replace the cards for free. He'd like to get a single graphics card to drive both monitors, hoping that this configuration will be more reliable. Is this possible?

The current cards are nVidia GE Force 8800 GT. There is a ribbon cable connecting them. And there is also an AGEIA PhysX 100 Series PCIe Card (per SIW) installed.

If a single card should work, any recommendations? His software requires an ATI or NVIDIA graphics processor with 3D acceleration and 1 GB of dedicated video RAM or more. Either 15 pin or or digital output connetors are OK.

Also, will I still need that AGEIA PhysX card?

P.S. I checked power supply voltage thinking that maybe if it was a little out of whack that that might explain why the video cards are dying, but all the voltages are within 0.1 volts of specifications.

Mahalo for your assistance,

Harry Z.

 

[angry_geek]

What software? Call of duty 3 or auto cad? What apps are currently being used?

That "ribbon cable" is the sli connector. The cards are set up not necessarily to run two monitors, but to run in tandem really fast. For gaming, it's a great setup. For auto cad or 3d modeling, not so much. If his case is the latter, I would go with a professional graphics card, ie nvidia quadro or ati firepro. A single high-end (think $400 +) card will work fine. The phys-x card is fine to leave in there, but probably won't help a great deal as most apps are not designed to utilize them.

Someone saw him coming. What he got was an xps gaming rig (probably a damn nice one from the sound of it); what he needs is a Precision workstation.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Is he gaming? Almost any add on card can do dual monitors. If he's gaming and does not want to spend a lot, check out the amd Radeon 7850. I have one in my gaming rig and it runs a single monitor at 1920x1080 with most details in games maxed out. If that's not enough look toward the 7870-7970 series.

Or on nvidia side, the 650ti-660 or 760 series or above is fine. If gaming is not something the user is concerned with, most any should do. Maybe check out the 6670 or 7750 Radeon cards. I think thr 8800gt cards were good but ran hot. Good news is most cards now are better than the 8800gt and should run cooler than thr 8800.

Good suggestion for a professional grade card, my opinion is that those cards are going to be beneficial if he's doing autocad, Photoshop etc. If not, then a standard card might be worth looking at. Depends really what your client is trying to accomplish.

 

[Cornerstone Technologies]

If you end up upgrading the video card to something more current and capable, you will need a beefier power supply without question. Just because the current one is fine in your estimation doesnt mean it will be capable going forward.

 

[Haole Boy]

Mahalo for all the responses. This machine is not used for gameing. It is used for neurofeedback. One monitor shows the brain waves of the patient, and the other gives the patient video feedback (cars going around a course... they speed up when the brain waves are looking like the technician wants it to, slow down when the brain is not doing the "right" things).

Unfortunately, the neurofeedback software company only gives the specs that I had in my first post. Since there are not any high speed action sequences involved, I'm assuming that a reasonably new video card with over 1 GB of storage and 3D acceleration will suffice. I was mostly concerned if there was anything in the motherboard that would require two separate cards for dual monitors. But that was explained angry_geek. Thank you

The power supply is rated at 700 Watts, so I think that will suffice.

Lastly, mahalo for the recommendations on specific video cards. Since I'm not a gamer I don't keep up with this area of computing. I'll look at the cards that have been recommended.

Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much)

Harry Z.

 

[MauiTechGuy]

If the existing psu ran 2 8800gt's it should run 1 geforce gtx 660 (dual monitor capable, 2x dvi outputs and 1x hdmi) just fine, you can pull the physx card since geforce has it built in now, and like it was mentioned earlier, not many app's use it.

 

[brandonkick]

Aloha! I'm working on a Dell XPS 630i. The motherboard has two PCIe slots, each populated with an nVidia graphics card to drive two monitors. The customer has been using it in this configuration for a few years, but it seems like once a year one of the graphics cards died. His warranty has now expired so Dell won't replace the cards for free. He'd like to get a single graphics card to drive both monitors, hoping that this configuration will be more reliable. Is this possible?

The current cards are nVidia GE Force 8800 GT. There is a ribbon cable connecting them. And there is also an AGEIA PhysX 100 Series PCIe Card (per SIW) installed.

If a single card should work, any recommendations? His software requires an ATI or NVIDIA graphics processor with 3D acceleration and 1 GB of dedicated video RAM or more. Either 15 pin or or digital output connetors are OK.

Also, will I still need that AGEIA PhysX card?

P.S. I checked power supply voltage thinking that maybe if it was a little out of whack that that might explain why the video cards are dying, but all the voltages are within 0.1 volts of specifications.

Mahalo for your assistance,

Harry Z.

It is more then possible to drive two monitors using just a single graphics cards. Just about every card on the market will do that these days, just make sure it has two HDMI ports or two DVI ports (whatever his monitors connection type is)

The SLI (two graphics cards being connected) isn't necessary and IMO your almost always better off going with one good card vs two decent cards. In most cases the difference between the setups is negligible.

Mahalo for all the responses. This machine is not used for gameing. It is used for neurofeedback. One monitor shows the brain waves of the patient, and the other gives the patient video feedback (cars going around a course... they speed up when the brain waves are looking like the technician wants it to, slow down when the brain is not doing the "right" things).

Unfortunately, the neurofeedback software company only gives the specs that I had in my first post. Since there are not any high speed action sequences involved, I'm assuming that a reasonably new video card with over 1 GB of storage and 3D acceleration will suffice. I was mostly concerned if there was anything in the motherboard that would require two separate cards for dual monitors. But that was explained angry_geek. Thank you

The power supply is rated at 700 Watts, so I think that will suffice.

Lastly, mahalo for the recommendations on specific video cards. Since I'm not a gamer I don't keep up with this area of computing. I'll look at the cards that have been recommended.

Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much)

Harry Z.

Those 8800GT's are very old and even a $50 card bought new today will run circles around it. You can get a decent card in the $100-$150 range that will be a nice upgrade performance wise. If those 8800GT's did the work he needed then you shouldn't need a "professional" GPU (graphics cards meant for Auto CAD and the like).

At 700w your PSU is more then fine, just make sure it has the proper connectors to hook up the new GPU. Newer cards use the 6 pin PCI-E power plugs, some may even need two of the 6 pin PCI power plugs.

 

[NYJimbo]

Maybe I missed it but is this custom software, including O/S or special O/S or is it some standard version of windows ?

I think there could be a driver issue with new cards if it is very custom.

 

[Haole Boy]

NYJimbo: this is a software package that runs on Windows (Win 7 Home Premium on this particular machine).

brandonkick: thanks for mentioning the power connectors. I had not thought of that, but the 8800GTs each had a 6-pin power connector, so if that is the current common connector, I'll be OK.

Again, mahalo for all the responses.