Can you stuff a new video card in an ancient machine?

[OgNasty]

I have a 6 year old 2.4ghz single core Dell computer.  Could I stuff a XFX ATI Radeon HD5830 in it without needing to buy anything else, or would I need additional parts?

[tito13kfm]

Does it have an open PCI-E slot?

The biggest question will be, will your PSU have enough wattage and amperage for it.  I can almost guarantee it will not.

[gigitrix]

Might be worth looking into though: it'll still be quite cheap compared to buying a new machine...

[bcpokey]

A 6 year old PSU will not be able to handle a modern GPU. ATX specifications have changed, as well as how power has been distributed. It used to mostly be on 3.3 and 5v rails, now almost the entire power draw is 12v. Sorry

[AngelusWebDesign]

I have a Dell just like that -- top of the line 2004 model. Pentium4 2.4 GHz hyperthreading -- with a nice AGP slot for video, and a really crappy power supply. No dice.

Your best bet is to sell the machine for $50, $75 or $100 and put that toward a modern mobo & CPU.

[ElectroGeek007]

Motherboard compatibility is still possibly an issue, even if it has a PCIe slot. I have an Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard that has a PCIe 1.0 slot, that I had originally planned to put a 5850 in. I got the card, but could not get it to show any video, even though I had a sufficient power supply and the most recent BIOS updates. I almost RMA'd it, but bought another motherboard (Intel D975XBXLKR, 3x PCIe and cheap!) instead, which worked fine.

[kcobra]

Motherboard compatibility is still possibly an issue, even if it has a PCIe slot. I have an Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard that has a PCIe 1.0 slot, that I had originally planned to put a 5850 in. I got the card, but could not get it to show any video, even though I had a sufficient power supply and the most recent BIOS updates. I almost RMA'd it, but bought another motherboard (Intel D975XBXLKR, 3x PCIe and cheap!) instead, which worked fine.

Same here. I have an old Epox nForce4 SLI board that I was hoping to put two 5830's in. Like you I got no video when doing this. Common problem with a lot of the older PCI-E 1.0/1.1 motherboards. Somewhat of a bummer as it could be a perfectly good mining machine.

Now with all that said some have reported getting a new bios from their MB manufacturer that solved things. Unfortunately for me Epox has been out of business for many years.

[gigabytecoin]

You can always try!

So long as you have a pcie slot and enough power you are good to go.

[kr105]

I installed a 5850 card into an old machine (~4 years ago), I had to buy a new PSU in order to run it. The bad side is that I can't overclock / overvolt my card (it freezes), I'm thinking that its because the mobo and the next week should arrive my new one to test with