Is the Nvidia Geforce 8600GT 8600 GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card a good card?

The price for an 8600gt is modest and will allow you to game at a mixture of low to medium settings.  The card will run fine in your 4700 without the need for addiitional power from your power supply unit or a power supply upgrade.  But look for a card that has gddr3 memory rather than the slower gddr2 memory.  A slower memory speed can impact performance more than a card with only 256Mb of gddr3 memory.

Good Luck

Dale

therobesons

By the way, which card do you have now, which will dictate how to properly install a nVidia card

I have the stock intigrated Intel 82819g.

I have one PCI-e slot open

At least I think it is as everyone here says the 4700 is a PCI-e.  My slot is a long black slot.

Bob

Disabling the Integrated video.  Unless someone else has another suggestion, this one below was found on this forum and posted by a Dell Moderator some time ago. 

Let us know if this works well for you.   ( Boy do I ever dislike Integrated chips )

As per Dell instructions....  ( Hope this works )

4700 -

* Open the case cover and add the PCIe video card to the PCIe slot
* Attach the monitor to the added PCIe video card
* Power the system on
* When the blue Dell logo appears, press F2
* Down arrow to Video [press the ENTER key]
* Change to Auto
* Press Escape to save the changes and Exit
* Load the drivers for the newly found PCIe video card

OK instead of the 8600 GT with ddr2 how about the GeForce 8600 GTS with DDR3 memorry.

My concern is that its requirements call for a 400 watt power supply and my Dell Dimension 4700 only has a 305 watt.

Thanks

Bob

Do not worry about your stock power supply for either the 8600 GT or GTS version.  Others are doing just fine with them and the same stock power supply....

Power Supply Most Often Asked Question......

In many cases, not all, recommendations by card manufacturers and some computer mag's, on how big a power supply should be, is normally based on the maximum possible load of the systems components plus some added head room. Other words over loading one's system to the hills. This will confuse some first timers of this unrealistic high power supply requirements, than buying more than they need, and in some cases buying a power supply upgrade that was not needed in the first place. Read in a mag that the power supply rating is almost like double than what is really seen in real-life applications

Dell's power supply is normally underrated, to read the mean average. Reason for this is that Dell wants to be on the conservative side for those that may over do things with their systems. The peak is much higher, and a Dell system can handle many cards that the card manufactures suggest a higher required power supply. Card manufactures list a higher wattage number than is really necessary for their cards, to be more liberal for those individuals that overload their systems with additional hard drives, optical drives, pci slots filled up. This is normally not for those that have a stock system.


This has been an ongoing topic for many years, with the same answer on this forum. Your systems stock power supply will handle many cards just fine. Others have this same system, same power supply and upgraded their cards without issues. Some members may weigh in with their experiences to prove this point. I had a stock 250 watt power supply that handled very well a video card that suggested a 300 and one 350 watter. No issues to report. Many other members have the same experience. You will notice on this forum that this question has been asked on a daily basis.

I got the EGVA GeForce 8600 GTS with 512 mem for $129 at Frys Elec.

It sure does work great for my applications.

Thanks everyone.

Bob

After you installed the card, did you find that you had any problems getting your computer to go into standby or hibernation? I bought a Radeon X1550, and I couldn't get standby and hibernate to work, no matter what drivers I downloaded. I returned the card. I'm thinking of getting the Nvidia you bought.

installed it fine.

It works perfect in Vista and XP.  Hibernates, I do not use standby.

Bob