Studio XPS 8000 Power Specs for Video Cards?

hey mike, i got the same question about this. can a 35W psu run a nVidia GTX 260 which requires at least 500W psu. how does that work?????????

I chatted with somebody at Dell who confirmed the 350W PSU in the XPS 8000 does indeed handle the GTX 260.  The explanation was that the video card manufacturers' required power supply ratings are padded to be on the safe side.  The 350W PSU does provide the power needed by the 260.

I asked if the GTX 260 that was available with the XPS 8000 was in any way a "special" Dell-only card that had and was told "no", it is a standard card.  I also asked what the amperage ratings were on the 12V rails on the 350W PSU, but that info wasn't easily available (i.e. still haven't heard back).

I went ahead and purchased an XPS 8000 with the GTX 260.  Once it arrives and I can crack open the case and look at the PSU, I'll update this thread with the details on the 12V rails.

The one other detail that may come into play is that the GTX 260 available for the XPS 8000 is one of the 1792MB models as opposed to the more common 896MB models.  While that may work against the PSU issue, it does help explain the price.

here is what the guy said:
"Thank you for contacting Dell XPS Premium Support. I would be glad to assist you with your Dell XPS 8000 system, 
Indeed you raised a good question, As per Engineering this systems power budge is good enough for current configuration. 
However, nVidia does not do any power budge calculation for retail market. 
The card has been tested for the system and works just fine.
 So you should have no problem running it on 350W power supply."
 

Question...

Since you can configure an XPS 8000 with 5 drives in total (dual optical, three 7200rpm hard drives) plus a GTX-260 video-card on the Dell website, presumably the stock 350w power supply has been tested with that setup and works fine.

Therefore,  would that power requirement be equal or more than a single hard drive, single optical and swapping in an ATI 4890 video-card which is what I am considering?

nTomy--Thanks for posting the response you got.  That info jives with what I was told.  I'm hoping my machine arrives in the next couple of days and will update this thread with any additional details I can provide once the machine is sitting in front of me.

SomeOne1900--I'm not sure you can install three hard drives in the machine.  I think the externally accesible 3.5-inch bay is for devices like card readers and such.  When I receive my new machine, I'll update the thread with any additional details I can provide.

I don't know of any way to definitively verify that another graphics card, such as the 4890, would work.  As nTomy mentioned based on his discussion with somebody at Dell, the card vendors don't publish the nitty gritty power budget requirements for their cards.  All they provide to consumers is broad, extremely conservative requirements such as "needs at least a 500W PSU".  Judging from the info posted on Nvidia and ATI's web sites, the GTX 260 and the HD 4890 seem to have similar minimum requirements:  500W PSU and two 6-pin supplementary power connectors.  But that is the "safe" info provided to us consumers--I wouldn't expect the cards to have identical power and cooling requirements simply based on what the manufacturers have posted on their websites.

The 4890 is a sweet card, though.  Might be worth a try... :-)

michealk:

I'm not sure you can install three hard drives in the machine.

Ideally I'm looking for a list of tested and confirmed working replacement power supplies for the XPS-8000 - particularly for fit.

i actually thought about alienware, but i just don't like the liquid cooling system at all. therefore, i changed my mind. i though about the xps 630 also, too bad they don't sell it any more. hopefully it is going to be fine. the worst i can do is to return it. anyway, let's see.

I installed an additional 1 TB HD and a 64 GB SSD in my 8000, so, yes, you can have three drives using the 3.5" bay.  I also ordered a GTX 285 and am in the process of putting in a Corsair 650W PSU to power all of this hardware (also have dual DVD/BR drives). 

My question is this: do any of you who have an nVidia 260, 275, or 285 know how many, if any, SATA ports are blocked by the card?  If so, wIll right hand or left hand right angle cables allow access to all four ports?

 I'm already routing a fifth SATA externally to the esata port, so using it isn't an option and PCI/PCIe sata cards can have compatibility issues.  Besides, with all the junk in there and the video card blocking a PCIe slot, I can't really spare one.  Thanks in advance.

I'm going to move ahead with an ATI 5770 video card upgrade for my Dell Studio XPS 8000 i860 when it arrives.

Can someone comment on whether this 500watt OCZ power supply would work okay as a replacement:

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/power_management/ocz_500w_stealthxstream_power_supply

I am particularly curious to know if all the connectors are there that are required.

Thanks

Thanks for starting this thread.  I, too, am considering the XPS 8000 and was concerned about the incompatibility between the video card power requirements and the standard PSU at 350w on the unit. I'll be watching this thread for the next few weeks and would appreciate any comments you have --- this seems like a sweet machine at a good price.

By the way, there's another thread somewhere about these XPS 8000s only recognizing only HALF the RAM installed, and usually requires a motherboard or memory swap out to fix. You might want to look into this as well on our XPS 8000s.

I ended up putting in a GTX 285 OC which required removing the bottom 1TB HD and putting it in an external enclosure via eSATA.  The 285's power comes off the top of the back of the card right under the rear of a hard drive in the bottom bay.  Not enough clearance.  That's OK.  I needed some extra room for all the Corsair 650 power cable extras.  The sweet thing about it is, the Corsair PSU has a HUGE fan.  My case and even CPU temps dropped significantly after swapping out the Dell 350w PSU.  As for the RAM, 8 GB installed and available here.  Now, if I can just get rid of that Checkpoint D0 error so many of us have.  Oh yeah, the 285 did not block any of the SATA ports.  I don't know why some web reviews say that is a problem, because it isn't.

To Xav8tor:

Google around to find answers for your  "Checkpoint D0" error --- but you probably already have done so.  I ran across another dell forum thread where the solution was either "reloading the default BIOS"  or possibly a peripheral hardware conflict with the bios.

hey Xav8tor

what model of Corsair 650 psu you got. does it come with a on/off botton on the back?