video card upgrade on my dell 435 MT

The 5850 looks like a nice card.  It will probably be harder to find than the 5870, but they are starting to show up in stock now.  The manufacturers are recommending a 500 watt power supply for this card.  In reality, you are looking at a bit over 300 watts needed by the system with the 5850 under load.  If the 360W PSU can push out over 400 watts at peak, then you should have enough headroom for this card.  This card does require 2 6-pin connections and I'm not sure if your power supply has this or not.  Most likely you have just one.  The 5850 seems to have low power consumption especially while idle and uses less power than the 4870 which others have run on the 375 watt power supply.  When you look at the performance capabilities of this card, It doesn't seem like such a high-end card would run on such a small power supply causing me some hesitation to do so.  However, with the new technologies in this card, maybe it will even though I wouldn't feel comfortable about it especially if it did not meet the 40 amp requirement on the +12V rails for this card and my guess is that it does not.  Generally, if my power supply does not have the correct power cables for running the card without using adapters and does not meet the amp requirement, I will upgrade it. 

Hi,

Just to let anyone interested in upgrading the 435MT with a 5850, you will need to upgrade the PSU as well, because the 360w one has only 1 PCI-E connector (2 are required). I upgraded to the 500w Antec Earthwatts EA-500 (a pretty good quality PSU),  to power up my brand new ATi 5850. The PSU and video card fits perfectly in the restricted space of the mini tower.

My main concern was power management because ATI recommend 500w as a bare minimum, but even at full load my whole system doesn't push more than 400w. I've been running tests and benchmarks for 2 weeks, coupled with a couple of long gaming sessions. Not a single glitch or problem to report, in fact as a great side-effect my average temps are way down from my old 4850 (that card has poor cooling), and since the air is pushed out from the case more efficiently the overall MB temps are down a couple of degrees, too.

Oh, and the card is a real monster. It doesn't even break a sweat running Fallout 3 with everything pushed at max (w/ hi-res texture mods), everything is so smooth... can't wait for the first DirectX11 games to come out !