Hi all,

I bought this Dell Dimension 3100 last week, but it has one of those useless built in graphics cards (even though it's a 128MB one). I want to pruchase a new one.

But from what I can tell from the image in the owners manual, it looks like I'm stuck with going with a PCI card (see attachment). Am I right?

Is the PCI Express slot pretty useless as far as graphics cards go? Is the
slot PCI Express x1?

No that slot is not for graphics. You are stuck with PCI. Dell are so cheap because they only give you the bare minimum. Even putting a floppy drive in can be a big problem if you don't get one with the machine as new. They leave the cage out so that you can't fit it.

Lesson for the future i think.

Thanks for the reply. I really would have thought that new computers would at least come with an AGP slot. Surely it's not that expensive to include!

But you're right... lesson for the future

I forgot to ask. What is that PCI Express slot used for so?

It is used for graphics cards but only 1x card types which i doubt very much you have the connectors on the card will be the same size as the slot. Didn't want you to think you could use it .

You would normally have other PCI express slots if you have this slot type. You could get a 1xPCI E card, i know matrox do them, but there very basic cards you've got a much better variety of pci cards. It might bo worth using if your pci sockets are 32 bit 33mHz but if there 32 bit & 66mHz or 64 bit & 66mHz they are faster than PCIEx1.

PCIE 1x & 8x can be used for devices other than graphics, but 16x is only used by graphics at the moment.

This PCIe 1X card isn't bad - at least you get SM3-DX9.0- and 512MB. Speed wise it's about on par with the older ati 9500 pro.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814161017


If you look around at places like newegg there was a 6800 nVIDA NU card that was PCI but it appears it's gone now but i'm sure with some dilligent searching you could find it. The egg does have an nVIDA BFG FX5500, but actually the ATI card listed would be much better for newer games with better constant average frame rates with the 512MB