How standard the power supply is? If it is normal ATX - any decent modern PSU would do. If it is not -GTX750 is always an option...

Archer57 wrote on 2025-08-19, 23:23:

How standard the power supply is? If it is normal ATX - any decent modern PSU would do. If it is not -GTX750 is always an option...

I believe its a standard ATX size.
Not sure a modern PSU would do it though, as I see a lot have 4+4 connectors, for the GPU, whilst I need 2x 6+2 (I only need the six pins)

This PSU looks like a decent canditate?
e Quiet! 400W Straight Power 10 PSU
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167726144089

Retronaut wrote on 2025-08-19, 23:42:

I believe its a standard ATX size. Not sure a modern PSU would do it though, as I see a lot have 4+4 connectors, for the GPU, wh […]
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I believe its a standard ATX size.
Not sure a modern PSU would do it though, as I see a lot have 4+4 connectors, for the GPU, whilst I need 2x 6+2 (I only need the six pins)

This PSU looks like a decent canditate?
e Quiet! 400W Straight Power 10 PSU
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/167726144089

4+4 are for the motherboard/CPU power, not videocard. Apart from new 12VHPWR connector everything on modern PSUs is going to be either 6, 8 or more commonly - 6+2.

That one should be decent enough, though depending on what you are planning to do it may make sense to get something a bit more powerful - if you get a beefier videocard later it might not be sufficient.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-08-20, 00:02:

That one should be decent enough, though depending on what you are planning to do it may make sense to get something a bit more powerful - if you get a beefier videocard later it might not be sufficient.

I don't think there ARE beefier GPUs, the 8800 GTX is about as powerful as the Gen 1 PCI-E slot this board has can handle. The next Gen of nVidia cards require Gen2

Retronaut wrote on 2025-08-20, 00:42:

I don't think there ARE beefier GPUs, the 8800 GTX is about as powerful as the Gen 1 PCI-E slot this board has can handle. The next Gen of nVidia cards require Gen2

Not require - support. The cards are backwards compatible and you can use whatever card you want. I have a system with pci-e 1 and GTX660, even RTX5090 will probably work if you wanted to do that, though there may be other issues here like legacy bios support...

Or, as an alternative suggestion, instead of buying a new PSU, maybe just get a newer (and better) GPU that uses less power. GTX 750 is a popular choice among many here, because it's both more powerful than the 8800 GTX and at the same time uses only a fraction of the power... which means you will be able to use the original PSU. Speaking of which, the original PSUs in these machines might seem pretty "barebones", but they are actually good units. Sometimes, after many years of use, they do need a recap. But for the most part, they are reliable PSUs. I usually elect to keep them, unless a replacement (with a more powerful PSU) is absolutely necessary.

Anyways, the reason I made the above suggestion in regards to using a different video card is because the 8800 GTX is form the bumpgate era and all of these are bound to fail over time, especially on the stock fan profile. The only reason I would ever consider keeping that card in a retro system is if I am absolutely dead-set on having a completely era-appropirate machine.

BTW, GT640 and some GT630 video cards should give you pretty close performance to that 8800 GTX, and again at a fraction of the power usage. Just suggesting these as an alternative to the GTX 750. GTS450 is another alternative, though that one will need a 6-pin PCI-E (for which you can use a 4-pin moxel to 6-pin PCI-E).

momaka wrote on 2025-08-20, 14:04:

Or, as an alternative suggestion, instead of buying a new PSU, maybe just get a newer (and better) GPU that uses less power. GTX 750 is a popular choice among many here, because it's both more powerful than the 8800 GTX and at the same time uses only a fraction of the power... which means you will be able to use the original PSU. Speaking of which, the original PSUs in these machines might seem pretty "barebones", but they are actually good units. Sometimes, after many years of use, they do need a recap. But for the most part, they are reliable PSUs. I usually elect to keep them, unless a replacement (with a more powerful PSU) is absolutely necessary.

Anyways, the reason I made the above suggestion in regards to using a different video card is because the 8800 GTX is form the bumpgate era and all of these are bound to fail over time, especially on the stock fan profile. The only reason I would ever consider keeping that card in a retro system is if I am absolutely dead-set on having a completely era-appropirate machine.

BTW, GT640 and some GT630 video cards should give you pretty close performance to that 8800 GTX, and again at a fraction of the power usage. Just suggesting these as an alternative to the GTX 750. GTS450 is another alternative, though that one will need a 6-pin PCI-E (for which you can use a 4-pin moxel to 6-pin PCI-E).

Thanks for all the info, the problem is, I have already bought that specific card, for this machine, so I think I will go with it. I only noticed the lack of power for it AFTER I opened up the machine
Stupidly I just ASSUMED that the PSU would have these 6 pin connectors, I checked and it appears extra PSU leads came in on the previous nVidia generation
Which came out a YEAR before this machine hit the market.
So, the PSU, LITERALLY has no other power rails available for it, so ANY GPU that requires an external power source, wont go in this machine.

Good info about the 8800 GTX tending to fail, so what is the issue here? the fan is not powerful enough to cool it? Do you think this card would benefit from being re-capped? Or is it a case of other aspects of it dying?

I have actually now ordered a PSU, it's this "Be Quiet! 400W Straight Power 10 PSU", it has the required 6pin power for the GPU and it's a 400W unit, so 100W more than the built in PSU.
I did this as I am making a Youtube video on this machine, so there is a bit of a schedule to be kept.
I guess the extra 100W will cover the extra draw from the 8800 GTX

Retronaut wrote on 2025-08-20, 15:01:

So, the PSU, LITERALLY has no other power rails available for it, so ANY GPU that requires an external power source, wont go in this machine.

Often this power supplies are not powerful enough for that anyway. Pci-e can provide up to 75W without external connector and it is probably assumed that using more powerful card without replacing the PSU is not a good idea.

Retronaut wrote on 2025-08-20, 15:01:

Good info about the 8800 GTX tending to fail, so what is the issue here? the fan is not powerful enough to cool it? Do you think this card would benefit from being re-capped? Or is it a case of other aspects of it dying?

They are defective. The GPUs themselves, not cards. In a simplified way - they've used a material which helps hold the die in place which becomes soft at 70C. And in many cases combined it with cooling systems intentionally designed to run at much higher temperatures.

So for this card to have any chance of lasting you have to make sure it never reaches 70C, probably have to edit fan curve setting something like 60C as target and then "enjoy" the hairdryer sounds.... or replace the cooler altogether. Is it worth the hassle? That's subjective, but from practical point of view certainly not.

momaka wrote on 2025-08-20, 14:04:

Anyways, the reason I made the above suggestion in regards to using a different video card is because the 8800 GTX is form the bumpgate era and all of these are bound to fail over time, especially on the stock fan profile.

I am not sure about situation with GTX and OPs card, it is likely "not great", but i've recently bought a few 8800GT cards and was pleasantly surprised - one card out of three had cooler and fan profile which keep the temperature below 60C.

So good cards do exist...

It is just a comment though, i completely agree with what you are saying.

The Be Quiet! PSU arrived today, I shall be testing it with the 8800 GTX tomorrow. Just hoping the Dell E520 itself is not dead....

And I have published the first Video on this PC to YT, no PSU yet, have a watch to see state of play 21/08/2025

momaka wrote on 2025-08-20, 14:04:

Or, as an alternative suggestion, instead of buying a new PSU, maybe just get a newer (and better) GPU that uses less power. GTX 750 is a popular choice among many here, because it's both more powerful than the 8800 GTX and at the same time uses only a fraction of the power...

So, I'm back, to your comment about the GTX750, I did not discount what you suggested out of hand, rather I rejected it for a simple reason, I have already bought an 8800 GTX, and having sunk £20 into it, I thought lets carry on.

Then today, dominoes fell, and I realised I would HAVE to reverse up and take a look at the GTX 750. Why? Well, it turns the Dell Dimension E520 uses a custom cooling solution, meaning the holes in the case, which would acommodate the Coolermaster LGA 755 cooler, are in quite a different position.

You see the stock cooler in mine was missing, well, at least the aluminium block was, so, it was defunct, so when I bought parts I had ordered a Coolermaster LGA 755 cooler, old/new stock and I thought I was good. But it wont fit. So it appears I HAVE to find an original CPU heatsink assembly, and I ordered one last night. But it IS a behemoth, it takes up so much space in the case.

Anyway, apart from that I had ALSO not considered that the DELL was designed for a simpler time when GPUs were BOTH a lot shorter AND one one slot in width. The Slot width is a problem, but a greater one is the length of the card. The 8800 GTX takes up the space where the CPU cooler goes. So, bugger, it's not going to work out.

Looking at the GTX 750, its a remarkably short card, so it looks like the Be Quiet! PSU, which to be fair works great, is just not needed with it. So, I'll order a GTX 750 and see how it goes.
I now have a smattering of parts I don't need. But I'll probably just stash them away for when I need to build a retro Windows 7 machine. It'll happen soon enough 😀

If you have the new PSU anyway, it fits, works and creates no complications - IMO use it regardless of the card. It'll remove a major potential failure point from the system.

Also yeah, this is how things tend to go - some screw-ups and some resulting "spare parts" are almost inevitable.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-08-23, 21:14:

If you have the new PSU anyway, it fits, works and creates no complications - IMO use it regardless of the card. It'll remove a major potential failure point from the system.

Also yeah, this is how things tend to go - some screw-ups and some resulting "spare parts" are almost inevitable.

\Screw ups, indeed. I should have taken more time to research the machine, I just assumed that the plastic box that sits over the CPU was an air shroud, NOT the actual mount for the CPU heatsink block. I guess part of the reason for my mistake was that I did not even consider that someone had removed that sink, as its screwed INTO the plastic. I cant quite work out the scenario where they WOULD remove the sink for a normal reason. In reverse, yes. If you dropped it, the plastic might shatter and you would be left with the intact metal sink, but the other way around. Anyway...

I have checked the price of the 750 GTX vs the Ti model and it appears you can get the Ti for the same price. BUT... I noticed it requires PCI-E v3, and this machine is only v1, so I guess the card will be bottle-necked by the card slot. so, I guess getting just the plain GTX might be the better move, as it uses less power. And it 's also probably "good enough" either way for a machine from 2006

Retronaut wrote on 2025-08-23, 21:26:

I have checked the price of the 750 GTX vs the Ti model and it appears you can get the Ti for the same price. BUT... I noticed it requires PCI-E v3, and this machine is only v1, so I guess the card will be bottle-necked by the card slot. so, I guess getting just the plain GTX might be the better move, as it uses less power. And it 's also probably "good enough" either way for a machine from 2006

Do not worry about it too much, performance impact from older pci-e for this cards will be negligible. Probably within margin of error. Unless power is a significant concern, which it seemingly is not - Ti is slightly faster and probably a better choice if price is the same.

After all you'll probably want a lot higher than period correct resolution and framerates, so faster card may help.

Oh, Im not too worried, I KNOW Im putting a MUCH newer GFX card in an older platform, it'll be the CPU/FSB and PCI-E slot which will limit the card, BUT it will be much more powerful than XP games required. VERY good call to get a 750 GTX/Ti. I'm just praying it will fit, as the Heatsink shroud is just so stupidly large.

In terms of playing the games on it, I'll be very happy to have 60fps, but I will probably stick to lower resolutions. I find if you play 800x600 games at HD, they just look poopy. Not enough polygons to fill those extra pixels, and the textures are to low res to make a fight of it at that res as well. Its better to watch them through the pixel grid that the coders/designers intended?

Retronaut wrote on 2025-08-23, 21:26:

\Screw ups, indeed. I should have taken more time to research the machine, I just assumed that the plastic box that sits over the CPU was an air shroud, NOT the actual mount for the CPU heatsink block. I guess part of the reason for my mistake was that I did not even consider that someone had removed that sink, as its screwed INTO the plastic. I cant quite work out the scenario where they WOULD remove the sink for a normal reason. In reverse, yes. If you dropped it, the plastic might shatter and you would be left with the intact metal sink, but the other way around. Anyway...

Yeah Dell used a different HS mount in that machine as it is a BTX motherboard and its Dell. At least by that time they were done with their mixed up pinouts on their PSUs.

I just recycled about 4 of that style machine, sent the HS and shroud mountings to recycle. I kept one of the machines for my collection..... actually I kept most of the motherboards for part scavenging.