Gaming Discussions

[happyh4]

I,ve got an Alienware X51 R2 machine that is a small form factor rig that runs on a 330 watt power brick.

Because of that, I'm finding it hard to find a replacement for the Radeon R9 270 card in mine that went bad.

The only ones that are certified for my rig are:

Radeon R9 270

Radeon R9 270x 

and R9 370x

I think that they have to draw less than 150 watt for this machine.

It has 2 6-pin connectors on the one that is in it. Will I need a card with dual connectors or will a single one work.

Can anyone suggest a card that will work?

[jamesc359]

If you're looking for a replacement with comparable performance I'd suggest looking into an RX 560 or maybe trying to find an RX 460 on the used market. Small form factors can be finicky though, so I can't make any guarantees that it'll work.

[happyh4]

Thanks for the response. I never thought about the limitations of the small form machine with a power brick when I bought it so finding a card that will actually work is more important than performance right now. Do you think this card would run in my X51 R2? It looks like it only uses 140 watts.

https://www.amazon.ca/ASUS-Radeon-GDDR5-Graphics-RX560-O4G-EVO/dp/B076FL47B7 

[jamesc359]

No, that one won't fit in your case since it's a full sized card. I looked and I can't find any low profile RX 560's on Amazon.ca, or BestBuy.ca or Newegg.ca. At the risk of drawing the ire of the AMD Red Team I'm going to suggest that if you can't find one at another retailer you might have to get something like this; https://www.amazon.ca/GTX-1050-TI-4GT-LP/dp/B01N2W8MJ9/

[happyh4]

I ended up ordering that card. I checked the size and it is actually smaller than the one in there. I should get it on Monday. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[jamesc359]

Hopefully it works out for you. Be sure to let us know how it goes.

[happyh4]

This is the card I ended up with. $238.00 with tax and it fit like a glove. Works perfectly too. Thanks for your input, I was really lost on what to get.

[jamesc359]

I'm glad it worked out for you! Happy gaming! 🙂

[ghost13]

4 Gig Model... oh no... You need at least a 8 Gig Card. 4 Gigs is ... like NV with 3.5 Gigs ; )

[benman2785]

no - 4G is enough for 1080p!

my RX580 4G in my Desktop and my RX560X 4G in my Laptop are sufficent for 1080p Gaming!
most games are between 2-3.8GB of vram-usage.

why you ask? because to have +100fps most people lower details!

[ghost13]

I play mostly on my 144Hz PC Screen. But 4 Gigs are not Future proof! There are many games that go beyond 8 Gigs!

It was a stronghold for AMD GPU's also in the mid-range to ship with 8 Gigs! Sadly they act like NV now and ship cards with 4 Gigs... NO THX!!! 

[benman2785]

here you have it - 1080p Division on a RX580 4G = 140fps = 3556mb after 10min 
if it would need more video memory we would see over 3900mb being used...

[ghost13]

Here you have it ? 1 Game ? Old Game... Okay

I give you also 1 Game: Division 2 (Private Beta) On my Old 1080P Samsung. HBCC to stock up my 8 Gigs of HBM2 Memory on my Sapphire V64 Nitro+LE OC 

[benman2785]

...You do understand that with 8GB of VRAM (btw your GPU shows 10GB) your GPU can simply have more "old" textures stored in RAM?
Believe me - when your game is on an SSD and you only play 1080p with mid-high settings (to achieve +100fps) youonly need 4GB or VRAM for 95% of todays games...

there are exceptions - so 8GB is more future-proof - but as of now you its more of a "nice-to-have" than a "must-have"

[ajlueke]

You realize this thread is almost a year old right?  Beyond that, the card he was replacing had only 2Gb of VRAM so 4GB is probably more than enough for whatever he is doing.