Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

I have a 2011 Dell XPS 8300. The System: i7-2600 CPU @ 3.4 GHZ, 64 Bit and 32 GB RAM (upgraded from 16)

Graphics Card: PCI Express x16 AMD Radeon 6450 with 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM

The card is proprietary to this PC. I have tried 3 different (new) cards and they won't work due to BIOS conflict.

My question: Has anyone upgraded a Dell 8300 to a new Graphics card with more memory? Say 6-8 GB RAM? If so, what brand/model?

I would love to be able to make this PC (I have two of them) work with an upgraded graphics card with more memory due to the size of the RAW files I am trying to post process and manage.

Lesson learned: Don't be cheap when picking out a PC for post processing photos and needing all the RAM you can get for both system and graphics.

Thank you for your time and reply.

Jim

Dave327 Loc: Duluth, GA. USA

I would call Dell and talk with them. There may be a BIOS upgrade for the 8300.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Is the BIOS Rev A06 or A07?

niteman3d Loc: South Central Pennsylvania, USA

I went to Dell.com and typed into the search box "can I upgrade the video card in my XPS 8300". Several 4gb and one 8gb card came up (all under $200 US). To the right along the side of the screen is a tab to click that has a tech advisor phone number as well as a chat link and an email option. My last few encounters with Dell support haven't been horrible, YMMV.

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

If it's an option, get the 8gb with ddr4, ddr5 would be better.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You can run dual HD displays (1920x1200) on 1 gb vram without issue. I did it for years with an i7 2600K desktop overclocked to 5 ghz, and using an Nvidia GeForce GTS 450, and I edited many panoramas based on images taken with a D800/D810, some as large as 600mp or bigger, without issue - using Photoshop and Lightroom. You will not really see an improvement in performance by selecting a card with more vram, unless you are using multiple 4k or 5k displays. AND cards are not usually as fast as the Nvidia versions.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Photoshop-139/Hardware-Recommendations

DennisC. Loc: Antelope, CA

If you are a Photoshop or Lightroom user, upgrading your graphics card will make a little to no improvement in those programs, a faster processor and more ram is the only way to improve RAW processing performance.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Dennis your statement is true but not true, certainly in the Poster's conditions. There are 5 components to upgrade, only Graphics card is the only one left of the 5 that has been or can be upgraded. The Dell CPUs are what they are... yes memory counts and 32 gig is more than enough... The only other upgrade is the graphics card and adding a few RGB Fans and LED strips.

The article says that inadequate Graphics cards are detected so this article says and not used as a processing tool for LtRm. The article then goes on to suggest using a strong graphics card with significant memory. Strong high memory graphics cards take on a lot of the graphics processing load and do editing quickly.

To quote: "Both Photoshop and Lightroom Classic will benefit from having a fast, dedicated graphics card. Although Photoshop has been supporting graphics hardware acceleration for some time now, previous versions of Lightroom were under-performing with the graphics processor turned on. However, it seems that the latest version Lightroom Classic is now taking advantage of the graphics processor. We recommend you enable it and see what it does. Note that if Lightroom decides your graphics card is not strong enough for hardware acceleration, it will automatically disable this feature completely, to avoid negative performance issues."
https://digitalphotographycourses.co.za/best-computer-photo-editing/

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Another thing to consider. Even if you get it to work, you’ll need to make sure you have adequate cooling and a large enough power supply to support it. Modern graphics cards with GPUs get hot and are power hungry, often producing more heat than the CPU, and many Dells (and other commodity machines) aren’t built with a lot of extra cooling or power supply capacity.

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

You weren't necessarily being cheap when you bought this system. It's 9 years old. What you bought was a significant system for that time. The video card was manufactured by AMD for this Dell system. It could be that a BIOS upgrade would help resolve this issue if there is one available that is newer than what is on your system. However, you must be careful with BIOS upgrades because if something happens during the upgrade process, you can be left with a non-working system. If you go to Dell's website and then to support, you can enter the service tag number on your system to see what is available for your specific system. They have a utility that you can install and it will search for any updated drivers as well as BIOS upgrades.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I think you would be wise to look at 2GB and, maybe, 4GB graphics cards. You're much more likely to find compatibility with them, with a nine year old computer. 6GB and 8GB cards have only recently become affordable... are largely designed to work with newer systems and are mostly wanted by gamers looking for ultrafast screen rates. Photo editing doesn't require that. If you are also processing video, maybe there's a need... but you'd probably be better to first get a newer computer (or at least processor and motherboard).

There's a several-year-old, but extensive discussion about graphics card upgrades to Dell XPS 8300 over on the Dell community blog, including a list of Dell-recommended cards as well as others that users have successfully installed: https://www.dell.com/community/Desktops-General-Read-Only/XPS-8300-video-card-upgrade/td-p/5041788

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

You should be able to look at the specs on the computer at del site if you don't have it, until what can and cannot be upgraded. That's what I did with my HP that I had and decided with what upgrades I could do would not get me to where I wanted to be so I built a complete new system. the specs will tell you what graphics cards you can add what memory you can add it will tell you everything so you can make a decision. But with a PC that old I think in my opinion to be better off to build a new one. My biggest problem was space and cooling and power supply. I couldn't add a bigger power supply which you more than likely will need with the up-to-date newer graphics.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

The NVIDIA 1050Ti with 4 gig is under $150 is considered adequate for photo editing. It can so it is claimed Overclocked. Faster cards are better? Perhaps but fast is fast and what you perceive is perhaps the same, and faster requires electronic timing measurements! The 1050Ti does not require external power.

I have not yet overclocked my 1050Ti.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQxna9id9Kc

gouldopfl

The latest versions do use the GPU's and will make a difference in speed if the computer can really use the newer video cards. I have seen people go out and purchase expensive cards. Many machines even a couple of years old don't fully support the newer cards and the cards go to a fallback compatibility mode. I think you can turn on/off the GPU in PS and LR. If you are multi-threading on each processor then the AMD processors rip Intel processors. If you only run 1 thread per core then Intel surpasses the AMD CPU's. As to Nvidia vs AMD GPU's, that changes all the time. AMD cards are just as good in the range that most photographers would use. At the high end currently is probably Nvidia however the AMD "Big Nav" processor out paces the Nvidia cards. This will be a tit for tat on the video GPU's.

Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA

Hey guys! Tonight I solved my problems! A Dell 8940 XPS arrived from Costco. It is wired to a LG Ultra HG LED monitor with a display port cable. Amazing how much more detail I can now see with the improved graphics card and monitor. WOW! My 10 year old Dell XPS is still running great. Fingers crossed for this new Dell.

Specs on PC: 64GB RAM, 64 Bit OS Intel i7 10th generation 2.9 GHz (without OC), 1TB SSD OS Drive, 2 TB SATA Data Storage, multi card reader, WiFi, Blu Tooth, NVidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card.

THANKS EVERYONE FOR THE INPUT!!! Appreciate it.