Best single slot Graphics card for general use?

[SBBusboy]

I have an older Dell XPS 8300 with an NVIDIA GT 530 OEM graphics card. Due to space considerations, I need to replace it with a a single-slot graphics card. Can anyone recommend the best single-slot replacement? I don't play games but I do watch movies and videos, so I don't need outrageous power, but I do need a solid general purpose card. I have a monitor with an HDMI connection and a 400W power supply. Any help appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 202104]

It's probably the absolute worst time in history (not exaggerating) to buy a video card.

A GT 1030 is going to be about 3x the performance of your 530, but look to be paying 2-3x what it's worth. A quick check shows if you can find one in stock it's $150-$225.

When it came out in 2017 it was $79.

 

[jboydgolfer]

i got my nephew an optiplex SFF from work years back as his first real PC. it was a blessing & a curse, since it performed well, but had little to no upgrade options.
i had to get clever with upgrades, so i grabbed a GTX 750ti for his first GPU upgrade, & a GTX 1050ti for his second GPU upgrade.

both were Low profile, & require no power other than what is provided by the PCI lane. im sure there are newer options since this was a few years back, but the same idea will work now.

i hope this helps

 

[joemama]

A 1030 should be more than enough for your purpose

 

[Sammyfed1]

Agreed a 10xx series nvidia 1030 2g ram will run great.

 

[SBBusboy]

It's probably the absolute worst time in history (not exaggerating) to buy a video card.

A GT 1030 is going to be about 3x the performance of your 530, but look to be paying 2-3x what it's worth. A quick check shows if you can find one in stock it's $150-$225.

When it came out in 2017 it was $79.

Thanks for the response. I found a ZOTAC low profile that will fit, but it's too expensive. I will wait for the prices to come down.

i got my nephew an optiplex SFF from work years back as his first real PC. it was a blessing & a curse, since it performed well, but had little to no upgrade options.
i had to get clever with upgrades, so i grabbed a GTX 750ti for his first GPU upgrade, & a GTX 1050ti for his second GPU upgrade.

both were Low profile, & require no power other than what is provided by the PCI lane. im sure there are newer options since this was a few years back, but the same idea will work now.

i hope this helps

Thanks for the reply...

 

[SBBusboy]

It's probably the absolute worst time in history (not exaggerating) to buy a video card.

A GT 1030 is going to be about 3x the performance of your 530, but look to be paying 2-3x what it's worth. A quick check shows if you can find one in stock it's $150-$225.

When it came out in 2017 it was $79.

I went to the ZOTAC store and found an open box GT 1030 low profile model for $119 w/free shipping. I grabbed it since the fan on my old card is making a little noise and I don't trust it. Price at Amazon was $199.99 for a refurb. Yesterday morning I was looking at passive cooling models which were readily available and by the afternoon they had all disappeared and only the models with a fan were available (probably just as well - I'm not sure if there is enough air circulation in my case for a passive cooler). The 1030 gets 301% performance over the 530.

A 1030 should be more than enough for your purpose

Thanks for the reply. See my response to weekendgeek...

 

[Deleted member 202104]

I went to the ZOTAC store and found an open box GT 1030 low profile model for $119 w/free shipping. I grabbed it since the fan on my old card is making a little noise and I don't trust it. Price at Amazon was $199.99 for a refurb. Yesterday morning I was looking at passive cooling models which were readily available and by the afternoon they had all disappeared and only the models with a fan were available (probably just as well - I'm not sure if there is enough air circulation in my case for a passive cooler). The 1030 gets 301% performance over the 530.

Good find at the Zotac site! I forgot all about searching direct from the manufacturer.

I would agree that the fan version was the better choice. Without some directed airflow over the card they can run really warm.

Happy computing!

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Gt 1030 could play most Xbox 360 and ps3 games at 60fps, and modern indie games should perform really well

 

[Shrek]

I am also delighted with the GT 1030, but the fanless version; one less thing to worry about and runs games like Far Cry 4.

I just realized you said single slot... the heatsink can take up the second slot.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Zotac makes really good compact low profile coolers, there big coolers however don't perform as good as competing which i find funny

 

[SBBusboy]

I am also delighted with the GT 1030, but the fanless version; one less thing to worry about.

That's why I was looking at them, but they just vanished, even on eBay...

 

[Shrek]

It is VERY important to get the GDDR5 version of the GT 1030 and NOT the DDR4 version.

GT 1030 DDR4 vs. GDDR5 Benchmark: A Disgrace of a Graphics Card | GamersNexus

stub This is something we haven’t seen before. NVidia has taken a relatively successful card, the GT 1030, and has implanted DDR4 in place of GDDR5. It’s actually getting system memory on it, which is a tremendous downgrade. The memory bandwidth reduction is several-fold, dropping from 48GB/s to...

www.gamersnexus.net

 

[tabascosauz]

I have an older Dell XPS 8300 with an NVIDIA GT 530 OEM graphics card. Due to space considerations, I need to replace it with a a single-slot graphics card. Can anyone recommend the best single-slot replacement? I don't play games but I do watch movies and videos, so I don't need outrageous power, but I do need a solid general purpose card. I have a monitor with an HDMI connection and a 400W power supply. Any help appreciated.

May I ask why you need a single slot card specifically? I had a XPS 8500, same chassis as the 8300, it takes any dual slot full length high end cards just fine. Don't see why any 2-slot low profile 1030 wouldn't work.

You Sir don't know what you are talking about

Don't engage with a troll, user's only been here for 15 min and every single post he's made is for blatant trolling

 

[SBBusboy]

May I ask why you need a single slot card specifically? I had a XPS 8500, same chassis as the 8300, it takes any dual slot full length high end cards just fine. Don't see why any 2-slot low profile 1030 wouldn't work.



Don't engage with a troll, user's only been here for 15 min and every single post he's made is for blatant trolling

All my PCIe slots are full, no room for a dual-slot card unless I want to remove something else, like the USB3 card or my sound card.

 

[Shrek]

Pity as I find the small fans on video cards don't always last so long, but the one you ordered seems to be GDDR5 so I think you will be impressed by its performance.

 

[SBBusboy]

Pity as I find the small fans on video cards don't always last so long, but the one you ordered seems to be GDDR5 so I think you will be impressed by its performance.

It's rated at 300% performance above my current card, and my current card suits my limited needs, so all is good...

 

[qubit]

Yup, as the others have said, the GT 1030 will work great if you can find one at a reasonable price.

Check out the gaming benchmarks for my one from my showdown review linked to in my siggy. It's surprisingly good for such a tiny card. It plays videos just fine of course and has the all important HDMI socket.

 

[Ruru]

Here's a vote for GT 1030 as well. I had one with i7-2600K on my previous 2nd rig, it ran even Crysis more than fine at 1080p high.

 

[SBBusboy]

It's probably the absolute worst time in history (not exaggerating) to buy a video card.

A GT 1030 is going to be about 3x the performance of your 530, but look to be paying 2-3x what it's worth. A quick check shows if you can find one in stock it's $150-$225.

When it came out in 2017 it was $79.

Received the ZOTAC GT 1030 low profile, installed it and loaded the gaming drivers from NVIDIA web site. It's working well. The fan is turning very slowly so I think the heatsink is actually doing most of the work. Nice and quiet. I hope it and the new drivers will solve the "DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION" BSODs I was getting in ZOOM meetings...

Here's a vote for GT 1030 as well. I had one with i7-2600K on my previous 2nd rig, it ran even Crysis more than fine at 1080p high.

i7-2600 is exactly what I have in my rig. The 1030 is working well; as I told weekendgeek, I hope it will solve the problems I was having during ZOOM meetings.

 

[Ruru]

i7-2600 is exactly what I have in my rig. The 1030 is working well; as I told weekendgeek, I hope it will solve the problems I was having during ZOOM meetings.

I had 2600K @ 4.5 and the 1030 overclocked that it boosted to about 2000MHz (and of course the memory overclocked to its limits), but I don't think that it makes that huge of a difference compared to your system.