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All Forums > Tech Talk > Tech Talk Forum Page 18 > Video Card (size)
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Bill All-Star Supporter
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Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 12:16AM
About 2 1/3 years ago, I bought an nVidia 8800GTS video card for my PC. The thing's a monster. It's about 4.5" tall and 9" long. When I installed it, I had to move one of my hard drives from one bay to another because they were hitting one another where they are.
Last week, I had a hard drive start to fail. When I went to buy a new one, I found a pretty good deal and decided to buy 2 of them. I remembered that the video card was blocking one bay, but knew that there is room for 4 hard drives in my PC. Tonight when I installed them, I discovered that the video card is actually blocking both of the remaining hard drive bays (I forgot that it's also about 1" thick.
Now for my question. Have video cards gotten smaller over the past few years? Can I get something with similar performance as my current video card that will free up space inside my PC and allow me to install the third hard drive?
The video card that I currently have is more than sufficient for my needs. So I don't need anything more powerful. I'd just like to find something with similar performance in a smaller size.

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Bill All-Star Supporter
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5334 Posts
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Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 1:38AM
OK. I went to Tom's Hardware and, in their benchmark tests, the Nvidia Geforce GTS 250 (1024 MB) ranks a bit higher than the Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS (512 MB) that I currently own (16606 vs. 15128) and the EVGA version is about 1.4" shorter than the card I have today. I'm pretty sure that 1.4" is the difference between being able to use all of my hard drive bays and having two of them blocked.
Does anyone have any experience with this card (or the same card by any other manufacturer)?
I'm still open to any other suggestions.
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Harri Patel
Senior Member

#SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele
5110 Posts
3/03
Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 2:07PM
Measure twice, order once?
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Bill All-Star Supporter
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Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 2:31PM
^ I will definitely open the box up and measure before making a purchase.
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ninja1
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Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 4:59PM
How "handy" are you? Perhaps you could do some sort of creative mechanical modification to shift your hard drives around to gain the needed clearance.
Even a new case would be cheaper than a new video card, but not sure a new case would necessarily solve the clearance problem.
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Bill All-Star Supporter
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Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 8:22PM
In this case spending money is a far less painful experience than rebuilding my PC in a new case would be. Last night, in an attempt to get the third hard drive installed, I had to remove the video card and memory sticks (because they were in the way). After realizing that it wasn't going to work and putting everything back after installing only one hard drive (which replaced the failing one), I spent about 3 hours trying to get my PC started up again. I was convinced that I did something wrong with the video card. But it turned out that I hadn't seated the memory cards correctly (even though I did it about 4 times before getting it right). I still don't have the hard drive formatted. My first two efforts ended in the format freezing at 54%. After doing some research (with that 54% being a key piece of information), it appears that I needed an nVidia update for my Asus motherboard. I'm currently at 42% on format #3. But it appears to be progressing much faster than the previous two attempts.
The card that I'm thinking of is only about $110. That's far less expensive than it will cost to replace the things around my house that I will inevitably smash, in frustration, when I can't get my PC started again.
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ninja1
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Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 10:25PM
^OK understood. Just kicking around some other possibilities.
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Bill All-Star Supporter
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Posted - Oct 2 2010 : 10:31PM
^ appreciate it.
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RandomPrecision
Senior Member

Enjoy!
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Posted - Oct 19 2010 : 11:29PM
Well, I'll just say that if you can deal with moving the motherboard and all the components, I would have to agree that getting a new case would probably be the cheapest solution. I saw one that looked cavernous at Best Buy last time I was there for around $40. Though I have to admit, I don't like messing around with the motherboard. I've moved everything around in my PC except the MB and would be very hesitant to mess with it. One time I did that I put a crack in the board somewhere and it was trash.
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Bill All-Star Supporter
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Posted - Oct 20 2010 : 12:30AM
^ The cheapest solution would actually have been to ask you for my old 8600 GT video card back.
But cheap wasn't a primary concern. I went with the GTS 250 card. It ended up fitting my needs perfectly and was an easy upgrade.
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