Hey all. My girlfriend has this AWFUL dell desktop, it's the dimension 5100C... a.k.a. the non-upgradeable wonder.

It's in a slim case. We're talking like 4 inches wide here.

It's got a PCIE slot, but the case is so freaking tiny that I don't know of any decent PCIE cards that can actually fit in there. The onboard video is 64 mb, so anything better than that is lovely... any nvidia or ATI chips available on cards that tiny?

Let's say something that runs at the geforce 6 series level?

thanks.

Here is a search at Newegg.com...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=low+profile+video+card+pci+express&x=26&y=33

It's got a PCIE slot
Apparently its got two slots (http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim5100C/sm/techov.htm#wp1056059): one x1 and one x16. That should determine what you can add.

Thanks, but after looking into it more it turns out that only half height cards will fit into this case, and unfortunately there seems to be an extremely small selection of cards like that out there. If anyone knows of a decent half height card, please message me.

Did you look at the link to NewEgg?

That whole list is low profile/half height cards...

I suppose there are... it is difficult to determine whether a card is half height by the photo. Unfortunately, newegg's customer service is 100% clueless as to any information about products they sell.

http://www.directron.com/lowprofile.html

Half height and low profile are often interchangeable...except that a true low profile card also has a low profile bracket...

This XFX 8400GS 256MB card may work as long as you don't expect too much out of it, like fast FPS at high resolution while running the newest games.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150257
and if you need the low profile bracket for it you can get it here
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16814998301

Unfortunately, newegg's customer service is 100% clueless as to any information about products they sell.

Newegg does not offer tech support for any of the products that they sell. If Newegg did offer product tech support it would require a full time team of people and we would have to pay them through higher prices. If you click on the "manufacturer Info" tab on the product page they will give you the manufacturers product support phone number for most products. XFX product support phone number is 1-800-880-3225.

The plot thickens... I appreciate all of your suggestions, however just by viewing photos I can tell that none of these cards will fit. It's not just a question of the amount of room in the case; the I/O slots on the back of the machine are very small.

The following photo is one I found on the web. On the bottom you can see the two little baby expansion ports, one of which is pci and the other of which is pcie 16x. In the photo they are being used for what looks like a TV tuner and some other device. In the machine in question, neither slot is being used.

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005/0627/5100_7.jpg

Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_Component_Interconnect#Low-profile_.28half-height.29_card)

Low-profile (half-height) card

The PCI organization has defined a standard for "low-profile" cards, which basically fit in the following ranges:

* Height: 1.42 inches (36.07 mm) to 2.536 inches (64.41 mm)
* Depth: 4.721 inches (119.91 mm) to 6.6 inches (167.64 mm)

The bracket is also reduced in height, to a standard 3.118 inches (79.2 mm).

These cards may be known by other names such as "slim".

The second card in the pic looks like a TV tuner.

this one will fit.
at least it should. (dell, if nothing else, did follow the Standards for PCI)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129074

See here, http://www.eurotech.it/CompactPCI/compactpci.html