Graphics upgrade

iviv · 17 Oct 2009 at 18:58

Helping a friend in the US deal with a graphics card upgrade, I'm not too sure on his PSU though, think its going to be no good.

PSU says:

Delta Electronics, Inc
DPS-250QB-4A Rev: 02F
S/N: ZKD0716018225
Input 100-127V/8.0A 47Hz-63Hz
200-240V/4.0A 47Hz-63Hz
Output: 250 W max
+5V/25.0A +3.3V/18A
+12V/14.0A -12V/0.8A
+5VSB/2.0A

+5V and 12V Total output power can't exceed 218W
+5V and 12V 218W
+5V and 3.3V Total output power can't exceeed 165W
+5V and 3.3V 165W

HP P/N: 5188-2622
DLT250QB4A 02F

Which is going to be absolutely naff for anything modern isn't it?

The rest of his specs are:
Motherboard: Abit NF-M2S
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+ 2.60 GHz
3.50 Gigs of RAM
32-bit Vista
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce430

So besides the graphics card and PSU, its a pretty decent system. Its mainly used for L4D and RA3, though L4D2 will probably be used on it as well. I'm just asking him for a budget (He's american, but it'd be a good guide for poking around). What sort of card should he be looking for to play those games with a good quality, while also futureproofing the system to some extent.
I'm thinking a 4850 1Gb at the moment? Given the rest of the system, it'll last about as long as the processor, and then get a new i7/i9 system in a couple of years?

Kennysevenfold · 17 Oct 2009 at 19:43

Much is he looking to spend?

iviv · 17 Oct 2009 at 20:04

$250 or so is the max. I've been poking arond and seen the SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB and a Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W for $215 after rebates. Seems like a pretty decent combo to me, its cheap as well, more than powerful enough.

There's not going to be any problems with the motherboard, are there, since its MicroATX? I don't know much about these mobos. I also can't find out if its PCI-E V2 or not, though if its not then it'll limit the speed of the graphics card?

Kennysevenfold · 17 Oct 2009 at 20:20

According to THIS the pci-e bus is x8.

should affect the speed to much unless x-fire is going on

which the board is not capable of anyways

Kennysevenfold · 17 Oct 2009 at 20:23

iviv said:
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB and a Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W for $215

Seems a good deal to me

iviv · 17 Oct 2009 at 21:13

Kennysevenfold said:
According to THIS the pci-e bus is x8.

should affect the speed to much unless x-fire is going on which the board is not capable of anyways

# 1 x PCI-E X16 (PCI-E X 8 bandwidth)
So its an X16 slot with X8 speeds? Fair enough. With the rest of the system, its not going to be the PCI slot holding everything back.

iviv · 18 Oct 2009 at 05:08

Right, that looks perfect for him then. Only small problem is that I can't find any proper sizes for the 5770.
http://i35.tinypic.com/2evcaxe.jpg
That's the motherboard it'll be going in, with the PCI-E slot there, The problem is that heatsink, sticks up about 2cm from the board. Now, I'm thinking that'll hit the 5770's cover, but I can't find any dimentions to say for sure. But equally, why would they build a board that can't take any major graphics cards?

Thanks!