Upgrading GFX and a few other bits. Any Advice?

jimmyob

jimmyob

jimmyob

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Joined
14 Sep 2005
Posts
113
Hi Guys,
I bought an HPE-063uk last year and have been wanting to upgrade the GFX card for a while now. It's currently got a Geforce 230GT 1.5G which seems to be the worst GFX card going and is therefore not on general sale.
Overall Specs are:
Intel i7 860
8GB DDR3-SDRAM
Geforce 230GT

I dont really know much about PC's anymore and was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.
It's mostly for games and would be looking to spend around 200 on the card and then 100 on any upgrades to the PSU.
Does anyone know if it would need an upgraded Mobo as well?
I can go Nvidia or ATI dont really have a preference.
Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks,
Jim
 
Assuming this is it?

Do you know what PSU is has in it? You shouldn't need to upgrade your motherboard for any reason but may find it has an inadequate PSU for a top card.

What resolution is the monitor you'll be gaming on?

Looks like it only has 1x PCI-E x16 so rules out any multi gpu setups.
 
Shadow, current res is 1280x1024 but i do sometimes whack stuff on my 32" not sure of the res on that.
not sure of the current PSU output and havent managed to find out on net. I've heard it's around 430w.
Any more help would be great.
 
Ok right. Well I think you've set you budget way too high for a graphics card considering the resolution of your monitor.

Something like the MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 768MB will be more than enough at that resolution and your generic 430W psu should be able to cope. I wouldn't waste your money on a £200 gfx card and £100 psu! I'm assuming the 32" screen is a TV (either at 720 or 1080) rather than a massive high resolution monitor?

Personally I would look at getting a 24" 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 monitor for ~£150 and maybe a 1GB GTX 460 (£150) or Radeon 5850 (£130). Both should be ok with your PSU.
 
Last edited:
shadow_boxer said:
Ok right. Well I think you've set you budget way too high for a graphics card considering the resolution of your monitor.

Something like the MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 768MB will be more than enough at that resolution and your generic 430W psu should be able to cope. I wouldn't waste your money on a £200 gfx card and £100 psu! I'm assuming the 32" screen is a TV (either at 720 or 1080) rather than a massive high resolution monitor?

Personally I would look at getting a 24" 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 monitor for ~£150 and maybe a 1GB GTX 460 (£150) or Radeon 5850 (£130). Both should be ok with your PSU.
Click to expand...

+1. All sounds good to me. No real benefit to the 1GB GTX460 over the "gimped" version - well certainly no benefit worth £30 :p
 
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