upgrading gfx card

[b0nus]

Hi I want to upgrade my gfx card.

I am a bit of a noob so i am sorry and my pc isn't brilliant but I just wanted to hear you thoughts.

These are my specs.

Amd Phenom(tm) 9550 Quad Core Processor 2.20 GHz
RAM 4 GB
640 GB HDD
Vista 32 bit

This is my GFX card NVIDIA GFORCE 9500 GS

I'm not massively concerned about playing top of the range games at full graphics because I know that my pc isn't excellent. However I do want to upgrade the card so that I can play games such as Assassins creed 2 or wow or higher graphics then I do. To be honest the games run fairly well just occasionally it freezes or is slow in certain areas and I thought parents asked me for xmas present - why not get a new gfx card. Now the only other problem is that if I am to get one i probably need a new powersupply as mines only 400 - 450 watt

Prices - I'm not really sure so by all means suggest anything if there's a card that will drastically increase my performance for a good price and one which will work with my specs then please suggest it. Please don't comment saying that my pc is bad - don't you think I know ? cheers and if i've missed anything vital please say cos i haven't done this before.

 

[b0nus]

bump

 

[Marine-RX179]

While that Phenom I is not the greatest of CPUs, it is still a Quad-core CPU and would run games fairly well on games that uses more than two-cores.

Don't know what sort of budget you planned for the graphic card, but at the moment, the MSI 5850 Twin FrozeR at OcUK is the best bang for buck card at the moment, and over 200 orders have already been placed since the deal came out two days ago:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-103-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411
Gibbo (OcUK staff) has confirmed that the card comes with a copy of Assasin Creed 2 as well. I myself also have pre-ordered the card for an upgrade...because at the current price it is an absolute steal!

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

We will need to know a rough budget and what resolution your monitor is.

I would say look at the Nvidia 460 range but we need answers to the above really.

Wu

 

[b0nus]

MSI ATI Radeon HD 5850 is something more in my price range I can't really afford anything else. My monitor resolution is 1920 1080.

So i'd be happy to upgrade to that, or perhaps if there's anything nearly as good that is slightly cheaper, perhaps £100 120 - as i understand the actual price of this card i £149.99? If i do buy this card, do i need to upgrade my powersupply - How much does this card recommend in terms of power as mine is only 400 or 450 watt. I have looked but it doesn't actually say a wattage amount does it?

 

[b0nus]

Also is there anything else i need to check in terms of the card actually working with my pc?

 

[Marine-RX179]

MSI ATI Radeon HD 5850 is something more in my price range I can't really afford anything else. My monitor resolution is 1920 1080.

So i'd be happy to upgrade to that, or perhaps if there's anything nearly as good that is slightly cheaper, perhaps £100 120 - as i understand the actual price of this card i £149.99? If i do buy this card, do i need to upgrade my powersupply - How much does this card recommend in terms of power as mine is only 400 or 450 watt. I have looked but it doesn't actually say a wattage amount does it?

Is your PSU of decent made/brand, or some generic crap one? If it is the generic you should swap out the PSU and change to a branded decent PSU instead anyway. If it is a decent made PSU, 400W would be more than fine for a system with a single 5850.

Also is there anything else i need to check in terms of the card actually working with my pc?

If you can tell us what motherboard you got we can check for you. But the truth is any motherboard with PCI-E x16 slot should work with more modern graphic cards anyway (except for cards such as 5670 that has issue with motherboard that only uses PCI-E 1.0 x16 slot).

 

[b0nus]

Well the problem is my motherboard i think and don't quote me is made my acer. I'll show you a link to my computer.

I don't actually know what motherboard I have an with my powersupply, my friend told me most powersupplies are ATX? Now, it doesn't actually say ATX on my PSU atall, but i measured it and it is the same measurements as other ATX PSU's so does that mean it is?

Link removed.

 

[JTrickle]

You will need to remove the competitor link. [And the pics on that price comparison site are not working so I cant see the case. Need to know its a full width so can take full height gfx cards. Says 3850 there so that one will be. Also with an atx psu if should almost certainly be.]

If it measures up then its an atx format. You will need to either work out or guess its 12v power handling capabilities. Ideally it will have a sticker giving info on the 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails.

Lastly, as its a branded machine it probably wont allow for overclocking in the bios. Go check because 2.2ghz is pretty painful these days. If you can overclock to 2.8+ ghz you should see a full extra 25% performance boost in games, as they are all going to be cpu limited for you regardless what gfx card you buy here.