What graphice cards would my motherboard be capable of using

[demonix]

I did ask a little while ago if a GT610 graphics card would work with the ASUS M2N-MX, but after a bit of consideration, I've decided to do add a few more upgrades (more RAM and extra hard drives along with some other upgrades) and I'm now wondering what graphics cards will work (either Nvidia or AMD) on that motherboard with no issues (the processor is an AMD athlon 64 X2 6000+).

If anyone decides to give any specific recommendations, I should mention that any graphics card has to be single slot and the cooler shouldn't cover the slot below it as I'm adding a USB3 card as well.

 

[demonix]

Since that hasn't given me any responses, I thought that I'd add a few extra questions.

Am I limited to using PCI-E 2.0 compatible graphics cards or will PCI-E 3.0 cards work as well?
Are the PSU requirements given on the manufacturers website reliable, or should I delve deeper into the motherboard manual (if I can find it)?

If I don't get any response from this, then I'll have to assume that I can't go above the GT610 with this motherboard.

 

[JonSmith]

Any PCI-E graphics card would be compatible. I would however recommend one with an external power connector. A good example of this is the HD7770.

 

[Doogles]

You can get a Powercolor HD 7850 2GB for £90 new from another site, can't link as it is against rules, but the CPU would bottleneck anything more expensive anyway.

 

[demonix]

Unfortunately neither of those options would be viable as it would scrap the USB3 upgrade as the PCI-E 1x slot would be covered.

 

[Doogles]

Unfortunately neither of those options would be viable as it would scrap the USB3 upgrade as the PCI-E 1x slot would be covered.

Instead of upgrading you would be so much better off just starting from scratch and starting fresh with a new build.

 

[humbug]

Instead of upgrading you would be so much better off just starting from scratch and starting fresh with a new build.

I would tend to agree with this, that Athlon x2 is 10 years old, with respect its absolutely useless for gaming.

Upgrading does not necessarily have to cost a fortune, a used first generation i5 or i7 setup can be had pretty cheap these days.

 

[demonix]

Regardless, I don't have the money for a whole new system so my only option is to upgrade this one (and previous experience has made me avoid intel processors like the plague) and the only graphics intensive game I'm playing at the moment is world of tanks and I can't run it with the on board GPU (it does run, but there was a lot of lag on mouse movement in the garage which means the game might be unplayable) and running it on the desktop will probably be a lot better since the laptop I'm using to play it (CPU is slightly below the minimum requirements, but the GPU is) does make a meal out of loading the maps at times and any desktop GPU available now would be better then what the laptop has (it's a AMD(Ati) mobility radeon 4000 series GPU) even an R7 240 if it doesn't cause too much of a bottleneck.