what needs to be looked at when buying a GPU?

[TheEliteReaper]

i was just having a look at cards on such n such for a project of my own and looking up some specs im wondering whether i could better the missus 8500GT 256mb..

the thing is though she has a AMD Mobile Sempron 3300+ on a Biostar Socket 754 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 410 chipset Motherboard that has a PCIe x16 which is fine and dandy, plenty of them slot cards about, but is that all the info required to spec a GPU??

i shouldnt see why a 512mb 8500GT wont fit, but was thinking better..

 

[stulid]

Can you remove the competitor name please.

 

[stulid]

Reducing it to a single letter is not good enough

 

[TheEliteReaper]

better?

 

[TheEliteReaper]

would the 8600GT be much of an upgrade over the 8500GT? i have just looked at a comparison and there is a difference, but wondering if it would actually be noticeable when streaming using flash players and running facebook games?? like ive said in other threads The Sims be the only disc game she will play when get hold of them.

 

[Kralnor]

The 8600GT was/is significantly faster than the 8500GT, but I don't think there will be any noticeable difference for just Flash, FB games and The Sims.

Some benchmarks here