Looking to upgrade need help with video card

out2kyl

Hey everyone! First of all, thanks for opening my topic because I am 100% sure this forum would have a billion posts a day like mine with someone wanting to be spoon fed information. I'll try and make my post a little better than that though :P. I am wanting to upgrade my computer and i am pretty confused about the graphics cards on the market at the moment. I've never been that in to gaming and stuff so I've never needed a super high end one and have basically just gone with whatever was on board the motherboards i get.

Heres my computer set up as of now:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 processor 3000+
RAM: 1.5 gigabytes (a 1 gig stick and a 512 stick)
Video card: Nvidia geforce 6100 128MB
HardDrive: 250GB Western digital
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9
and a CDRW and a DVDRW
(My stupid power supply only says 230V not watts)

And heres the upgrades I'm looking to do:
An extra gig of RAM
Another 250GB hard drive (same make and model so its definitely compatible)
Replacement CDRW/DVDR and another DVDRW so i'll have a total of three Disk drives.
A new 550 Watt Power supply (my old one was picked out of an old computer i found on the side of the road and its been going well! :P)

Does that power supply sound like it would be powerful enough? My guess is that it would be but just for confirmation i thought i'd ask.

Now on to the part i am confused about, I'm looking for a video card that would be around $200 to at most $350 (Australian dollars, in American dollars that would be: 150-300) and would be able to play games like Doom 3, Quake 4, Battlefield 2 and other high end games such as FEAR smoothly. If I'm aiming to high then feel free to let me know but i would like to play games such as Quake 4 and Doom 3 and games at that level smoothly and I think its possible with some decently priced video cards. Anyway the place where i buy my parts from has a big variation in prices and I'm not sure what to think/what to look for. I was checking out cards at the top of my price range, Sapphire 512MB X1950pro looks like a powerful one but that seems too high end for the rest of my system to handle so i think that the price will hover around the 250 mark due to my computer not being powerful enough to handle more demanding cards.

I was looking at the Powercolor X1650 Pro 512MB and that seems like it would be a better card and its only 100 dollars, why is there such a large fluctuation in price? back about a year ago when i used to be more involved in gaming, more memory = better = more expensive. But theres the 1650 with 512MB for a hundred bucks and the 1950 with 512MB for 350 bucks.

Could someone please help me find a good video card and also give me the real facts when it comes to my system being able to play games such as scarface quake 4 and games at that level. Thanks heaps in advance for any replies.

lemonlime

Hi out2kyl,

Welcome to Icrontic!

Too true, there is so much more to graphics cards than just their memory capacity these days. You could have two 512MB cards with one literally 30 times faster than the other. Today, the absolute best bang for the buck in graphics cards is the 8800GTS 320MB. You could probably find one in the upper range of the budget you listed if you look around for sales. You won't find a more powerful card in that price range right now. Another great 'bang for the buck' card is the ATI x1950 Pro that you mentioned, which can be found for about $150 CDN/US. There is simply no comparison to onboard graphics with either of these cards (or just about any discrete card for that matter). It is true that your CPU is a little dated compared to what is on the market now, but since your system is PCI-Express, you can take your card with you whenever you upgrade. PCI-E 16x will be around for some time. I wouldn't consider the x1950pro to be 'too powerful' for your system. I'd stay away from the midrange cards (x1600/x2600 series, or 7600/8600 series). The two cards I mentioned above are much faster for not a lot more money.

In regards to the power supply, definitely make sure you pick up a brand name, quality 450+ watt PSU. The wattage rating alone is not very useful but if you stick to one of the following you should be pretty safe: Silverstone, Zippy, OCZ, Fortron, Corsair, PCP&C or Seasonic. Something in the 500W range will be a safe bet if you stick to the vendors I mentioned.

Hope that helps

edcentric

For your price range you should be able to find an X1950XT. Go for it. Can you have too much money? or be too beautiful? You can never have too much video card.
With this card you can upgrade your mobo/CPU/memory in a year and keep using it. Then after another 6 mo you will want to upgrade the video card.

Leonardo

A new 550 Watt Power supply (my old one was picked out of an old computer i found on the side of the road and its been going well! :P)

The smartest thing you wrote in your entire post - good, thorough post BTW, was that you'd probably want to replace the PSU with a 550 watt mode. Amen, Brother. Don't even think about any upgrades to your computer without a good quality PSU. A quality 550 watt supply would suit your needs quite well unless you think of running high end dual graphics cards.

Recommend:

Antec
FSP Group/Fortron/Fortron Source
Enermax
Hiper
Masscool
OCZ
(and many more)

If any questions about quality, brands, and models, please don't hesitate to ask. We love that type of inquiry here. Just please don't get a store brand or generic PSU. General rules of thumb - you get what you pay for and heavy is better. But again, please don't hesitate to ask.

out2kyl

Damn you guys are sexy. Thanks a bunch for the help you've helped heaps. I've decided to put the upgrade on hold for a while and get a fair bit of money together and then do a complete overhaul that should last about 2 months before i need to upgrade again :P And edcentric what you said here: "Then after another 6 mo you will want to upgrade the video card." is so true, you know you've spent a lot of time around computers when you can realize things are new for 6 months, then they''re old and crappy :P Thanks to all of you guys again for the help its definitely helped and thanks for being nice to a newbie like myself.