Upgrade Video Card

[Delicious]

Hello,
New to site. Welcome.
I own Dell 4600 Dimension PC. I have increased Memory and Hard Drive to capacity. I just purchased HP 2311X Monitor and wish to increase my viewing. Current Card is NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X ( Dell ), and I wish to improve. Any suggestions for upgrade. I don't play games only wish to be able to HD moniter. Thanks

 

[Roark]

Your computer has a 250 watt power supply which will not support a more powerful card.

Does your MX 440 video card not have a DVI connector?
If not your best bet may be to get another MX 440. You can get a refurbished one for $20 (link).

 

[PP Mguire]

If he doesn't game then PSU really isn't an issue. Thing is, he wants to view HD content which most of the time still is done on the CPU. Since he will have a Pentium 4, the likeliness of him being able to do HD is slim to none.

 

[Lt.Shinysides]

Isint he still running close in voltages if he upgrades to anything higher than his current gpu?

 

[PP Mguire]

I have ran a 7800GS on a 300w PSU before, but I wouldn't recommend him doing anything like that. Even then, any GPU capable of decoding HD content will still require around 400w worth of PSU. I must say, that older OEM PSUs are severely under rated, but we can't count on that either.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

With the right software you should be able to really on hardware decoding for HD content however many of the popular players don't have the best support for it.

This is the cheapest modern card that supports your system but honestly it probably isn't worth investing $80 more in a pc that age anymore.

Newegg.com - HIS H435F512HA Radeon HD 4350 512MB 64-bit DDR3 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

 

[PP Mguire]

300w or higher PSU. He has a 250w.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

300w or higher PSU. He has a 250w.

That card draws less than 25w under full load so there is no way you would need a 300w psu to run it plus a reasonable system.

 

[Lt.Shinysides]

Imho, this pc is old, and i would start to feel unsafe ungrading it with a gpu wuth only a 250w psu. I know its do-able but its not something i would do. I dont see why you would really want to keep this current pc, i know money is tough and all but in the long run saving for something much better is money well spent.upgrading an old desktop is like putting a body kit on a nissan maxima.sure your car looks cool because of your body kit but in the end you still have a nissan maxima and not a fancy sports car.

 

[PP Mguire]

Thing of it is, if he buys a decent GPU and PSU he can easily start upgrading things around them at his leisure. We only offer advice to the problem at hand and what the OP wants to do. I don't think I stand alone when saying I'm not going to tell somebody every time "Oh your PC is ****, you need to upgrade everything" and completely disregard their original question. Or, a better GPU could simply do what he wants and he may not need anything else for a few years or more.