Just some Advice

[welshe]

Well Hello to all.

I am just after some advice on what graphics card to get for my pre-built computer. There are some specifics for it though.

Current computer : Compaq CQ 3040an (HP and Compaq Desktop PCs - Motherboard Specifications, MS-7525 (BostonL) - c01701251 - HP Business Support Center)
PSU : 250w
Mother board : MSI MS-7525 (BostonL)
Graphics : Intergrated

Now I am after a Grpahics card that must be in this list

NVIDIA GeForce® 8600 or higher
NVIDIA GeForceâ„¢ 9 Series
NVIDIA GeForceâ„¢ 200 Series
NVIDIA GeForceâ„¢ 400 Series
NVIDIA GeForceâ„¢ 500 Series

ATI® RADEON® HD 2600 or higher
ATI® RADEON® HD 3000 Series
ATI® RADEON® HD 4000 Series
ATI® RADEON® HD 5000 Series
ATI® RADEON® HD 6000 Series

I believe that hte Motherboard will only take Nvidia but I may be wrong. Now I have no idea what else you need to know. Hopefully it can be done without spendng a small fortune on upping everything. This is just to help with game playing as the intergrated graphics is crap.

Any help would be fantastic.

Cheers,
Welshe

 

[Yami]

What games in particular are you looking at playing?

There's three issues with upgrading your GPU:
1) That power supply is pretty much absolute bottom-end. At 250W you'll probably be have to go with a very low-end GPU - the kind designed for media centres rather than gaming (because a) It just won't have enough power to support better, and b) It won't have the power connectors to power better). So, you'd need to upgrade the PSU as well otherwise you won't see a lot of improvement.
2) This is less of an issue, but your CPU is going to be a bottleneck on the potential new GPU. You're not going to get 100% of the performance out of it since your CPU being quite old (i.e. anything on the 775 socket).
3) Space inside the case. The dimensions might be too small for the high-end GPUs.

What's your budget for upgrading? Expect about $40-50 for a suitable power supply, and then $40 (bare) minimum for a useful GPU.

Another question - what are the other specs of the system in question? Amount of RAM and the specific CPU are the important ones.

I had a quick look on Newegg, found this combo. $100 for a PSU and GPU, the latter of which will be orders of magnitude better.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.924247

Or if you have a higher budget, get this PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703034
And this GPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130625
Which is $205 but with two $20 rebates for $165.

 

[welshe]

Hi Yami

Thanks for the advice.

I should have explained better, My dad wants to Play Heroes Might and Magic 6. His computer is fine except the graphics card.

He really does not need anything top end, Just something to play that. The list of cards there was taken directly from the Min specs of the box.
We looking around NZD$100 (New Zealand). Ideally I don't want to have to upgrade much, because it pre-built may not like too much fidiling.

To be honest I thought something like a 9800GT would do the job fine or even something in the 200 series.

Hope this helps.

 

[Machine_gun]

250w is way too low..never saw a 250w before to be honest. lol If you want to upgrade your graphics card, you need to at least upgrade your PSU to at least 500w before getting a new card.

 

[Yami]

250w is way too low..never saw a 250w before to be honest. lol If you want to upgrade your graphics card, you need to at least upgrade your PSU to at least 500w before getting a new card.

Depends on the card but even a mid-end 400W would do for a basic dedicated GPU.