What are my options?

[ryan121]

I'm currently using an integrated graphics card and have one PCI-e slot. I want to play games on it now but I don't think my power supply is good enough.

I looked inside my PC and it says "output 300W MAX" and from what i've read you need about 400W.

Are there any graphics cards that will work with this power supply? I'm not going for a particularly good card anyway so an older one will be fine.

Thanks in advance for any advice as I'm new to graphics cards.

 

[talldude123]

what is currently installed on the PC?

DVD-RW
HD
Floppy
Mobo?

Do you have any other PCI or AGP cards installed?

 

[talldude123]

Also check out this Power Supply calculator, just put in what components are in the PC, it tells you what PSU you need.

http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

 

[ryan121]

Here is my PCs current specifications:

Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
AMD Athlon™ 64 processor 3200+
DDR-SDRAM
512 MB
ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200
DVD writer
160 GB
7 USB 2.0 ports (3 in front); 2 FireWire-IEEE-1394 ports (1 in front); 1 parallel port
Integrated 5.1 sound solution
1 PCI-Express 16x (free)

There are also four card reader slots in the front as well. With the calculator I worked out 201W without a graphics card.

The PCI-E slot is free and I don't have an agp slot. One of the PCI slots has a network interface card installed which isn't used.

 

[talldude123]

Chances are the motherboard has integrated ethernet anyways, so why not remove the Network card?

The network card will drop the PSU usage to about 198-199W, and video cards dont take up 101 watts...

 

[ryan121]

I've read that the 7600gs apparently only consumes about 32 watts.

I shouldn't have any problems then if i buy that one.

 

[talldude123]

You shouldnt.

Did you check with the PSU calculator, or did the website actually say it?

 

[ryan121]

The calculator seems to only have agp cards listed. I found that information about the power consumption from a review of the card.