All i have is the crumby 250 watt power supply that came with my pc. Is it totally neccessary that i upgrade my power supply before i go get an X800 video card?
I would encurouage it very much, especially with your system specs, it's time for a psu upgrade of at least a 350w good name brand psu. I have an antec, and i'm not quite sure what other psu's are good, i think thermaltake's are good.
Yes, definitely upgrade. When running multiple harddrives and CD-roms it is often that they will consume most of your power. I had a friend blow a 400w PSU while running 4HDs at once. But when it comes down to actually running the X800, you will most definitely need to upgrade your PSU from 250.