I recently - and rather stupidly - short circuited my graphics card when attempting to treat the sticky heat fan with wd-40. So I'm now in the market for another graphics card. The computer's about 4 years old and was built by my tech-savvy friend for me, so I'm not really up to date with any of the current jargon and am somewhat overwhelmed as to what I should do.
My (now destroyed) card was an MSI R4850-2D512-OC, which ran most of the games that I played with very few issues. My monitor is an elcheapo LG w1943TE-PF, which I am now also looking at replacing and which has a max res of 1366 x 768.
I'm not too sure as to any of the other specs as I don't have an image without a gfx card and thus can't access the computer, and have no idea what I'm looking at when I take the cover off. If further information on the specs is required to make an effective suggestion though, I'll do my best to find out those details.
My computer is also still running Windows XP. Will this be a concern when buying an up-to-date gfx card, and is it something I should look at addressing?
Most of the games I play I never had any issues with (Dota 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, etc. I don't play that many FPS games) when running my old card, although I do want something that will last me for awhile and is hopefully a bit better than my old card. My price-range is around $200-400 Australian dollars.
Thanks in advance!
My (now destroyed) card was an MSI R4850-2D512-OC, which ran most of the games that I played with very few issues. My monitor is an elcheapo LG w1943TE-PF, which I am now also looking at replacing and which has a max res of 1366 x 768.
I'm not too sure as to any of the other specs as I don't have an image without a gfx card and thus can't access the computer, and have no idea what I'm looking at when I take the cover off. If further information on the specs is required to make an effective suggestion though, I'll do my best to find out those details.
My computer is also still running Windows XP. Will this be a concern when buying an up-to-date gfx card, and is it something I should look at addressing?
Most of the games I play I never had any issues with (Dota 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, etc. I don't play that many FPS games) when running my old card, although I do want something that will last me for awhile and is hopefully a bit better than my old card. My price-range is around $200-400 Australian dollars.
Thanks in advance!