Upgrading graphics card

[King]

Sorry if this is in the wrong section:o

If someone could advise it would be much appreciated. I currently have a HP Pavilion slimline (s3040 i think...) I want to be able to watch movies, play games etc and currently at the mo theres slight lag on some movies and i have to downgrade graphics on games eg red alert 3

 

Im looking into getting a new graphics card as i just have the standard which is a Nvidia GeForce 7300 LE i think.

 

I've been looking at Sapphire HD 4850, but in all honesty i don't know much at all about graphics cards so any help advise would be great :)

 

Thanks

[Match]

the key to graphics cards is the version of directx it can run.

 

Geforce 7300LE 128MB DDR PCI Express Video Card with DVI, VGA, HDTV, TV-Out, DirectX 9.0, OpenGL 2.0: 3DFR7300LEE (Retail, Powered by nVidia) (Discontinued)

 

The ATI Radeon HD 4850 GPU GDDR3 memory 256-bit memory interface DirectX 10.1 24x

 

so then the next question is what Directx support your software requires? if its 9 or above your current card should run it ok, if its 9.1 or above then your current card is going to struggle.

 

the other consideration is the amount or onboard RAM the more RAM the card had the less System RAM its going to borrow to run.

[King]

ah ok that makes sense:) how can i find out which graphics cards will fit inside my pc or not, as ive been told the Sapphire HD 4850 is too big for my case

[Match]

why explain when it is already done for me

 

Information for Hewlett Packard, HP Pavillion, Compaq, Philips and Dell Slimline Low Profile Half Height Graphics Cards(INFO) buy at PCUpgrade.co.uk

 

just for reference your Machine is

 

Product Specifications HP Pavilion Slimline s3040.uk Desktop PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

 

what you need to really do is talk to the people where you are planning on buying the card from or look in the data sheet to the card to find if it is suitable for low profile or slimline cases.

[Dalo Harkin]

Please also be aware that your GPU choice is limited by your PSU and MOBO