What cards can I upgrade to?

[adamant715]

I really want to be able to play good games on my computer, sadly, my graphics card isn't good enough. So I was wondering what I could potentially upgrade to on my system. I plan on upgrading to 2GB ram.

 

Specs:

Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.80GHz

2.79 GHz

1.2 GB RAM

Nvidia GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS

 

I wanna be able to play games like Oblivion or Fallout 3.

[monkeyboy]

Given the expense and pure inconvinience of upgrading a PC, would you not consider a dedicated games machine? A PS3, for example? For the money you'd spend upgrading, why not invest? I'm lucky enough to have both, but for pure gaming I wouldn't look beyond a console, to be honest. But that's just me. And if I've offended you by using the Pl*yStatio* word, I apologise.

[Dalo Harkin]

You dont need much to be able to actually play those games, you just wont be able to have all the AA and AF turned to MAX.

 

depending on the size of your monitor will depend on what cards to choose, so let us know that and we can go from there

[adamant715]

I have a 19' LG Flatron W1943TB.

 

I know that I can already run Oblivion, it's just I wanna be able to play it at a good speed, rather than having it lag and not looking very good.

[Dalo Harkin]

If you have the budget I would go for either:-

NVIDIA - GTS 250 or

ATI - 4850

Both cost in the region of £80 and will do you extremely well for a few years

 

And of the two I would opt for the 4850 if it were me buying one ;)

[adamant715]

Ah. Thank you for answering my question. :)

 

But are you 100% sure it will work with my computer?

 

By the way, which one would it be? I see many of them.

Shop AMD

[Dalo Harkin]

As long as you have a PCI-E slot on the MOBO yes, some of these cards now get pretty big so you need to make sure that your case can take the card.

Also in terms of power, they run off a 6pin PCIE cable and if you dont have one on your PSU, you need to make sure that you have 2x molex cables that are free coming from the PSU (not pass through cables, or splitters) and you get a 2x molex > 6pin PCIE adapter in the box

 

as for which one, just get the cheapest 1GB version (they are all the same reference chipset) its the companies like Sapphire and MSI etc that add their own heatsinks and overclock them a little then bump up the price (but they are all made with the exact same components from AMD/ATI)