upgrading my graphics card

[blueorf]

hello all

 

i seriously need help to upgrade my graphics card basically i am a dinosaur with computers :( i play world of warcraft and my comp is

 

AMD Phenom 9950 Qaud Core processor 2.60 GHZ

4.00 GB memory ram

32 bit operating system

Nvidia Ge Force 9400 GT graphics card

 

now honestly i havent got a clue wot all that means :eek:

 

my graphic card at the moment im not happy with and need to upgrade to a decent gaming card that will be compatable to the system and game im using and playing.. my budget is around £150

 

any help would be much appreciated ty :)

[Oldnoob]

Hi blueorf,

Whilst I am by no means an expert. I had a similar problem. The advice I received was based on what you could afford now and if you want to upgrade later. To cut it short, the best thing I could advise is to go for the best single card you can afford at present. You are running an Nvidia Gforce card at present so for the money you are talking about, if you look around the web, you could get a GTX 460. That card is about 5 times better than your current card. I don't know what sort of motherboard you have and whether it is capable of running a SLI setup (two cards at same time linked together) but that is something you could worry about at a future time.

 

Hope that helps in some way.

[Dalo Harkin]

Biggest factors when looking at a new GPU is the PSU (power supply) you have, its fine spending £150 on a new card but if you have only got a 300Watt PSU then you wont be able to use it.

 

The next thing is the screen resolution you plan on playign games at for around the £150 mark you are looking at 20-22'' screen resolutions of 1680x1050 anymore and it'll cost more...

 

Let us know the answers to the above and then we can make some suggestions.

[Cyprus Hector]

PC Pro magazine (pcpro.co.uk) ran an article on graphics cards in it's November 2010 issue. I bought a new ATI Radeon 1Gb HD 5850 card it recommended as a result. £229 PCWorld online.