Upgrading Graphics card

[Doug-ty]

Hey, I am starting to get into Pc gaming however my computer doesn't seem to be able to play any game released in the last couple years. Looking to play 1st person shooters and strategy games.

I have a Dell vostro 230,

Windows 7 home premium 32-bit

4096 MB RAM,

G41 express chipset.

 

Looking to spend not much over £100.

 

Can you please tell me what sort of graphics card I should be looking for, how much it will cost, etc.

 

(games such as COD, Sniper ghost worrior, etc)

 

Thanks :)

[Dalo Harkin]

Well the first thing is that the Motherboard does have a PCI-E x16 slot, so thats a good start

The bad news is that it only has a 300 Watt Power supply, so you will be very limited what card you can put

A GTX460 1GB which costs around £130 is a very good card for anything upto a 24" screen..the problem you may have is that the Vostro case looks quite small and these cards are often a foot long (12")

The GTX 460 1GB at idle uses around 140 Watts and at load 270 Watts

 

If I were you, you can either get a lesser GPU, or buy a new case and bigger PSU aswell as the GPU

 

It all depends how long you want the 'upgrade' to last :)

You can get a lower powered GPU that will fit for now, maybe even last 2 years (but at some point not long after that your going to need to start changing tp a bigger case, more watts etc anyway)

[Doug-ty]

If the graphics card fitted in the case would that be enough? What problems could it create?

 

Which case and PSU would you recommend?

 

Also if I were to do this upgrade how long do you reckon it would be sufficient for the latest games? What are the chances of in 2 years the latest games will require more?

 

Thanks :)

[Dalo Harkin]

If the graphics card fitted in the case would that be enough?

What problems could it create?

Yes more than enough - but your PSU wont cope when at load (thats if it fits)

Which case and PSU would you recommend?

Antec 300 gamer case, and a decent 500-600Watt (Antec or Corsair personally)

Also if I were to do this upgrade how long do you reckon it would be sufficient for the latest games? What are the chances of in 2 years the latest games will require more?

It would last for at least 2 years, but that again depends, I have a GTX260 that is around 2yrs old that I can still play pretty much anything I throw at it

Thanks :)

 

No worries