upgrading computer......

[Amarisa]

right i am getting extremely lucky as of right now my mom needs a graphics card and i said i could give her mine and i could get a new one. well what happened is she said to find the card i want and she will get me it and buy herself one.

this is what i was thinking. EVGA GeForce 8400 GS Video Card (will replace my GeForce FX 5200)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... &CatId=319

my computer is a Dell Dimension 2400. right now if i put that graphics card in it will probably not run due to only having a 250w power supply (they recommend min of 350W). now i don't know if i should get a 400W or a 500W+ power supply (due to me not knowing exactly how many Watts it needs)

now i am going to be building my own computer sooner or later so i could use these for it so i don't need to worry about anything in this area.

so guys what exactly do you guys think is it going to work? i could easily forget something that wouldn't allow it to work. also if you know of any good power supplies it would be nice.

[Azilius]

That cards no better than onboard gfx. Minimum I'd recommend is a 9800 gt. You can find them on sale for 100~. Might as well get a 500-600 watt PSU as well. They're fairly cheap and almost any brand will do..

[Amarisa]

That cards no better than onboard gfx. Minimum I'd recommend is a 9800 gt. You can find them on sale for 100~. Might as well get a 500-600 watt PSU as well. They're fairly cheap and almost any brand will do..

has to stay around $50 for the card and has to be pci because thats all i have in there

[Azilius]

Then that and a 400~ watt PSU should do just fine.

[Amarisa]

only reason why im upgrading is because i have a very low end computer and the card i have now its 128mb and is kinda sluggish cant play red alert 3 well at 1440x900

[EvGa]

Don't go cheap on the psu. Its a VERY important part of your system. If it fails it can take all the other components with it. Not to mention a faulty psu can cause stability issues.

That's about the best pci card you're going to get for around $50. It's not great, but should be better than the FX.

Here's a good psu in the $50 range. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817703017

The "known-good" brands of power supplies (in order of my preference) are:

PCPower&Cooling, OCZ, XClio, FSP, Silverstone (their high-end models). Anything else I wouldn't risk my pc on.

I have the 610W PCP&C running a 9800GT and C2D overclocked to 4Ghz, stable as a rock for 1.5yrs now. Great psu's.

Good Luck

[Amarisa]

Don't go cheap on the psu. Its a VERY important part of your system. If it fails it can take all the other components with it. Not to mention a faulty psu can cause stability issues.

That's about the best pci card you're going to get for around $50. It's not great, but should be better than the FX.

Here's a good psu in the $50 range. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817703017

The "known-good" brands of power supplies (in order of my preference) are:

PCPower&Cooling, OCZ, XClio, FSP, Silverstone (their high-end models). Anything else I wouldn't risk my pc on.

I have the 610W PCP&C running a 9800GT and C2D overclocked to 4Ghz, stable as a rock for 1.5yrs now. Great psu's.

Good Luck

well if theres any better pci cards i would like to know cant find any so a link would be nice lol and thanks for the power supply probaly will get that one

[BaronSengir]

the gfx card you want needs 350w and 20amps on 12v rail even a 20 dollar psu can run that these days for that vid card i would not get an expensive psu

edit: oh and if you planning to get another card dont buy that psu posted above 30amps is not enough for higher end vid cards

[Amarisa]

the gfx card you want needs 350w and 20amps on 12v rail even a 20 dollar psu can run that these days for that vid card i would not get an expensive psu

thing is ill probably be moving it for when i make my own so id probaly get like a 500w one and wait for when i build my own

[ezos]

Dells use a proprietary motherboard and power supply. You will not be able to replace one without replacing the other.

[Amarisa]

Dells use a proprietary motherboard and power supply. You will not be able to replace one without replacing the other.

should of seen this coming found this tho http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/std ... lconverter might work yes no?

EDIT the pcpowercooling people have one that works with dell http://www.pcpower.com/products/descrip ... index.html

[EvGa]

the gfx card you want needs 350w and 20amps on 12v rail even a 20 dollar psu can run that these days for that vid card i would not get an expensive psu

edit: oh and if you planning to get another card don't buy that psu posted above 30amps is not enough for higher end vid cards

Yes and no. Cheap psu's (in general) don't supply very clean stable power. And like I said, it's not just about the gpu, all the components run off the psu. It goes and they too could go. Chances of it happening may not be real high, but better safe than sorry. The cheapo psu's are also GREATLY over-rated most of the time. They will say 500W when they can't handle 3/4 that.

If it was me I would just buy a decent psu now so I wouldn't have to upgrade it later. This would be great: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817703009

I was just going to post something about dell...that the psu may not fit the case, but seems even worse than that.

EDIT: The "you get what you pay for" generally applies really well to psu's. Keep that in mind.