Graphics Card Compatibility Advice

P

power543

New Member
hay guys

i have a G5120uk computer bought for its Quad Core as a vast improvement to our family's shared single core. It has proven great for video editing however i find myself wanting to play more and more games but it ONLY has an inbuilt NVIDIA® GeForce® 6150 SE which is very bad for even a few year old games. I am wanting to get back into Star Trek Online and this is unsuitable. I do not intend to go far beyond that games need for graphical power but this computer needs an update

minimum - NVIDIA GeForce 7950 / ATI Radeon X1800
recommended -NVIDIA GeForce 8800 / ATI Radeon HD 3850+ <<< are the STO guidelines

do you guys know what graphics card to get which is compatible and reasonable as an upgrade, my budget is up to maybe £100-£120

i know there are compatibility issues with motherboards and power supplies but i only know the basics and help would be very much appreciated :)
 
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-142-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1854
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-185-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1515

These are good choices (Nvidia and AMD) for that game. This of coarse is assuming you have a half decent PSU in that computer. Around 550Watts is necessary to run the GPU well.

Edit: HP specs show that it comes with a 300watt PSU. There is no way that you will be able to upgrade the GPU without also upgrading the PSU.
 
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The CX400 is fine for what you need. GPU manufacturers need to give a minimum spec for PSUs, and its easier to say 550W. In fact, however, its the 12V rail amperage that is important as that is where the load is for modern computers (e.g. HDD, CPU, GPU etc).

A quality 400W PSU (e.g. CX400) can deliver say 34A on the 12V rail which is completely sufficient for a medium range graphics card. In contrast, a cheap PSU will put most of its power on the 5V rail. Some cheap PSUs (e.g. 550W ones) will only have 17A on the 12V rail. So as you can see the wattage means little.

Get a Corsair, PC Power and Cooling, Seasonic branded 400W + ATX PSU and that will be compatiable and work fine with the cards you are considering.
 
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