Graphics card upgrade possible with my motherboard?

MengusDew

MengusDew

New Member
I currently have the nvidia geforce 6150 LE graphics card on my computer, and I wanted to upgrade to the nvidia geforce 9500 GT PCIE for better performance, but I'm unsure of it's compatibility with my motherboard.
I don't know how to get the specs on my motherboard, But I guess I was hoping that someone on here knows if the 6150 LE and the 9500 GT PCIE have the same compatibility requirements or not.
 
6150LE is the built in graphics for the motherboard. You don't have to worry about compatibility. If you're adding a separate video card, the only thing or worry about is the power supply. I wouldn't be too concerned about the power draw from the 9500GT so it should be a pretty easy install.
 
Should I look into weather or not my motherboard has an extra slot for another graphics card, or should it be standard?

I do also plan on getting a new motherboard and cpu combo after upgrading the graphics card, but it's my graphics card that is the weakest link right now in my system. Also i just read someone talking about pci and pcie slots, is this something that should be considered?
 
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What brand and model computer do you have right now?

Yes, the board you have will determine which type of card
you need to buy.
 
Bodaggit23 said:
What brand and model computer do you have right now?

Yes, the board you have will determine which type of card
you need to buy.
Click to expand...

I have a Dell Dimension E521. It currently has the factory motherboard with a AMD Athalon 64 3200+ 2.0 ghz cpu (factory), and I have added two extra 1gb ram so I have just under 2.5 gb ram.
 
mx344 said:
Yes, it should be standard, almost all motherboards now have 1 pciE slot, it may be 8x instead of 16x but it still works the same. I would look at a 4670, it is great fo you, beucase those power supplies that come in the facotry machines have about 300watts with 22 or soo amps.

LINKY:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121305

or go for the cheaper 4650...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127384

Both of these cards are better than the 9500GT.
Click to expand...

Sweet, I appreciate the advice, and will check it out.
 
mx344 said:
Yes, it should be standard, almost all motherboards now have 1 pciE slot, it may be 8x instead of 16x but it still works the same. I would look at a 4670, it is great fo you, beucase those power supplies that come in the facotry machines have about 300watts with 22 or soo amps.

LINKY:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121305

or go for the cheaper 4650...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127384

Both of these cards are better than the 9500GT.
Click to expand...

I second this advice. Your computer has a 305w PSU, and the cards mentioned above are pretty much the best you can expect with that power supply. The 9500GT is pretty weak (it's literally HALF as good as the 9600GT...don't let the numbers fool you), and it wouldn't do you much good unless you play only Blizzard games or something.

Your computer has 1 PCIe slot, so yea. Go for it. Either way, it's going to be exponentially better than your integrated graphics "card." ;)
 
You actually might get some performance out of the 9500GT, but like smooth said, not much. The 9600GT is actually comparable to an 8800GT, 9500GT comparable to the 8600GT. So while the 8800GT is about three times as powerful as an 8600GT, you can still get away with almost maxing out Valve games like TF2 and L4D on a fairly sized monitor.

As stated before, the 9500GT IS half as powerful as a 9600GT, but if you don't need that performance boost then you should be more than happy with a 9500GT. Do you have an idea of the games that you want to play?
 
kookooshortman55 said:
You actually might get some performance out of the 9500GT, but like smooth said, not much. The 9600GT is actually comparable to an 8800GT, 9500GT comparable to the 8600GT. So while the 8800GT is about three times as powerful as an 8600GT, you can still get away with almost maxing out Valve games like TF2 and L4D on a fairly sized monitor.

As stated before, the 9500GT IS half as powerful as a 9600GT, but if you don't need that performance boost then you should be more than happy with a 9500GT. Do you have an idea of the games that you want to play?
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Honestly, I don't really play games on my computer much, I have a PS3 and don't play multiplayer games hardly. But I am running Vista, and I use my computer for pretty much just media. Vista and my media players run so slow and I have issuses with the sound lining up with my video. I have all the current codecs and drivers for everything. Sure, getting a faster cpu and more ram,which I plan on doing soon (my current motherbaord has no more ram slots available), will improve the speed, but I figure so will upgrading my graphics card.
 
kookooshortman55 said:
The 9600GT is actually comparable to an 8800GT, 9500GT comparable to the 8600GT.
Click to expand...

8800GT and 9600GT have same bandwidth, similar core clocks, but the 8800GT has 112 stream processors and outputs a fill rate of 35 Billion/sec, while the 9600GT only has 64 stream processors and outputs a fill rate of 20.8 Billion/sec. 14 billion/sec - that's a huge difference.

Your best bet will be the NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT OC2 512MB PCIe. It only requires 325W PSU, and has a fill rate of 9.9 billion/sec, bandwidth of 24 GB/s. The 9500GT demands 350W PSU, and only outputs fill rate 8.8 Billion/sec, and bandwidth of 10.7GB/sec.
 
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I still think you should get the Radeon 4670. Much better performance the 8600 or 9500 GT, and the price isn't very different. But yea, if you never game on your PC, then it doesn't really matter anyway.
 
Seems like any upgrade would be bottlenecked by that athlon processor, so you need to decide whether the 50-70$ you'll spend is worth it. And there's no guarantee that your power supply will adequately power any of these cards. In fact, I'm willing to guess the +12V rating from the PSU is too low for any of the cards mentioned in this thread.
 
mep916 said:
Seems like any upgrade would be bottlenecked by that athlon processor, so you need to decide whether the 50-70$ you'll spend is worth it. And there's no guarantee that your power supply will adequately power any of these cards. In fact, I'm willing to guess the +12V rating from the PSU is too low for any of the cards mentioned in this thread.
Click to expand...

Oh geez, I didn't even notice the CPU. Yea, that thing is too weak for a 4670 anyway. Good point man.
 
Marcin said:
8800GT and 9600GT have same bandwidth, similar core clocks, but the 8800GT has 112 stream processors and outputs a fill rate of 35 Billion/sec, while the 9600GT only has 64 stream processors and outputs a fill rate of 20.8 Billion/sec. 14 billion/sec - that's a huge difference.

Your best bet will be the NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT OC2 512MB PCIe. It only requires 325W PSU, and has a fill rate of 9.9 billion/sec, bandwidth of 24 GB/s. The 9500GT demands 350W PSU, and only outputs fill rate 8.8 Billion/sec, and bandwidth of 10.7GB/sec.
Click to expand...

Well obviously there is a difference but they are similar enough. Some of the 9600GT's come factory overclocked by 100MHz and they beat stock clocked 8800GT's. Of course they're not the same in terms of performance, but they're comparable. If you want to analyze every word, then yes the 8800GT is still better.
 
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