Guide to video card upgrades/questions

You can go with a 9600GT. It doesn't require as much power.

And for a new PSU, look for one with at least 30A on the +12V rails combined. This means that the combined wattage rating for the +12V rails should be at least 360W. You can usually find this info on the PSU sticker or in a manual on the manufacturer's website. For example, your PSU sticker states a total +12V wattage rating of 312W, which translates to 312/12=26A. The Corsair PSU I recommended before has a +12V rating of around 40A, which is more than enough for any single-card setup.

thank you guys for your valuable feedback,saved me from an irrational purchase.

btw is 8800gts better than 9600gt? if so would it fit under my limited psu output

Yes, the 8800GTS is far better than the 9600GT. But sadly, no, you can't run it without changing your PSU.

Great thread. Until recently I based my PSU purchases on wattage alone. I never knew to thoroughly examine the additional specs. Thanks!

Replace AGP Card

My ATI Radeon 9800 XT Card has partially failed (no longer can play games, but rest works), and I would like to replace it with a similar or better perfoming card.

- Spore at 1680x1050
- $300
- Specs
Dell Computer Corp 0M2035
AGP 3.0 8x
Intel P4 3.2GHz
2G DDR Dual Channel
DEll 250W 16A PS
- USA

I tried to research this myself and got lost. Please help, thanks.

You will need a new PSU for your new card. I'd recommend this PSU and this card.

Okay, first post here. Hopefully someone might be able to give me a clear answer.

I built this computer at the end of summer last year. ECS nForce 570 SLIT-A, Celeron D 356 with Mascool heatsink/fan, 2 GB OCZ DDR2 @ 667MHz, EVGA GeForce 8400 GS, 60 GB and 80 GB hard drives. 350 Watt PSU, but underpowered on the 12V rail, which I knew beforehand - and never got around to replacing (stuff comes up!). Added a 320 GB Seagate SATA a few months ago. Currently connected to a Acer X243 Widescreen via DVI. Nothing overclocked. Windows XP Pro, SP3.

Not the best system around, but I just needed something that worked to replace the HP that was fried in early 2007. I play a lot of games (shooters and RPG's, mostly), but I'm not obsessed with getting the highest resolutions, ridiculous frame rates or such. If I can max settings in a game, great. If not, playable and decent looking works for me. And it works fine with the 3D stuff (modelling, texturing, rendering).

A while back, my desktop started to look funny and seemed to be getting worse. I powered down and opened the case to see if there was any major buildup of dust (which is one problem I do have with the computer). Nothing noticable, so I put the panel back on and restarted. Ugly green screen. Shut down. Restart. Nothing, so I hooked the monitor up via VGA instead of DVI. Worked, but darker and not as sharp. Rebooting didn't cause problems, but a cold boot required me to hook up a CRT first, then after I was in Windows, I could hook up the Acer.

This got old quick, so I borrowed a bit of money to get a different card (thinking that was the problem, and I wanted a better card anyway) and get a better PSU. Finally selected an 650 Watt from Ultra (with 38A on the 12V rail) and an XFX 8600 GT XXX (with the Zalman fan/heatsink). Other than triggering Windows activation, install went fine. Had one crash in Bioshock after starting a new game. Didn't bother with any other games at the time, had other stuff to try to get done instead.

I ran some of the nVidia demos, just to see what they were showing off - and before I had the 8400, the best I had was a PCI FX 5200, which I believe was KIA when the HP it was in fried. Nalu crashed after a while and the Toys demo didn't fare any better. And lo and behold, my display started to get a bit garbled. I wasn't happy. After my system froze, I shut down and waited a few minutes before booting up again. Garbled display, 640X480 resolution, 4 colors. Not quite what I had before (1920X1200). Getting less happy.

Put the 8400 GS back in. Things seem fine.

I don't have another mobo with PCIE to see if the 8600 GT is borked or not. And I'm wondering if I really needed the card, if the 8400 is working now without a problem.

Sorry for being long winded. Just thought it best to mention what I've got and what I've gone through over the past couple weeks.

Would an underpowered PSU have done this, and the new Ultra was all I needed to get my computer back under control? Or could the fact that the GT is a PCIE 2.0 card and my mobo only supports 1.0 be why it stopped working? I've seen conflicting answers about the backwards compatability - some say a PCIE 2.0 card will work fine in a 1.0 slot (just not as fast); some say it works in a 1.1 but not a 1.0.

Any ideas?

Thank you for your recommendations. Do you think a X1300 Pro 256MB card will preform as well as my old Radeon 9800 XT?

No, it's a far more inferior card.

@Revelation 23, the 8600GT is not a PCI-E 2.0 card. I recommend using RivaTuner to log the GPU's temperature in the background while you play a game for 5-10 minutes and checking to see if it's overheating. Also, make sure you have the latest Forceware drivers installed.

Oops, I should clarify what I've got. The XFX card is a [ame=http://www.amazon.com/XFX-PVT84JUSD4-GeForce-Express-S-Video/dp/B000ZPJ79A]Geforce 8600 GT XXX[/ame]. I didn't alter any setting on it, including the factory overclock. I was wrong about it being a PCIE 2.0 card though. Not sure where I was getting that from. Still, I'm not happy about the situation.

I can get into Windows on that card, but can't really do anything. 640X480 in 4 colors is not very pretty. I did manage to get online and do a bit of research ebfore deciding to drop the 8400 GS back in, which wasn't too hard, despite the resolution and 4 color display. But anything that had Flash on it caused IE to puke, and not simply because it's IE.

Have you tried re-installing the drivers with the 8600GT installed? That seems to be your main issue IMO.

I did that before putting the 8400 back in. Had installed the latest version of the drivers right after first putting it in too.

I was hoping I could resolve it without having to send it in for replacement or repair. If I had a spare motherboard with PCIE, I'd give it a shot in there, but I'm not up to trying it on someone else's computer. I've got other stuff that needs to be taken care of immediately and with Christmas season, I can't imagine it'll be a speedy process right now.

Can anyone help me with my problem im new to this site and its very confusing. my problem is i get an error message "Failed to find any directx 9.0c compatible graphics adaptors in this system. Make sure you have direct x 9.0c compatible graphics adaptor and you have installed the latest drivers provided by your manufacturer." and i have direct x 9 as a matter of fact i used to play all the sims2 expansions just weeks ago before i rebooted my computer never had a problem untill rebooting.. my system specs are gateway comp desktop windows xp, intel extreme graphics controller 82845G, 2,49ghz intel pentium 4 cpu, 766 MB RAM, and directx 9. please if anyone can help i would be greatly appreciated. you can email me.

Looking to buy a good video card that will play most, if not all, of the latest games out there.

+PCI-E 2.0 16x
+$100-$150

Comp Specs:

+CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz
+Mobo: Biostar TA780G M2+
+Memory: 2GB G.SKILL DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
+Antec earthwatts 500W 80+ Certified. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007)

(Edit: New CPU just put in.)

@c50662, I'd recommend this card as the perfect choice for you.

@michelleap, please look at the guidelines posted in this thread and post here if you have any problems.

Thanks Rage! That's the card I was looking at, but wasn't sure if it was the best for my budget.

Hi,

I've just about had it with the crappy ATi Radeon 9200. I have now failed to install it in a Compaq PIII and P4 Evo ... and a couple of AMD based machines inbetween. No matter how many Bios updates or anything else I download, I get a black screen every time.

How in the name of God did they ever manage such a card? It's like 1982 all over again! By comparison, I've never had a problem with NVidia cards. I'm going to take the hammer to the Ati just in case I'm ever tempted to mess with it again.

Feeling much better now ... my wonderful ATI Radeon 9200 is now in two parts! Yes, I destroyed it. Life's too short for ATI. Anyone who makes a card a flakey as this should be shot. Anyone got a nice NVidia they want to sell me?

I'm not looking for cutting - edge, which is probably just as well because I have a P4 1.6 ( 1 gig RAM ) ... compaq Evo d3d. Most of the games I'm into span 2000 - 2005.

Cheers!

( off for a nice big mug of coffee now )

Not all of ATI's or NVIDIA's offerings are shoddy. Ultimately, card quality comes down to the quality control by individual third-party manufacturers.

As for a recommendation, try a GeForce 8400GS PCI if you have only PCI slots. If you have an AGP slot, a 7600GS is a decent enough card.

For AGP, the X1650Pro also works, as well as a newer HD2600Pro, HD2600XT or HD3650.

You know, I've been here through 3 builds and I havnt seen this before. Weird. This is probably one of the best threads here, very informative and since it was started some time ago it creates a timeline. Which people will find to make reference to current upgrades they may be looking at.