What Gprapic Card to get

[dkardaris]

I have a dell dimension 8400 with a 350W power supply.

What card should I get? Only ATI

a ATi Radeon HD 2600 XT PCI-E or a ATi Radeon HD 2600 Pro PCI-E or would a Xt1900 do me better?

 

[LinkedKube]

Why are you choosing ati over nvidea, any specific reason?

 

[dkardaris]

because my only experience with Nvidia wasnt good.

 

[kpo6969]

Your psu has 28amps.
Avoid the HD2600's, you can do better. (they would work though)
X1950Pro should be fine. the X1900XT's might be out of reach.

 

[kpo6969]

You could run an 8800 card with that psu (8800GTS). I agree with Codex about Nvidia but the OP has their mind set on ati.
Two things to consider when running an ati card on a Dell:
1.Dell chipsets are either Intel or Nvidia
2.Older Dell systems sometimes have compatibility issues with the X1000's

 

[dkardaris]

Well the deal is this. Currently I have 1600 Pro 515 in there. Works excellent. When I got the 8600GT almost had a meltdown as my temp jumped to 113 C. So I just feel safer with ati's.

This card is probably going to be for one more year till I upgrade the system

 

[kpo6969]

Sounds like a driver issue. When going from Ati to Nvidia(or visa-versa) you have to completely un-install the old drivers and should use a driver cleaner program. If anything Ati cards run hotter and use more power than Nvidia.

 

[8IronBob]

Well, if you do decide to go nVidia, I would definitely go with an EVGA over any other distributor. They seem to be bar none the best when it comes to their warranty and "step-up" program. Sounds worth the while, if you ask me.