rickel2 Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 would like 256 ram. only have existing 300 watt psu. any suggestions? thanks in advance, richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bama Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 a bigger power supply Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleMo Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 a bigger power supply THEN get a video card. look into the x1600 from best buy if you want to be WOWED. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro23 Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 THEN get a video card. look into the x1600 from best buy if you want to be WOWED. Yes sir. I have the ATI x1600 pro. Played Prey on it last night and all I can say is just WOW : :wtg: Great card and great price right now. You do need a a good sized PSU though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleMo Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 I bought a near new 400 watt one off of craigslist.org for 25 bucks. Amen amen and amen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
demon4870 Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 Here is a few PSU calculators. http://journeysystems.com/power_supply_calculator.php http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maestro23 Posted July 14, 2006 Share Posted July 14, 2006 Here is a few PSU calculators. http://journeysystems.com/power_supply_calculator.php http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp Good links. :wtg: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeNoPrisoners Posted July 15, 2006 Share Posted July 15, 2006 THEN get a video card. look into the x1600 from best buy if you want to be WOWED. HELL NO never buy from big shops go on the net all look for a small shop they all have the same **** and for not all much slao i think u should go for a geforce Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyBlaze Posted July 15, 2006 Share Posted July 15, 2006 First off an x1600 is ok...nothing special. If you're on a budget, get a 7600GT. You can run it on the PSU you already have and it kicks some serious ***. Probably the best bang for the buck card on the market right now. Get one of the factory overclocked ones from EVGA or XFX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleMo Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 First off an x1600 is ok...nothing special. . lol, I can't believe you said that when mine rock n rolls, gives me amazing quality, and plays all of the latest games, AND makes me coffee in the morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAM Posted July 20, 2006 Share Posted July 20, 2006 If you're on a budget, get a 7600GT. You can run it on the PSU you already have and it kicks some serious ***. Probably the best bang for the buck card on the market right now. Get one of the factory overclocked ones from EVGA or XFX. i just built a rig for a customer and a 450 watt antec power supply wouldn't even turn the CPU with this card installed- the evga version. you'll need at least 550+ watts to run that card correctly. at least. don't skimp on the PSU either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidewinder Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 I was just looking at this situation last night at Best Buy. I have a Dell Dimension 8250 computer from Jan. 2003. Off the top of my head I think it has a 250 or 300 watt power supply. My Motherboard only supports 4X AGP max and I have a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 Megs RAM. All my sports games run smooth at full graphics, but I definitely had slowdowns on Call of Duty 2, but I dont play FPS usually. Driving games look and run great at full or almost full graphics usually. I dont want to get a new computer for another year or so, and additional RAM is too pricey for my Motherboard. (RDRAM PC1066) I have 512 Megs. Anyways, I thought I would upgrade the video card and one with more RAM. What AGP card do you guys recommend for my situation? Also, can I upgrade the Power supply on my Motherboard or is it a Dell proprietary one? If I can, how big of one should I get and where? I can install it myself probably. I have two internal hard drives and one DVD/CD writer and an old floppy drive. Sometimes, I attach a USB small 80 Gig 5400 RPM drive too. Thanks for any advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAM Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 you can switch out the power supply easily on dells- i do it on a regular basis for customers. i have had a couple issues where the size was just a bit off- but that was rare. i would pull it out and take it with you when you purchase the new PSU. just in case. they'll probably tell you they're all the same but, ignore them and open the new one and just double check. like i've said there has been the rare instance when the dell supply is just a little smaller and i've had to drill the case- which i hate doing. go big on the PSU. since you're running AGP you don't need a massive one like you would to power say a dual SLI pci-e board but it's always better to go big and beefy. a cheap PSU will normally last about one year exactly. an antec will probably last the life of your PC. so look into an antec true blue around 500 or so watts. buy it online if you can or if you're near a fry's maybe there. although i'm not a huge fan of fry's. some computer shops in your area may be just as cheap as an online merchant too. you may have a bottleneck with certain game graphics and the amount of RAM you have and the fact that the mobo is agp 4x. then again i have no idea what chip you have. if it's a p4 there shouldn't be too much of an issue. if it's celeron then yeah there is an issue. the amount or RAM on the vid card isn't necessarily the best way to go. you need to pay close attention to clock and core speeds when looking for one. a lot of cards are advertised as say a 256mb RAM vid card to get people to buy (why some of them are cheaper than a 128). but, if you pay attention to clock and core speeds you'll find a lot of 128mb cards are actually faster than a 256. so a GOOD 256 card will help. but if you add more RAM in addition it will help even more. normally a game will dump whatever the vid card can't handle into your RAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidewinder Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 Thanks for the info. I do have a P4 2.4 Ghz CPU. Between the various AGP video cards that are 256 and 512 Megs, which do you recommend then, that would be a nice significant upgrade to my 128 Meg Radeon 9800 Pro. How much should I be paying for a 500 watt power supply? Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidewinder Posted August 2, 2006 Share Posted August 2, 2006 Just a follow up. I ended up getting a Radeon X800 XT Platinum AGP 256 Meg video card and it's working out great. The Radeons dont need a large power supply(only 300 watts), so I didnt have to upgrade that. I got the card on Ebay for $175, card only. The AGP versions of these cards are getting more expensive as the supply dissipates and the switch to PCI-e. Based on my research, the X800 holds it's own very well compared to the Nvidia 6800 Ultra cards, but are not as CPU dependent and power supply needy. It appears to be very stable and quiet also. I did the hex editor thing with MVP.exe file to edit my resolution to my native 37" LCD HDTV 16x9, which is 1366x768 at 60Hz and it worked like a charm. Before, I had to run at 1024x768 and while it looked very good, now it looks tighter and more real estate horizontally too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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