Hi Everyone,

I'm sure you get this all the time, but I want to upgrade my video card. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely certain what the best card is that my system can support with its current motherboard, processor, power supply, etc.

The reason for the upgrade is so I can play some of the newer game releases. Here are the current specs for the machine. It's an HP Pavilion a350n out of the box, if that helps. Not the best gaming system in the world, but it's what I've got.


Base processor and speed
Pentium 4 / 2.80 GHz
* 800 MHz front side bus
* mPGA478
* HyperThreading Technology

Chipset
865PE

Motherboard manufacturer
* ASUS
* Motherboard Specs


Video graphics
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX (AGP video card)
* 8x AGP card
* Up to 64 MB DDR video
* TV-Out


Here's a link to the actual a350n product specs from the HP website if that helps - HP a350n

I'm already planning to upgrade the memory to 2GB. That's the max recommended by HP even though the motherboard can support 4GB.

Thanks for helping me out. I appreciate any and all comments and questions. Figured upgrading the memory and vid card is cheaper than buying a pure gaming machine, especially with reduced play time these days.

Thanks again,
John

This post has been edited by TXVA John: Jun 29 2008, 11:45 AM

Hi there,

Since you're motherboard only supports AGP, the hd3850 is probably going to be the best AGP card for games. Do you know what kind of PSU you have? It's got to meet the wattage requirements as well as the rail voltage for the specific card you decide to go on.

As for the memory, there's no point in getting more than 2 gigs unless you have the 64bit version of XP. The 32bit versions, while it can see the 4 gigs, it's only going to be able to utilize around three gigs of it.

I personally would recommend you buy the parts to build your own system that is up to date with the rest of the hardware out there though. Updating a "dead" system such as this isn't the best move if you have the money to build a new system because once you upgrade your graphics card, you're not going to be able to do much else.