[Rik111]

hey guys... idk alot about this stuff so i need some valid opinions... i'm running these specs...
AMD athlon 64 processor 3200+
1.99ghz 960 gb ram
ATI radeon xpress 200 series
160 gb hd


now to my question... i THINK i need a new video card (my friend can play oblivion with medium settings smoothly ((same spec cpu except he has 256mb video card)) and i can only do very low quality and i still lag).

what is the best video card my computer can handle? i was looking into 512's but i dont know if that's too much or what. thanks in advance!

Rik

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You did not say what motherboard you have so i looked up the ATI 200 chipset. Almost all the 33 motherboards have a PCI-E slot so you can run a good graphics card. On the memory on the card more is always better as it frees the CPU to do other things. The only caveat is that your power supply may not be up to snuff. A single slot PCI-E card can use up to 75 watts. most have a 4 pin or 6 pin connector for extra power from the power supply. Usually included with the video card is a molex adapter. If your system is using most of the power supplys wattage adding the video card may cause lockups and restarts. If this starts happening you will need a better power supply, preferrably one with 2-12volt lines, so you can have a line dedicated to the video card. just remember that the amps listed for each line times 12volts will give you the wattage of that line. For example a 18 amp line times 12 volts will give you 216 watts for that line. there are calculators on line to see what your system needs. Any power supply i always reduce the wattage by 25% simply because all are only rated at 75% efficiency and many do not even reach that.

SRX660

[SRX660]

You did not say what motherboard you have so i looked up the ATI 200 chipset. Almost all the 33 motherboards have a PCI-E slot so you can run a good graphics card. On the memory on the card more is always better as it frees the CPU to do other things. The only caveat is that your power supply may not be up to snuff. A single slot PCI-E card can use up to 75 watts. most have a 4 pin or 6 pin connector for extra power from the power supply. Usually included with the video card is a molex adapter. If your system is using most of the power supplys wattage adding the video card may cause lockups and restarts. If this starts happening you will need a better power supply, preferrably one with 2-12volt lines, so you can have a line dedicated to the video card. just remember that the amps listed for each line times 12volts will give you the wattage of that line. For example a 18 amp line times 12 volts will give you 216 watts for that line. there are calculators on line to see what your system needs. Any power supply i always reduce the wattage by 25% simply because all are only rated at 75% efficiency and many do not even reach that.

SRX660