Upgrade Question

[jsslifelike]

Another new guy here- I trolled for a bit first, and seeing the knowledge you all seem to have, I figured I came to the right place. I'm trying to upgrade a 4 year old Dell 8200- I'm afraid I won't be able to run NWN2 when it comes out. Here's my system config as it stands right now:

P4 2.26
512MB RDRAM PC800
48x CDROM
24x CD-R/RW
Sound Blaster Live
GeForce4 4600 ti

I don't want to spend a ton of money doing this, but I do want to be able to at least play things effectively. I was looking at this PNY 256MB GeForce 6200, but this one is a bit cheaper- XFX 256 MB GeForce 6200. I'm not really concerned about max resolutions much, just wondering if I'll notice a good difference, if 8x cards will still run 4x on my machine, and if so, which is better. I'm planning on a 512 MB RDRAM upgrade at the same time(1 GB grand total), so please factor that in as well. Thanks in advance.

[blue60007]

Neither of those cards are gamers, so keep that mind (but I think it'll be better than what you've got). Also, keep in mind your power supply. That Dell probably has a bare minimum power supply and won't be able to handle much of an upgrade. The first says it needs a 300W power supply and the second a 350W. I'm kinda doubting your dell does - it's probably a minimum 250W power supply. Also is your board capable of AGP 8x? I would think any 8x card put into 4x mode would hamper it's performance...

[786ARS]

i think you would be better off with a X1300 as some of those models i think dont seale system ram, but you will pay a premium though.

[theyosh]

Before you think about installing a new video card you will have to find out what the capacity is on your power supply just like what Blue mentioned earlier. So find that out first and we'll go from there. You do not want to get a video card that will take out your power supply because there is a good chance when the power supply goes out it might take some of the other components out with it and you will then be looking for a bran new computer.

theyosh

[Shadar Logoth]

I also have a reasonably old system. The video card I had burnt out and I replaced it with, a AGP 128mb 6600GT, and it does an excellent job. I don't have a PCI-E slot and only a 300W power supply so this is as close to the best I could get, (and afford). I can run pretty much all games now, not neccesarily on good settings but there smooth and still pretty good, which is a huge improvement over my old 128mb card.
Keep in mind though its worth paying a little more and going with a good manufacturer. The first 6600GT I had died after only a few months, but the new ones still going strong.

[jsslifelike]

First off, thank you all for responding- you have been extremely helpful so far. I will check the power supply in the morning. If it is indeed 300 watt or below, would it be worth me upgrading to say a 450 watt one?The next thing is that I was looking at this Geforce 6800XT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Card. It seems like a steal so I was debating on whether or not to just bite the bullet- if it'll really make a difference with the 4x. It is not capable of 8x blue, not that I'm aware of at least- can I check that in my bios? I really didn't wanna spend that much on a card with my rambus RDRAM still being archaic yet outrageously priced, but if I get the performance I want, it'll be worth it.

[786ARS]

that is a steal, the 6800XT AGP, but consider a psu such as this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103936
$62

[jsslifelike]

Thanks, 786ARS. It seems that I'll definately need that as I opened 'er up and- EEK! Just as blue suspected, there sat a 250-watt PS. That one appears to be reliable if the reviews are to be believed. I didn't look at the label on my current unit super closely, but besides wattage, what's the difference between PSU's and how do I know which I'll need? Are the wattage specs constant or peak and does that matter? In short really, is there anyway for me to muck this up?

[Kareeser]

Would the 8200 have a proprietary PSU? In which case, you'd have to take that into account.

[jsslifelike]

I hate the fact that this topic is seriously derailing, but I gotta have enough juice to run a new vid card...

Anyway, it's not proprietary(well, it looks normal enough anyway):

The label reads:

MODEL NPS-250KB B REV.00 INPUT 100-120V~/9.0A, 50-60 Hz 200-240V~/4.5A, OUTPUT +5V _ _ _ /22.0A, -12V _ _ _ /1.0A, +12V _ _ _ /14.0A, +3.3V _ _ _ /18.0A, +5VSB _ _ _ /2.0A, MAX COMBINED POWER ON +5V AND +3.3V OUTPUT IS 170W

I dunno if this helps at all, but I was wondering how I'd know the difference between the pin configs. Also, I guess I'll just have to cut a bit to account for the power switch to stick through the rear panel?

[jayb1234]

The Dimension 8200 is one of the Dell models that uses standard wiring, if you don't want to drill the case to make room for the on/off switch, PC Power and Cooling has some switchless models for use with Dell cases.

[jsslifelike]

Thanks for that link, jayb- I'll check into them.

I'm kinda glad that the 6800 XT was out of stock as I didn't even pay attention to it's lack of VGA output- LOL. I can't find something that I'm satisfied with so far, and I don't wanna pull the trigger on something I'll regret. So, before I decide I hope someone can answer some questions for me in-depth. What's more important- amount of onboard memory, faster onboard memory, or number of pixel pipelines? Then, with my 4X AGP slot, would I hinder a card such as a 128MB 6600 GT to point where I could save money buying a 256MB 6600? In other words, if I could only utilize 75% of a better card, would I be better off using 90% of a lower-end card? Arrrrgh, soooo frustrated...

[glc]

The old Ti4600 is actually a pretty good card, I don't think a $150 card is going to do THAT much better. I'd start saving for a new build, you have a processor bus speed (533) bottleneck in addition to the 4x AGP limitation and not enough ram - and RDRAM is frightfully expensive.

[jsslifelike]

I weighed saving for a new rig and decided against it- if this can get me through 2 or so years, I'll be happy. For $350, I got this XFX Geforce 6800XT, 2 SAMSUNG 256MB RDRAM Modules, and this Sunbeam 450 Watt Power Supply. The results so far have been great. I'm running a slue of games now in fairly high quality that I was just disgusted with before. I did have to drill for the PSU, but that was no big deal at all. I just wanted to thank everyone for their input, so... Thanks!

[ammo]

I recently bought a new mobo with 8x cause I could only use 4x AGP before and there was barely a performance deifference between them. I tested my card with 3D Mark 05 and my score was 3583 with 8x AGP and 3521 with 4x AGP.