[Mr. Vega]

What's the best card if I'm stuck with a 375 Watt power supply? I stopped following the graphics card scene a long time ago and from what I've looked at now I'm pretty much screwed unless I have a PSU of 400 watts or more.

(I'm current using a Radeon 850XT PCIx16)

[BloodEagle]

You might as well upgrade the PSU at the same time.

[Colonol Dekker]

Examine your WHOLE setup from the motherboard up, if you can still buy your components without going to a website/magazine clearance section, you should be ok for another year... if not, consider a ground up renovation.   

[Mr. Vega]

Dell Dimension 9100
3.20 GHz Pentium D
Intel 945p Chipset (I'm pretty sure)
1024 GB DDR SDRAM
Maxtor 7L250S0 230GB
512MB Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition PCIx16
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS
375W PSU
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2

[Aardwolf]

Dell Dimension 9100
3.20 GHz Pentium D
Intel 945p Chipset (I'm pretty sure) Ew... that's like what I have
1024 GB DDR SDRAM
Maxtor 7L250S0 230GB
512MB Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition PCIx16
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS
375W PSU
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2

[Bob-san]

Quick and easy upgrade: Radeon HD 4650 GDDR3 or HD 4670.

[Mr. Vega]

That's fine, but the question is can the power supply/motherboard handle it?

[colecampbell666]

I assume so if he posted them.

[Admiral LSD]

The 4670 doesn't require external power and it's also built on a smaller process (55nm vs. 130 for the X850). It'll probably use the same amount of or less power than the card its replacing while providing a higher overall level of performance. A better idea though is to consider going for a whole new system as Colonol Dekker suggested. The outlay will be higher, sure, but so will the gains over simply applying band-aid fixes to your current rig.

[Bob-san]

That's fine, but the question is can the power supply/motherboard handle it?

55W max TDP on the 4650. Unless you have a PSU with just 10A on the 12V rail, you should have a quick and easy upgrade. What are you running some Dell or something? For the boost you'd see by a HD3850-equivalent, I'd say it's well worth the shot.

Anyways; you will see a better boost with a new PC (of course), but you still have an OK system. Graphics boost would extend the life for gaming. $51 is worth the price IMO.

[Fury]

I have to question the wisdom of upgrading graphics card only for this underperforming PC. I would suggest saving your money for a new PC instead. New graphics card won't do miracles when you have only 1GB RAM and Pentium D.

[Mongoose]

But if he spends a small amount of money on this system to make it something decent, and then winds up building a new one later, he'll wind up with a new system and a decent system in the end, instead of a new system and a crappy one.  I'm kind of faced with a similar situation myself, to be honest...I'd love to build a top-of-the-line system for myself at some point down the line, but I don't exactly have any real income, so I'm stuck with the 5-year-old Dell.  I'm finally getting a sorely-needed RAM upgrade for it, and I'm interested in looking into seeing what sort of video card improvement I can get without necessitating a better power supply, but that won't stop me from building a dream rig eventually, at which point I can turn this into a backup or server or something.

[Bob-san]

I have to question the wisdom of upgrading graphics card only for this underperforming PC. I would suggest saving your money for a new PC instead. New graphics card won't do miracles when you have only 1GB RAM and Pentium D.

<$25 for +2GB DDR2.

[Stealth]

if you want a new power supply, i've got a 500W PS that i can send you.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3255392&SRCCODE=WEBLET03SHIP&cm_mmc=Email-_-WebletMain-_-WEBLET03SHIP-_-03ship

[BloodEagle]

That thing doesn't have a P4 connector. 

[Admiral LSD]

It has the 8 pin version. It's basically just two of the 4 pin ones moulded into the same plug. Depending on the board, they're largely interchangable (much like you can use a newer 24 pin PSU in an older 20 pin board, layout notwithstanding). It was originally meant for multiprocessor systems where each half of the connector fed a seperate CPU. I have no idea why single CPU systems need it, even furnaces like the Phenom and i7 don't really tax the capabilities of a single 4 pin.

You have to be careful upgrading the PSUs in Dells though. I'm not 100% sure if they still do this or not, but a while back they used to use PSUs/Mobos that weren't 100% ATX compliant. Mix them up (Dell board with standard PSU or standard PSU with Dell mobo) and it was BOOM! The other thing too is the newer Dells are BTX and not ATX. I'm fairly certain that BTX makes no changes to the PSU, but with Dell who knows.