The best graphic card I can upgrade to for my system.. HELP!

[lkyyun]

Hi experts,

So my system is now three years old and I do not realize the urge to upgrade anything until I get in touch with the Total War series...

Here is my specs:

Motherboard: Asus M2N-E SLi
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 6000+ (3.02Ghz)
Memory: Kingston DDR2 4GB RAM
Hard Drive: WD 500GB
PSU: Corsair VX 450W
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit
Graphic Card: Asus GeForce 8600GTS


Without upgrading any other parts, what is the best graphic card now that I can purchase that will work properly and without bottlenecking the card?

I also have a friend wanting to sell me his MSI GTX465 Twin Frozr II card. What minimum upgrade do I need to get the card running? I understand the card is power hungry, so my next card in line is GTS 450. If this card fits better, I will buy this instead.

Here are more details on the PSU

Picture of the amperes:

Cables:

20+4 Pin Main x 1
8 Pin CPU x 1
4 Pin CPU x 1
4 Pin Molex x 6
4 Pin Floppy x 2
SATA x 6
6 Pin PEG (PCI Express Graphics) x 1



THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH FOR THE HELP!

 

[lkyyun]

I am glad that you understand the inportance of a good PSU when getting a new video card. I would not be using a 3 year old PSU with a new power hungry video card.

.
I checked the power consumption, the GTS450 doesn't use that much more than 8600GTS. maybe 10~20W in full. Since the minimum requirement for GTS450 is 400W, while my psu got good amp at 12V and actually rated as 500W so I thought it should work.
Just wondering if my system will bottleneck the card. Thx.

 

[Zero_]

Take a look at a HD5770? Extremely low power card, even more so than a GTS450, and offers much better performance.

 

[baddad]

That PSU will work fine for that card. You might also look at going to W7 64 bit so that you can use that 4G of ram you have.