Upgrade video card

[SalieriM]

Hello,

I am looking for a new graphics card for my system which consists of a:
- CPU Intel E8400 (6M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB)
- 2GB RAM, I think they are some Kingston at 800Mhz
- Some ASRock motherboard, no idea what model
- The power source is 500W, again, no idea what model
- 9600GT 512MB (GigaByte I think?)

I have a 350 euro budget for upgrade and I was thinking to buy some extra RAM and a new video card. Do you think I can buy a great GPU for this system, or should I be upgrading something else too so I can benefit from a high quality video card? I use the PC for gaming mostly, and I'd like to play newer games at high quality settings in full hd (ME2, Dragon Age 2, SC2, etc.). With the current setup I can play full hd on low to medium settings and still suffer from low fps or spikes.

If you need extra details of my system just ask and I will try to provide them as soon as possible.
Thank you for your responses and I hope I'm in the right section.

 

[reprotected]

I recommend no more than the GTX 460 1 GB (Overclocked if you want).

 

[jyjjy]

You really need to find out the brand/model of the power supply to determine what cards you can use with it or if it needs to be replaced. The brand/model should be on a chart on the side of the PSU inside the computer's case.
Also tell us the native resolution of your monitor.

 

[SalieriM]

Okay, now that I'm at the PC I can give you more info (seems I was wrong about some):
- PSU is a crappy HKC SZ-430PDR, 430W only. I think I definitely need to upgrade it to a more powerful/higher quality one. Would a Sirtec at 500W do the trick? All in all, I do not want to my PC upgrade choices to be limited by my PSU, so I will change it with whatever is necessary.
- HDD is a Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 3Gb/s 640-GB Hard Drive (Model ST3640323AS).
- LCD Philips 231E1SB, 23'', native resolution 1920x1080.
- MB is an ASRock P43Twins1600
- RAM is APACER DDR2 2G 16C 240PIN 800Mhz UNB PC2-6400 CL5. An utility tool called Speccy is showing: 2.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 393MHz (5-5-5-18). What's up with that?

Based on these specs, what are your recommendations? At this point, I am thinking new PSU, new RAMs and my main concern, a new graphics card.

@reprotected: Why no more than GTX460? What else do I need to upgrade if I want, for example, a GTX470?

 

[phenom90]

why no gtx 470?? because you don't need it.... gtx 470 is expensive compared to gtx 460... besides... i think your whole pc may need an upgrade by next year or the year after.... gtx 460 is the best card that you can pair with your pc right now until the fermi successor keppler out by next year.... buy the cheapest gtx 460 you can find right now and start to save money for your next major upgrade.....

 

[prolim123]

8400gs. 50-55 bucks only. delivers fps faster than the human eye can see(only with 260.63 driver). read all about the driver at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-260.63-beta-driver.html

 

[jyjjy]

Phenom is just making stuff up I believe and prolim clearly needs medication of some sort. There's no reason you can't use a GTX 470 if you can afford it. Whether or not it is the best choice is another question. I don't know what the prices are like where you are but both the GTX 460 and HD5850 are usually better deals for the money in the US right now. Any of them should handle 1920x1080 very well, especially when overclocked. For any of these cards you should get a new power supply. Sticking with a good brand like Corsair or Antec is highly recommended and in that case a 500w or higher should cover these cards.
Overclocking your processor a bit would be a good idea. Even on the stock cooler it should handle 3.5ghz fine, closer to 4ghz if you buy a decent fan/heatsink. 2 more gigs of ram is definitely a good idea.

 

[SalieriM]

Thanks jyjjy!

 

[prolim123]

ovrclocking is the worse thing to do.read about it below. i have a friend who overclocked his pc and it went up to 80c. hotter than the sahara dessert.

bad effects:I noticed that the realworld performance of the overclock was shoddy, Especially when gaming. Even when just running Windows, Opening programs took longer. Gaming sees jerky frame rates, Even though, According to MSI Afterburner, The GPU Usage never peaks above 70% and CPU usage never reaches above 65% on all cores, And the longer load times, So I dropped the O.C. Back to 3.25GHz and the load times, Dropped drastically and frame rate remains stable.. burns processor and video card life alot!!! it heats up to high temperature and sometimes, it may get to high temp untill your pc have to restart, my 6800gt is a gonna now.the circuits are fried. my motherboard and my intel dual core processor spoilt, thats why i use a older intel pentium 2 instead. after 2 years, you will know what happened. worse case:graphic card melted(VERY RARE) best case:bad graphics but still usable

 

[jyjjy]

If you are overclocking recklessly, ignoring temperatures and not running anything to check if the overclock is stable then you will certainly have problems but that is user error not something wrong with overclocking in general.
Then again from your earlier post about the 8400gs I'll have to assume you are a troll(I hope so at least.)

 

[Mousemonkey]

c'mon.
waiting for the third strike so the moderator can tell you to give it up..!

I've already told him/she to, several times.