Upgrading Pavilion Desktop PC's GPU

[boymambo]

so my uncle give me his old HP Pavilion computer because he got a new one and im planning to give it a little upgrade so it can play new games, better than my Lenovo laptop wich has HD 5650, 4GB RAM, and if im not wrong the proc is intel i3 (dont remember exactly the type of the cpu).

so the computer is HP Pavilion a6638d Desktop PC

Base processor: Core 2 Quad Q8200 (Y) 2.33 GHz (95W), 1333 MHz front side bus Socket 775

Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i

Motherboard: Foxconn, MCP73M01H1
Power supply: 300W (this is also a problem)

Video Graphics: GeForce 9500 GS, 512 MB GDDR2 memory


i want to ask you guys if this rig can support Geforce GTX 460 or not (i think i dont really need a GPU more powerfull than GTX460 for now). of course ill also upgrade the PSU (how much power do i need anyway? 600w?).

if not, whats the best option for the GPU upgrade?

any other upgrade recommendation?

 

[jmsellars1]

Hi, i think a good upgrade would be either the GTX 460, HD 6850 or the cheaper HD 5770. So long as your mobo has a PCI-e slot it will run one of those. Then assuming you have 4GB RAM (2GB might do) you should then be able to play the vast majority of games on medium/high settings. As for a PSU, i think you would need an absolute minimum of 500W, personally i'd go with 550/600W.

 

[cronos177]

Check the Power cables to see if they are 20+4 pin standard so you can use a standard power supply, many PC's comes with customized power plugs... such is the case in some HP's