Need to replace my GeForce 9800 GTX card.

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Marick73

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Jan 13, 2014
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I've been playing video games in this computer for at least 4 years now. And it's gotten to the point were my graphics card crashes all the time. And skyrim at its lowest settings is causing me a great deal of crashes. I need to get rid of this 9800 GTX.

What card would be a good upgrade for me? I really can't pay much more than $150 right now, but I definitely want this new card to be at least enough of an upgrade to be able to play skyrim without hitting quick save every 30 sec to not lose any progress.

Thanks for reading.
 
Solution
chitradev
CPU stands for Central Processing Unit and is basically the brain of your machine as it coordinates and facilitates communication between different components in your PC. In your system the processor is the Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 @ 2.80 GHZ. This is a dual core CPU meaning that it has two processing cores meaning that it can basically deal with two application processes (or threads) at once. Most modern CPUs used for gaming are quad core but many games are still only capable of using one or two cores. There are many other components that make a CPU capable or not (Like cache, bus speed,etc.). You will not be able to upgrade your CPU to once with modern architecture because the socket on your board (775) simply would not fit the new...
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Marick73

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Jan 13, 2014
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sorry about the long wait. my motherboard says it is a Dell Inspiron 530, the CPU says E7400 @ 2.80 GHZ, and Ram is 2.79GHZ, 3.25 GB of RAM.

Hope your still around haha.
 
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chitradev

chitradev

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Nov 17, 2013
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We also need to know what wattage power supply you are running. This would allow us to advise what graphics card you can get as depending on the card requirements vary. I see on pcworld.com that this model is about 6 years old and upgrading machines of that age does have some inherent risks (hardware failure, circuitry degradation, etc.)

 
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Marick73

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Jan 13, 2014
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thats the thing. i would be extremely happy to get a new computer as i have had this one for years. it was a good computer back when i got it. but i cant afford to pay for a new one right now i think. ive been saving up to get married so thats draining all my funds haha.
the power supply is a 450 as far as i can tell from reading the side.
 
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chitradev

chitradev

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Nov 17, 2013
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Yep if you have 450w power supply you should be able to run the 650ti, but as Raheel said it will be bottlenecked by your CPU. That said it will still give you quite a nice boost in your games. It is really good card and you can probably swap it into another system once you have the funds to build a new one.
 
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chitradev

chitradev

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A bottleneck is a phenomenon where the performance or capacity of an entire system is limited by a single or limited number of components or resources. In this case the main bottleneck is that your CPU would not have enough power to provide calculations for today's most demanding games and hence in this case it is the main bottleneck or restriction to full performance. You have other hardware components that would cause restrictions such as RAM, harddrive etc., but the restriction that you would see and feel most would be the CPU.
 
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Avro Arrow

Avro Arrow

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It doesn't matter what graphics card you put in. Skyrim is a CPU-intensive game and your CPU is just not powerful enough to run it properly. I don't think that your experience will improve no matter what graphics card you try throwing at it. I'm afraid you're just going to have to save up for a better machine (and this time, for God's sake, don't buy a brand-in-a-box like Dell!).
 
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Marick73

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Jan 13, 2014
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What decides my CPU? Like I said. I'm completely new to computer inner workings.

Thanks for the help!
 
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chitradev

chitradev

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Nov 17, 2013
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CPU stands for Central Processing Unit and is basically the brain of your machine as it coordinates and facilitates communication between different components in your PC. In your system the processor is the Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 @ 2.80 GHZ. This is a dual core CPU meaning that it has two processing cores meaning that it can basically deal with two application processes (or threads) at once. Most modern CPUs used for gaming are quad core but many games are still only capable of using one or two cores. There are many other components that make a CPU capable or not (Like cache, bus speed,etc.). You will not be able to upgrade your CPU to once with modern architecture because the socket on your board (775) simply would not fit the new model processors. There are other factors such as memory architecture, main board circuitry, etc. that would prevent this as well. Newer games are made to take advantage of a lot of the features present in new CPUs (larger cache, faster bus speeds, better memory architecture) and that is what we mean when we say that your CPU will be the bottleneck.
 
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Solution
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Marick73

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Jan 13, 2014
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Ok, thank you for all the information! I think at this point I'll just live with my computer as it is and start saving for a new one. Might take me a while but there seems to be no better choice.
What would a good gaming computer probably cost? Maybe around $1000 if I'm lucky?
 
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chitradev

chitradev

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It would probably be better if you built your own. The guys here on the forum can help you out with parts lists and recommendations for hardware that would fit your budget. $1000 will build you a really good system that will be good for some years to come.
 
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Marick73

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Jan 13, 2014
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I would be very happy to build my own. It will be a learning process but I think it would be a good one. And a hell of a lot of fun haha. I'll have to look closer on this forum when I'm not on my phone. Might take my a while to put aside $1000 though.
 
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