Help getting rid of MX440

[FeydMourden]

My "rig"

HP Pavillion 775e
AMD 2400+ 2.00 GHz
2 slots of PC2700 RAM - 1 gig + 256 MB
NVIDIA GeForce MX 440
AGP 8x slot

So I don't want to upgrade for a bit. However, the graphics card that came with this computer is not so good. I'd like to upgrade the graphics card while I wait to build a new system. I was thinking NVIDIA 6200 or 6600 (GT??). I can get these cheap and they seem like a great upgrade.

The main question:
What is the best card I could get without worrying too much about a CPU bottleneck???

How do I know if the card will fit in my box?

Will it require a power supply or coolant upgrade?

 

[pauldh]

Good news that you have an AGP card to upgrade unlike people with integrated graphics and no AGP or PCI-e slot.

What is you budget? I would say a 6800GS or X800GTO would be about the highest I'd go. The 6600GT is pretty decent, but for the money I'd rather have a X1600pro, which is usually cheaper even. It would offer a huge increase over what you have for a reasonable price. It's also a pretty feature rich little card.

If you are in the US, here are some good AGP prices.

Retail X800GTO $175 + shipping
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-A8GTO2

Retail BFG 6800GS $200
http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productdetails.asp?submit=&item=14-143-045&ATT=Video%20Cards

Retail Sapphire X1600 Pro $121 + shipping
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-A1600P


As far as your box size and PS. Is your case a low profile one needing a half height video card? I hope not. List your power supply specs which should be printed on the Power supplies label inside the case.

 

[ELGoku]

you could get a ATI Radeon 9600PRO 256Mb for under 75 bucks on AGP 8X, it'll balance out just fine, and those cards are pretty good 8)

 

[FeydMourden]

Hmmm

It seems like a regular size box to me. Is there any easy way to tell if its low profile and needs a half-height video card?

 

[Datman]

What type of games do you play?
About how much longer do want to keep this system?

The 6200 is more of a sideways step than upgrade.

The slots from the back of your case at the bottom should be about 4 inches long for full height and about 2 inches for a half height case.

 

[CompGeek]

For an Athlon XP go no further than a 6600GT otherwise the CPU will bottleneck.
Well keep in mind that your rig probably isn't brand new. If you game, i'd rather get a cheap mobo+cheap CPU+memory. You can get all those bellow 250$(Athlon 64,AS Rock Sata 2 mobo and value PC3200). And once you have money get a gfx card.(BTW, remember,that mobo supports PCIe only so untill then you'll have to do with integrated)
Decent rigs are cheap these days. 8)