Upgrade question for an older computer

[thatoned00der]

Hello friends, I'm trying to upgrade my mother's old computer, she's got a P4 2.8ghz, 512mb, Geforce MX 420 (haha),

So far, I'm looking hard at the gforce 7900, but my question is, will my cpu bottleneck it? Will I need a new PSU for this card? Also, any suggestions from you guys would be good as to what card i should get. Looking to spend 300 or less.

 

[nightscope]

Hello friends, I'm trying to upgrade my mother's old computer, she's got a P4 2.8ghz, 512mb, Geforce MX 420 (haha),

So far, I'm looking hard at the gforce 7900, but my question is, will my cpu bottleneck it? Will I need a new PSU for this card? Also, any suggestions from you guys would be good as to what card i should get. Looking to spend 300 or less.

What PSU does it already have? (Don't just give me watts, give me the total amps on the 12+ rails).

What is she going to use it for? Since you're looking into a gforce 7900, I assume she'll be gaming on it? Which motherboard does she have?
And yes, the current CPU will have a minor bottleneck on the card.

Please be more specific.

 

[thatoned00der]

Nightscope, thanks for your reply..sorry I wasn't too specific but I hadn't ran Sandra on the computer yet... Anyway it's a DELL and I found out it's only designed for RDRAM which is pretty obsolete and expensive. We've decided to just get a new computer. The new one will have 2gb ddr2 and a gf7500, good enough for what she does. She plays The Sims 2.

 

[rickzor]

As far as i know, geforces 7900 are pci-x, and pentium 4 2.8 ghz usually use agp boards, so before spend any money, make sure you'll be able to actually use the card on that system, and yes, the cpu would bottleneck it a lot!

 

[nightscope]

Nightscope, thanks for your reply..sorry I wasn't too specific but I hadn't ran Sandra on the computer yet... Anyway it's a DELL and I found out it's only designed for RDRAM which is pretty obsolete and expensive. We've decided to just get a new computer. The new one will have 2gb ddr2 and a gf7500, good enough for what she does. She plays The Sims 2.

Good, I wouldn't want to spend on obsolete technology either.