I have DELL Optiplex 755 running Win XP pro SP3
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor E6550 (2.33GHz, 4M, VT, 1333MHz FSB)
2GB RAM
PCI-E 1.2 slot
19" dell monitor

Will it worth the money if I buy video card for 3D gaming, which can support:

1. PCI-E 2.0 interface?
2. Directx 10 ?

Which video card give me most value, if I have 250 USD budget?

Thanks in advance

Not on xp, you need vista for dx10

DX10 cards will work fine on xp, however they will only be able to play games in DX9. However nearly all DX10 cards are much quicker than DX9 cards and so will be of great benefit in games.

Most people who have dx10 cards still run games in dx9 (either in vista or xp) because at the moment dx10 is slower and gives little or no visual improvements over dx9.

Most new cards support 10 though, and most games look great on 9 with the setting turned up, so far there is very little difference in image quality.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==

some game fare better such as this

http://www.gamealmighty.com/story- [...] o_Upgrade/

As far as pcie 2.0, it doesent make a big difference yet, but your getting it for free and it is 100 bercent backwards compatible with a pcie 1.0 slot, so go for it

Seems things are not as simple as I was expecting.

The PC has 305W PSU so to use latest video cards I need to replace PSU.

Now I have two choices:

- Buy low power consumption (low performance) video card like Geforce GT 8500

or

- Buy new 600W PSU and latest Geforce models like 9800 or so on.

Which way is better?

Is there any relationship between CPU, chipset I have (intel Q35) and Video card to be used in terms of best outcome in video performance?