~$150 for an upgrade, recommendations?

Hello,

I have a Gateway GT5438 (component list):

E4300
2x1GB PC4200 DDR2
Intel (Council Bluffs) 945G Viiv mobo
300W PSU

I ran an EVGA 8600GT on it until it blew a capacitor recently, and now I'm looking to see what would be the best to get for ~$150

I can get either a

BFG 8800GT for $140
HIS 3870 for $130
EVGA 9600GT for $120

or something else?

Mainly, I was wondering if PCIe 2.0 is backwards compatible, and what the power drains of the cards are, since I'm pretty sure my PSU will blow up if I ran any of these set ups.

Or, would it be better for me to spend $40 to get some RAM and just get another 8600GT, or something else? I'd like to optimize it for gaming.

Thanks in advance!

I think i might need a new PSU?

Will this work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817148027

The good news is, Gateway uses more standardized parts and they are more upgradeable than most other pre-builds. If I just had to own a prebuild, it would be a Gateway.
But give them a call and find out for sure exactly what your PSU is, and then upgrade that first. They might even have a decent upgrade at a decent price you can buy from them. (Maybe)

Apevia isn't the best maker of PSUs but I suppose they aren't the worst. Really though for the same price you can get a low end Antec which, while it isn't the best power supply, is more reliable than the one you were looking at.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371019

For a little more money though you can get something much better. Such as this FSP 450W

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817104037

or this 450W Corsair

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139003

Which will all serve you well and which you can use when you build a new computer.

Get the 8800GT since it's the fastest of the bunch. You can get 3870s at new egg cheaper than that, but those generally have slower clocked DDR3 memory. I don't know why since they should be able to get DDR3 that should hit the 3870s original memory speeds just fine. A better value is the Radeon 4670 since it preforms almost as well as the 3870 but costs much less.