350W power supply, best graphic card?

Thats going to be the best video card for what size of power supply you have or the ATI counter part.

And it really wouldn't be worth the upgrade anyway, for it to be meaningful you'd have to get at least an HD 4850.

I'm pretty sure that the recommended power supply is 400watt for 8800 GT, I'm still shocked that the 350 can do the 9600 GS:S

And I doubt you'll get too much of a boost from 9600 GS to 8800 GT.

The 9600 GS is around as powerful as the 9600 GT and the 8800 GT beats the 9600 GT by and average of 5-10 frames from the benchmarks I've seen.

CoD4 tends to run better on 9600gt then the average game. Here's a bigger chart.  

I'd say COD4 is going to run maxed out even at 1680x1050 with the 9600GSO anyway. That's how well optimized it is.

Well it's still about 10fps throughout the resolutions/settings, and that chart is a GF9600GT not the GS he has, so it's likely to be further below a GF8800GT, but whether it's worth it or not to me would depend most on the minimum fps more than the averages , as the lows would more noticeable for beneifits.

Overall I wouldn't bother unless there's something he can't play right now the way he wants to.

Did they make a 9600gs? I've only heard about 8800gs/9600gso (same thing). 8800gs is included in the chart.  

I know the 8800GS was there, I was sayin GF9600GS, as I'm not sure what is and isn't available now in other countries. It used to be easy to tell but with the nV naming scheme it's impossible to be certain.

The GSO is nearly the same, with the variability of slower but more shaders and TMUs, but coupled with slower less bitwidth memory, overall usually see it slightly less than the 9600GT, so it remains, both would be less than the GF8800GT, and still leaving unknown if the min fps which is usually a noticeable difference between the two, and the most important thing for me for changes that otherwise look so close. And avergae may change only a bit if the high fps remain system bound, but the min increases noticeably. So to me that would still be the thing to look for.

I'm still skeptical of it being worth an upgrade, but if the min fps change was usbstantial enough at his settings then it might be worth it.

Lol, must be Nvidia renaming scheme working overtime again.  

Low range psus are dirt cheap those days. Get one so you can have a real upgrade.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=E...

The video card:

768MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600GS, DVI-I, VGA, HDMI

came with my HP m9300t desktop

I will ONLY use this desktop to play WAR and Warcraft Lich King...so not sure how graphic intensive they are in comparison to CoD4/Crysis and other games.

I gather that sticking with my current video card would be my best option atm?

Without upgrading psu, yes.

Where would a 4670 fit in on those charts? That card doesn't need additional power.

And, if you DO decide to replace your PSU, don't get a cheap one. Antec, Corsair, OCZ, Seasonic, PC Power & Cooling, and Enermax make good ones.

Yeah HP probably put in the absolute weakest power supply they could get away with so that the system just makes it past its warranty period ^_^. You might be able to put in an 8800GT or Radeon 4850. I know that putting in a 4850 will use about 5 more watts than a 9600GSO. The problem is that the closer you run your PSU to it's peak power the shorter its life will be. Burning out your PSU that way also runs the risk of shorting out the other components in your system. If you don't care then look at reviews that show you the total system power consumption as well as comparisons of graphic card power consumption. Also open your case and find out how many amps are on each rail, especially the 12v rail. Multiply those amps by 12 and that basically the amount of watts you have available for your graphics card and system devices, such as fans and drives.

Performance is about the same as 9600gso, not worth an upgrade either.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4670/6...



That psu will not run a 4850. At peak, compared to 9600gso, 4850 use a lot more than just 5 watts. 208w compared to 177. With 4670 at 164.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_4670/2...

That 164 number is for the complete system though (as are all of those other numbers). The card itself is pulling far less.

There are other variables, like 12v rail ampage. And when they stress gpu, cpu is idle. Most of the load will be from gpu, as it's the only part being stressed. Besides, you should not run psu at 100% load, it can't handle sustained full load. Trust me, 350w isn't enough to power a 4850 system.

You guys are really helpful, yeah I won't upgrade PSU since I got the HP in the first place so my employer would reimburse me for most of the cost (silly rule sayin I can't build my own comp and get reimbursed).

I figure the video card I have now, will be good enough to play warcraft/war at pretty good settings ( I hope )

Anyone know how graphic intensive WAR is?

Geez, just google it.  

System requirement copy & pasted from official website:


For Windows XP

* 2.5 GHz P4 (single core) processor or equivalent
* 1 Gigabyte RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* At least 15 GB of hard drive space

For Windows VISTA

* 2.5 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
* 2 Gigabyte RAM
* A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
* At least 15 GB of hard drive space

Supported Video Cards
ATI Radeon(TM) series

* 9500, 9600, 9800
* X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
* X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
* 2400, 2600, 2900
* 3650, 3850, 3870
* 4850, 4870

NVIDIA GeForce series

* FX 5900, FX 5950
* 6600, 6800
* 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
* 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
* 9400, 9500, 9600, 9800
* GTX 260, GTX 280

Intel(R) Extreme Graphics

* GMA X4500

yeah I did look at the system requirement, but just wasn't sure about how it would play on the system setup I have. Guess we shall see next week  

Judging by how low the requirement get (GMA X4500, anyone?   ), your current card should be able to handle it with acceptable performance.

I'm not disagreeing with you there - I was just pointing that out in the interest of accuracy.