Will it work?

[seerwan]

Yo dudes, need some help here. I would like to buy either a 9600 GT or a 9800 GT, and this is my pc:-

Pentium 4 524 Prescott with HT @ 3.06 Ghz (but i can overclock it to about 3.36 or so...)
2 GB DDR1 RAM
250 GB Maxtor Hard Drive
400 W PSU
Asus P5GV-MX Motherboard (little overclocking potential for processor)

Im still a student on a VERY tight budget, ill graduate in one year and assemble an incredible gaming machine, but for now, all id like to do and can afford is a graphics card.
btw, i live in the uae, and video cards r expensive here, im having a friend whos visiting the US buy it for me from there online as its so much cheaper.

So, my question is - can i use a 9600 GT or a 9800 GT to their full potential? Would either card be held back by either my processor, PSU, RAM or motherboard?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Oh, i forgot - my screen is 17 inches, and the max resolution is 1280X1024 and the OS im running is Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3. My current graphics card is a NVIDIA 7300 GT, 512 MB, and i need a better one.

Thanks.

 

[coozie7]

Your motherboard has a PCI-E X16 sized slot but it only runs at X4 speed, also, you have a single core processor, both of which will limit the sensible choice for a graphics upgrade, which rules out the 9800GT.
With that said, look at the PSU label, we need to know the make, model and output on the 12 Volt line or lines, the 9600 can be picky about working with low wattage PSUs.
If the output is low I would suggest the HD4650 or 9500GT for their low power consumption, but the 9500 is a slower card. See here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-geforce-gtx,review-31554-6.html

If you can find one and it is within budget, get one with GDDR3 memory, it is faster

 

[japnoise99]

I'd recommend the 4670, it will run you about 70 bucks and get you through the year.