Swap in a real video card to a system with a NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE?

[abatterbury]

Doing charity work for my baby sister, so please lend a hand

She's got a relatively new desktop, but the video chip is a NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430, which seems pretty stale. I'd like to get her something newish to improve her gaming capabilities (Sims 3 is unplayable for her), so any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[dirtmountain]

Take a look at the HD4670. It's usually a good choice for pre-built systems since it has very low power requirements which don't usually need a swap of the power supply. It gives decent performance in games and it's fairly low cost. A HD4650 may also be an option.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102820

However since you didn't give us any specs of her system. It would need a PCIex16 socket for the graphic card and a 300w or better power supply.

 

[AKM880]

What desktop is it? Is it a low profile one? What are the PSU and system specs?

 

[abatterbury]

It's a pretty new HP with a medium tower, though I don't have access to it in person. I think it's relatively pimped - 5 GB ram (don't know how good, though), 3 Ghz dual core, etc. The choppiness at high res makes me think that the video card, or lack thereof, is the limiting factor.

 

[jennyh]

Argh not that 5gb HP. Read this then remove some of the ram :- http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/06/29/hp-proves-you-can-make-desktop-worse/

Also yes, any igp (at least any nvidia or intel igp) will never run anything at a reasonable framerate.