Acer AX1700 new fit...

[sugarsniffer]

The guy I work with had bought an Acer AX1700-U3700A a while back (slim design) and he is wanting to upgrade to a better graphics card.

Specs:

-NVIDIA GeForce 7100 + nForce 630i mobo
-NVIDIA GeForce G100 GPU
-Pentium dual-core E2220(2.4GHz) CPU
-4GB DDR2 memory
-640GB SATA 7200RPM HDD

Link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103195

I figured to get a better (and bigger) graphics card he'd need more room in his case and a more powerful power supply. (I don't think that the 220W power supply would cut it.)

So my questions are:

1) Do any of you know if, let's say a GTS450 would fit in his current case? If so, where would I find a small enough / powerful enough power supply that would fit the case?

2) I'm guessing that it won't fit, so, any suggestions on what case would fit his motherboard?

3) If we're going with #2, what graphics card would you recommend for a light gamer with this setup?

*I'd like to find the solution that is most reasonably priced.


Thanks for your help... very much appreciated in advance!

 

[jebrant]

I have a ACER AX1700-U3700A with the slim micro-ATX case and I searched for a while for a video card upgrade.

The best bang for the buck was a $69 Saphire HD 5500 video card that has a silent fan, low power consumption (no external power connector), PCI-express 16x 2.0, 1 GB of DDR3 RAM and is built in an ultra-low profile config. It comes with the full Profile bracket and the Low Profile bracket so you can just unscrew one and attach the other.
I had the a 512mb nVidia card that came with the computer, but it was stressed out by newer games. For example new Starcraft II would play okay with all settings on minimum. With the new card the same game would play with settings on high very fluid.
Assassins Creed would play with lower settings but slow down and drop frames, and with the Saphire card it plays fast with everything on maximum.
I just got Civilizations 5 and I can play it with direct X 11 and all settings on high.

Very Satisfied!