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Graphic Card advice

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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I am hoping to upgrade the video card in my Acer X1700 desktop. Mainly I use the PC for playing World of Warcraft and a few other (mainly older) games. The newest thing that I play is Starcraft2 but I don't play that a ton. I also watch Hulu on this PC. I run at 1440x900 resolution.

Currently am using the Geforce G100 that came with the PC. Power supply is the stock 220 W supply. The case does require a low profile PCI Express card, so size and power are going to be considerations.

Processor in the PC is an Intel Pentium dual E2220 running at 2.3 GHz.

I'd like to buy from Newegg. My budget is approx $150.

I am wondering what video card(s) the community would recommend.

More about : graphic card advice

Graphics card Expert

That power supply is terrible... so hard to find something that will work in it. You can't go with any Radeon HD cards, or Nvidia GTX/GTS cards either.

Would you be willing to use part of that $150 to buy a new PSU? You could get a new PSU for $50 or even less and then spend another $100 on a decent card. Does your desktop use a standard PSU, or it it something special?

I think that will be your best bet, otherwise, you have to buy a video card that is 10 years old or something.
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Graphics card Expert

Yeah, I've seen others recommend the 5570 for low power machines. I really don't understand it, but I guess what they put as the power requirement (400W) is not true. The card must draw very little power.

Go off what was recommended I would say. Hope it all works out.

Well I have what I'd say is a rather modern mid-range gaming system and I haven't measured anything beyond 170W power draw at full load (excluding any monitors). But my parts were rather carefully selected for this aspect, and it depends a lot on what the other components like CPU are.

I found it quite easy to get data on GPU power consumption, as many reviews seem to measure those nowadays. Things have really improved in just 2-3 years. Also remember that PSU recommendations are a bit overspecced, just in case.
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