Will This Graphics Card fit in my system?

[EJDrake]

Greetings!

I have a Pegatron M2N68-LA Picture: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf-JAVA/Doc/images/c01701274.jpg

and I want to upgrade my lousy 128MB integrated NVIDIA to this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130752

My questions are as follows:

1. Case notwithstanding, will the card fit in the MOBO? I'm not the most visual-spatially inclined, but it looks rather tight.

2. Based on the photos, the card only appears to require a single PCI-E x16 slot. I find this kind of hard to believe. Would you mind confirming?

One side comment:

It seems that the mobo is PCI-E x 16 1.0, which means some of the oomph of the card will be wasted. I've conducted a CBA and determined that buying the card and necessary PSU is justified over replacing the entire PC right now. That said, I'm hardly an expert in graphics cards, and am quite open to suggestions aside from "get a real MOBO with an AGP." Believe me, if it was at all practical, I would.

Thanks immensely for any feedback. After lurking TH for 3-4 years, it's nice that I finally had a question necessitating registration.

Cheers,

EJ

 

[Sunius]

Hello! First I want to say, PCI-Express is newer than AGP all of the modern cards use PCI-Express.

Also, yes, it requires only 1 PCIe slot, but it will take place of two (because its' height is bigger than 1 slot).

By the way, no oomph of the card will be wasted due to PCI-E x16 1.0 slot, because GTX 460 won't be able to saturate that (I guess only GTX 580 would be able to do that), PCI-E slots have high bandwidth. Personally, I've no idea why we have PCIe 3.0 at this time even though no card come even close to 2.0 limit.

The only thing that would waste oomph of the card would be your processor, if it's unable to provide enough instructions per seconds for your graphics card to calculate. Though, that depends on your resolution, not only processor.

For the power supply, I'd suggest this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139027

 

[inzone]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130752&Tpk=N82E16814130752

If you look at the details tab for that cards description it gives you the measurements of the card so that you can see if it fits in your case. The card is a dual slot card in that it takes up the space of two slots while pluging into only one slot. That's because of the cooling fan attached to the card. You can always tell how many slots a card takes up by looking at the bracket end of the card.
The card is a Pci-e 2.0 card and therefore designed to be fully useful in a pci-e 2.0 slot and you will get the full benefit from it being in that slot.
The GTX 460 requires a 450w power supply to be in your computer. What is your current power supply? Also what is your cpu? There could be a chance that the cpu will bottleneck the video card.

 

[EJDrake]

Thanks for some wonderful, thought-provoking replies!

Sunius, I like the power supply you've recommended. This computer came with a 250w, so clearly it has to be replaced. The power supply I selected was http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051. I like Corsair over Antec, but do you think the Corsair is cutting it a little close?


Inzone, that's hilarious. I spend a lot of time having my processor bottlenecked by this nVidia integrated graphics, so it's funny to think I overlooked the possibility of the converse with a better graphics card. I'm running an AMD Anthlon II 215 Dual-Core Processor. I'm fairly confident there will be some bottlenecking, but I don't know that the mobo could handle a superior processor. I also only have 4GB of ram because that's the max the mobo can handle. So I will be upgrading everything inside of 18 months, except the graphics card and new PSU.


The reason I asked if the card would fit is based on the graphic alone, it looks like a capacitor would obstruct the card from expanding outward beyond the slot, as it must. Alas, you are correct, I will need to sally forth and do some measuring.

 

[Sunius]

The requirement for the GTX 460 is 450W. If you want to be safe, you could go with a bit more powerful Corsair CX600, which is $49.99 after rebates. That's also the power supply I own atm. It works wonders for my GTX 560 Ti

If you're about to upgrade your system (apart from PSU and GPU) in 18 months, I'd suggest invest in the card as much as you can, because GTX 460 is already 2 years old card, and in 18 months it won't be top of the line. It will still be good for playing at 1920x1080 on medium-high settings, though, I guess!

 

[EJDrake]

The requirement for the GTX 460 is 450W. If you want to be safe, you could go with a bit more powerful Corsair CX600, which is $49.99 after rebates. That's also the power supply I own atm. It works wonders for my GTX 560 Ti

If you're about to upgrade your system (apart from PSU and GPU) in 18 months, I'd suggest invest in the card as much as you can, because GTX 460 is already 2 years old card, and in 18 months it won't be top of the line. It will still be good for playing at 1920x1080 on medium-high settings, though, I guess!

That Corsair is a decent find. If I go with this card, I'll definitely buy this PSU.

Buying for the future is a risky proposition. The mobo can handle PCI-E 2.0, but I'm not sure about 2.1 much less 3.0. But I am open to suggestions. Everything I know about graphics cards and PSUs comes from 2 days of research, and I wouldn't know where to begin with finding a new mobo. I am not opposed to just upgrading everything right now, if you have suggests that provide bang for the buck. I was toying with buying one of those iBuyPowers of New Egg for $1500 --only reason I didn't is I just can't stand the name of the brand. So if you're willing, let's assume $1,500 is my budget (though it's not necessary to spend it all, hehe) and I have numerous towers at my disposal. Any suggestions for a dream gaming rig? A bit above and beyond my original question, so no expectations.