Upgraded video card for a Dell Optiplex GX620 SFF

[jdunn36]

My son's original computer died and he's using a hand-me-down for now, but he cannot play any of his current games because the onboard video card just doesn't cut it. I ran a search of the Dell site to see what cards can work for this, but the reviews said that they were all not good for gaming. Does anyone have a recommendation for something that will A) fit in the SFF, B) conform to the 305 W, and C) still be good for gaming? I don't want to waste money only to have it not work...

 

[horaciopz]

Fine, we need here some little more info.

Whats your monitor's size? what resolution your son want to play?

Whats your budget, how much money you want/can spend?

for "gaming" video cards, you should have at least $100 for a good one to play recent games at low resolutions with med-high level of detail.

With a 305W PSU I would be worried getting any card discrete GPU, it will not be suficient to even to low end cards. And I mean, for light gaming you want at least a Card that have GDDR5 memory and at least 1GB of VRAM. But with taht PSU, theres no choices for you. You surelly want to change the PSU before getting any card.

Sir, I checked the specification of that PC and It has an Pentium 3.0Ghz HT. Which is an old, old cpu, that will not handle any recent game.

 

[slicedtoad]

305W is fine for low end GPUs.

That pentium is serious bottleneck. Also I'm fairly sure your motherboard only has a pcie1.0 slot which causes more problems.

Basically, you need a new computer. Any video card that will be compatible will, at best, barely play games. Unless he's playing older games, what games is he playing?

To run the latest games at playable settings (bf3,WoW,Mass effect,skyrim,etc) a $500 custom built pc is about as cheap as you can go. Cheaper than that is hard unless you can reuse parts (or go with really budget parts). $1200 is about where the law of diminishing returns really kicks in.

If you're interested, I can put together an easy build list. I need to know the following:
-What parts are still working in his dead computer? (i need links or model numbers preferably) If you don't know what is broken just list all the parts and explain the "brokeness".
-What games does he play and at what resolution?
-Budget
-Country (or favourite parts website)

 

[jdunn36]

Best answer selected by jdunn36.

 

[jdunn36]

Thanks everyone. Looks like I'm kind of stuck on that one. Either need to get the newer one fixed or save for a new one. I appreciate the help!

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey