Upgrading old desktop

[mikalourus]

Hi guys was looking for a wee bit of information on buying a new video card.

I was originally looking for a new laptop when my brother gave me the incentive after standing on my current one separating the screen from the base unit. I was looking for something with a hdmi output so I could stream and watch HD movies on my TV, which I wasn't able to do with my toshiba satellite.

I've since realised that, for what I want to spend, I could upgrade my old desktop for the aforementioned reasons and buy a new screen for my broken laptop for less monies. The graphics card as well as the pc is pretty old, however I think the cpu could probably handle hdmi, but would appreciate your opinion as mine is uninformed.

The desktop features:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Nvidia 9600 gt
3 gb ram
450 w psu

I was looking at the Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6670 2GB, which I can pick up for about £50. If anyone can suggest a better card in this price range I'd appreciate it. And will it need a more powerful psu?

I'm not very technically minded currently. I basically want to upgrade my desktop where I can plug a hdmi cable from it into my TV, using it as a monitor which can play high definition and stream without lag.

I use ps3 & xbox for gaming these days (when permitted to play!) so the most strain it will be under is when watching films and using some photoshop.

Cheers guys,

Mika

 

[mace200200]

The 6670 is far to weak to use a whole 2 gigs of memory. I would recommend the 7750. It's small, it doesn't use a lot of power, and it's pretty good performance for the price. When your looking for one to buy though it's very important that you get one that uses DDR5 memory. The ones that use DDR3 are much much slower.

 

[mikalourus]

Hey mate, thanks a lot I'll give that a look