System Help

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Heres the deal. My dad claims he can get any graphics cards for really cheap. Assuming hes right i need to know if my system is compatable with lets say the best one. One of my problems is though that i ran like a game advisor thing that told me what my stats are. Also its supposed to tell me whenever i click on a game if it can run on my PC or not. Probbem is the thing is wrong. Some games it says can run cause obviously the games are older but games that i OWN and know work on my PC it says cant. Like Half Life 2 or Call of Duty. COD everything is on max and im sure that with HL2 some things need to be turned off but its not like its aboslutly horrible to play it. I had no lag at all and it looked beautiful. Anyways heres my stats and please tell me what i need to do with it to make it run lets say Battlefield 2 or any other games that are coming out by next year at a medium level or higher.:


Processor Intel Pentium 4 3400MHz
Display Card RADEON X300 SE
Memory 1024MB
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP
Free Disk Space 194.42GB
Display Card Memory 128MB
Display Driver Version 6.14.10.6483
DirectX Version 9.0c
Optical Drive CD/DVD
Sound Card Realtek HD Audio rear output
 
what you should be looking at is what kind of slots your motherboard has. (pci express, agp)
and power supply. for a really good card you'll need at least a 450-500 watt power supply.
 
If you have an X300SE, it's probably a PCIE 16x compatible motherboard.

I'm a fan of NVidia. I'd look at whatever you can afford in the 6x or 7x line.
You may want to check your power supply out. Stock supplies often can't supply enough juice for a big PCIE card. You might have to upgrade the PSU.
 
I checked and i think its only a 305V power supply. I guess like a 550 will do? Im checking and there only like 100 bucks. Thats good. Im really confused about all of this but im trying. Im checking out in the control panel and im not sure if its PCI express 16x but im sure its atleast PCI express. Im kinda leaning more twards a Radeon x800 or x850 but im really confused about all the different versions. So asuming i get a new psu, then would my question be whats the best card that a 3.4 Processor with 550v can handle? Or i guess i limit will be about 400-450.
 
My system model is a Sony Vaio-RB38G and the processor type is Pentium 4 Processor 550 3.4GHz Processor/Upgraded to 2GB DDR PC3200 400MHz/Huge 500GB 7200rpm HDD or thats the description i got off a site and it seems about right except that we only got 250GB and not 500. And i dont really see the word PCI Express 16x so im going to just assume its only a PCI Express.
 
go to sony's website and look around for the system specs for your system. it will tell you how mant and what kind of slots you have as well as the wattage of your power supply. assuming it's the one the computer canme with.

if it's this model VGC-RB38G (look on the sticker on the bottom or back of the unit)
then yes, it does have a 305 watt power supply. and a 16 pci express slot.
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=VGCRB38G&region_id=1
click on marketing specs and it will show your system specs.
 
If you have PCIe graphics, the top slot is usually a 16x slot.
Usually if you have PCIe you'll have at least 1 16x slot.

You should be able to run any PCIe graphics card.
When you look at versions, try checking out the graphics charts at Tom's Hardware.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/index.html
Here is the Winter 05 chart.

I like to look at the 3dmark scores and then maybe a benchmark for a game that I'm used to...so I have an idea of what to expect.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/02/vga_charts_viii/page18.html

Hope that helps?
 
Pick out a card, and check the system requirements on the manufacturer's website. They usually list how big a power supply you'll need and whether the card will require an open power connector.

I'm a big fan of Antec and Enermax power supplies. They're really stable and quiet.

Go here and you should be able to figure out how big of a PSU you'd need.
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp
 
So i guess it wouldnt really hurt to get a new one. But then im all good to go? After everyting im still confused as to what exact card i should get. Its as if their goal is to make it as hard as possible. I mean theres like 5 differnt versions of the X800. I guess ill get it eventually. So in the end am i good to go?
 
I have one more question. Is ATI's X1000 series all of the cards 1300 1600 and 1800 better than last years X850 models? Cause i thought for some reason that just because they had the higher number didnt mean they were better. Am i right or wrong? Cause id rather buy a slightly better performing x1600 for the same price as a x850. Im just asking cause i saw two charts and both are different. One says the x1000's can all run better than x800'5 but the other chart puts the x850's right below the x1800's.
 
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