Old computer.. graphics card upgrade?

TJFad117 · June 24th, 2008, 09:46 PM

I'm not sure if this is the right forum(or even website) for this, but I have a crappy old computer (A Dell dimension 4400), and we are planning on buying a new one in the distant future. My birthday is going to be on July 15th, and they are willing to buy me a graphics card upgrade for the current computer, but with it being really old there isn't much to choose from. I posted this on a forum I frequent and they have no idea what I could upgrade to.. >_>.. but they did give me this link:
Documentation
Which shows all of the hardware in the Dell dimension 4400.. With that, I want to see if any one on this forum could help..
(I got here through a random google search for "Graphic card forums", so I'm sorry if this isn't the site or forum for this.)

Oh, and I'm willing to make other minor upgrades.. it's just that my budget for my birthday is only about 200 dollars.. if that.

KarmaKiller · June 24th, 2008, 10:22 PM

Hi there, Welcome to TIMO! You found the right place!

So it appears you have a AGP slot. Which is still good. Really, the biggest limitation is gonna be your Power Supply(PSU). Graphic Cards(GPU) are some of the most power hungry components in your PC. So if your wanting a nice GPU, your probably gonna have to upgrade your PSU. Which in your budget, you have plenty of good options to choose from.
If it were me, I'd go for this combo:
Newegg.com - Antec earthwatts EA430 430W ATX12V v2.0 Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, FCC, TUV, CE, CB, C-tick, CCC - Power Supplies
$60 or $29 after MIR + Free Shipping

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100228L Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
$149.99 or $129.99 after MIR + $7 shipping

This is a nice card for the price. It will handle most any game you throw at it with decent settings.
The only thing that should be mentioned, is with the money your spending on upgrading your current PC, you could be using that to make your future PC that much better. $200 goes a long ways in newer hardware. Well, a lot further then it does in a older PC.
But as long as you know that, that above combo should do you good!
Enjoy!

(Also happy early B-day. Mine is also on July 15th!)

TJFad117 · June 24th, 2008, 10:44 PM

Sweet, happy early birth day to you to! And thanks for the links, I'll look into it. Would there be limitations caused by things like the ram or motherboard, or with the upgraded power would that graphics card run fine?

DanielMsi · June 24th, 2008, 10:44 PM

Hi Welcome

As mentioned above, you would need an AGP Compatible Video Card

Now to be honest, the price you pay for an AGP compatible card would have no where near value for money as a PCi-E videocard. Always thinking of upgrading your motherboard with a PCI-E Slot and a nice PCI-E card will go nice.

Although mentioned above, i do believe that the Radeon HD4850 would be a fast card (AGP Wise) for the system although the GPU will be limited by the power of your Pentium4 Processor. The card itself is pretty demanding for CPU cycles compared to lower AGP compatible cards.

When a videocard is bottlenecked by a Cpu or PSU, the Videocard will most likely have no benefit then a slower videocard in terms of FPS. For example, the game will run fine and good on medium graphics...as soon as u raise the texture quality or resolution, the GPU will demand alot more cycles and your frames will Drop Dramatically.

I Recommend going for a 7600GS or 7600GT AGP! That should fit alright with your CPU. There are still Pretty Shifty and cant go wrong with Directx9 games.

KarmaKiller · June 24th, 2008, 10:48 PM

You will have a bit of a "bottleneck". But really, your gonna be looking at that with any newer GPU compared to that CPU.

TJFad117 · June 24th, 2008, 11:10 PM

Well, my mom kinda lied to me, and would like to keep the budget around $100... :/

So, do you guys know of any cards that wouldn't require other upgrades, are worth the money.. and.. *sigh*.. are under or around $100?

nunyadam · June 24th, 2008, 11:11 PM

Karma hit the nail right on the head. Take My word for it He knows what he is talking about. I was about to offer about the same advice, but yet again he beat me to it.

TJFad117 · June 24th, 2008, 11:14 PM

Um, well, would this work, or would it also require another upgrade?

EDIT:
I'm looking here for the graphics cards, so are there any of those that if I bought, would work w/o other upgrades?

Oh, and update: My mom wants it to be about $100, but I didn't realize that it's my dad that actually does the birthday stuff, and he actually wanted to buy a new computer(back before we blew all our money on a 55" plasma screen tv).. so, If we could go back to the $200 price, but also have something in backup for the $100, that would be great. Thanks for all the help guys.

#43 fan · June 25th, 2008, 12:19 AM

Newegg.com - POWERCOLOR AG3650 512MD2 Radeon HD 3650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N76G256D-RH GeForce 7600GS 256MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 8X Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

I'd get the 3650, myself. You may or may not need a new PSU. You'll probably be ok with the included Dell.

TJFad117 · June 25th, 2008, 12:36 AM

So if I get one of those cards, #42 fan, it should work with all of the other hardware?(OP, Documentation link will give you all of the information needed.)