help please

posted on March 9th, 2011, 10:11 pm

small problem fleet ops works great on my pc,nvidia 8400 256mb with heatsink
power supply is 250watt,but i would like to get an improved cards for other games,that dont preform as well
and am stuck,dont want  a high end card just an improvement that obviously would work with fleet ops still as the game rocks,and wandered what the brilliant people you are think

the pc is a acer phenom,3gb ram etc works great and fast just the game side of things

look forward to hearing your views etc

posted on March 10th, 2011, 4:10 am

At this point you could probably get a GTX 2xx or even a 4xx, their prices have fallen into a reasonable range. You should probably upgrade your power supply though no matter what you do, 250 watts is pretty low, I'd say you should have at least 500-700 watts if you expect to run a new card.

[alanalpha]

posted on March 10th, 2011, 6:16 am

Last edited by alanalpha on March 10th, 2011, 6:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

upgrade power supply to above wattage  and get a gt 240 for less than £60    if u want better go for the 400s and check this chart PassMark Software - Video Card Benchmark Charts - Video Card Model List

the gt 240 has a G3D rating of 777 and is ranked 117 
and the best 8400 has a G3D rating of 167 and is ranked 474 (got mine for £64 free p&p from play.com)

GeForce GTX 460 G3d rating of 2341 and is ranked 22   (this will be expencive and ull prob need a 800w+ power supply and win 7 to get the most out of it)

higher = better on G3D numbers  and lowe = better on ranked

btw im running my gt 240 on a 350w psu but it recormends a 450-500w psu so thats the next thing i upgrade (then a better card  but by then ill eather be homeless or have a new pc lol)

posted on March 10th, 2011, 7:07 pm

thanks for the advice am assumin changing power supplies is pretty easy?,not looking for high end card just summut alot better but i know there been some duff cards and drivers for them when it comes to specific games

posted on March 10th, 2011, 7:11 pm

changing psu is a lot of stuff to do, but easy enough. all the power cables to everything are plastic pieces that are hand operated. all you have to do is use the screwdriver on the psu itself. just make sure u plug everything back in when you put the new one in. its work, but not difficult work.

posted on March 10th, 2011, 8:14 pm

jus wandered how to go about findin the right sort of improved power supplt say a 550 watt one need it to work with the newer version of harddrive as mine isnt the old white 4 holed connector,it the next one up though i am useless with names

posted on March 10th, 2011, 8:19 pm

sorry 500 watt as a gt240 looks like a gd reliable card from the read up of it,but want to buy the correct power supply

posted on March 10th, 2011, 9:06 pm

I use a 400watt PSU, you dont need anymore than that no matter what graphics card you put in it, i use a gt240 with a amd quad core cpu.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is talking nonsense.

posted on March 10th, 2011, 10:26 pm

I use a 400watt PSU, you dont need anymore than that no matter what graphics card you put in it, i use a gt240 with a amd quad core cpu.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is talking nonsense.

proof?

posted on March 11th, 2011, 4:55 am

I use a 400watt PSU, you dont need anymore than that no matter what graphics card you put in it, i use a gt240 with a amd quad core cpu.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is talking nonsense.

Hardly. That might work if you're only running a couple gigs of ram, one harddrive, and one disk drive, but you run the risk of the machine not starting at all if you have more than that.

sorry 500 watt as a gt240 looks like a gd reliable card from the read up of it,but want to buy the correct power supply

If it's connectors you're worried about, almost all still come with the four pin molex connectors. Just be sure to read the reviews to make sure you don't buy something that will die in two months.

posted on March 11th, 2011, 5:38 am

*gives atlantisbase a thumbs up*
well i would if karma ratings were enabled on the forums lol

my card came with a recormmended psu rating of 450 or higher and a comp builder mate of mine said go abit higher than the recormmended (wot i do normaly but aint got the cash to get the new psu to take full advantage of my graphics card upgrade) fyi if the card isnt fully powered by the psu it performs alot worse and can destabilise ur system  (ive had a few blue screens but its managed to start up ok but i dont think im getting the cards full abilities with a 350w psu)

posted on March 11th, 2011, 7:26 am

fact of that matter is: yes a higher rated power supply is better for the new graphics cards because it will improve the speeds of the graphics card simply because transistors will be able to switch on and off faster because they are fully biased. however i dont think one will notice the difference in performance with a lower rated power supply compared to higher rated power supply. the performance difference will be almost unnoticeable. however i think what will be noticed most of all is whether the computer will boot up or not due to using a lower rated power supply.

I use a 400watt PSU, you dont need anymore than that no matter what graphics card you put in it, i use a gt240 with a amd quad core cpu.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is talking nonsense.

Also keep in mind it is very plausible for someone to be using a highish-end card with a low rated power supply because kestrel may simply have a power supply with a higher efficiency that allows him to get that little bit extra juice out of it.

posted on March 11th, 2011, 11:02 pm

proof?

I dont need to proov it, nor would i bother when someone is basically saying your a lier... deal with it, my system specs are as follows:

amd 635 quad core 2.9Ghz
4gb ram ddr2
500gb hdd 7,200
nvidia gt240
psu 400watt

[Dircome]

posted on March 12th, 2011, 5:34 am

Last edited by Dircome on March 12th, 2011, 5:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

um yeah i think you are foolish to believe that you never need a bigger psu than 400 watts. 400 watt power supplies do not simply do not have enough connections to handle the newer and faster gfx cards. If i was going to build a new computer i would buy a 750 watt psu.

posted on March 12th, 2011, 6:18 am

um yeah i think you are foolish to believe that you never need a bigger psu than 400 watts. 400 watt power supplies do not simply do not have enough connections to handle the newer and faster gfx cards. If i was going to build a new computer i would buy a 750 watt psu.

Agreed on all counts. I just built a rig and went with an 850W power supply.