Hey,

I'm looking to upgrade my Graphics card. I'm running on 512MB RAM (Although I'm likely to upgrade that shortly also) and a http://www.shopping.com/xPF-Biostar_...33_USB2_0_MATX motherboard.

The graphics card I've decided to get is a http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce6200_agp.html .

I am not certain I have met some of the requirements. They are;

-Being able to cope with 250 Watts (On the Motherboard?)
-Intel Pentium 3 Processor
-VGA or DVI-I for the monitor

How can I check those three?

How difficult is it to install a Graphics Card alone?

Could you suggest somewhere to order items from, in the UK?

Thank you.

Well, your mother board says it supports AGP 4x , while the card uses AGP 8x. 250 watts IMO isnt alot, so you proboly have enough power. VGA ports are blue and what most of the big older monitors use. DVI are what the newer LCD screen monitors use (I think). You should know what processor you are using anyway, but that mother board uses AMD processors (amd duron, amd athlon and amd athlon XP is what it says).

Installing a new grahics card is relativly simple and fast. Once you have your case open, just take out the old card and slide it into the slot. Just look carefully at which one matches the pins on the card. Remove any screws from the little side panel on the case , that way u can insert the card. It may be a bit tricky to figure out but just try finding out it will go in.

IMO you should get a new PC, those processors and the slots are out dated. I have had a AMD Duron in this PC for like 5 years, and soon im gonna get a new pc which will have a AMD Athlon64 3700+ , which is waayyy better then what I'm using. Unless you are just using your PC for internet and some light gaming, maybe a few small programs then you should be fine.

note: I said before the card uses AGP 8x , and the mother board u are using has AGP4x slot, so I dont think the card would work. The newer PCI Express slot mother boards are extreamly faster then AGP and normal PCI. (you might have to look for a different card, or a new PC IMO)

And about ordering, i dont know, you may just find a site that ships to other countries. I go to newegg.com and tigerdirect.com but I live in the US so, good luck :P

Thank you

I'm building on a budget, so I don't have much money to spend; the RAM and Graphics card were the biggest upgrades for me (I have a Geforce 4MX at the moment).

Thank you again.

Hi Suil, welcome to PCHF!

koolj is correct in that you should start looking at upgrading the whole computer. Also is half correct with the DVI connectors. All LCD's come with VGA connections...and almost all of them have DVI connections which only the newer graphics cards have. They also come with adapters to turn VGA monitor plugs into DVI.

A P3 processor is now so old, that Intel don't even use that kind of RAM anymore, and the video card slot that you have, AGP, is now phased out and only in very rare motherboards.

Whatever you buy now, will not be transferable to a newer computer.

Another bit of advice...250watt is what your PSU was originally, but power supplies drop 5% of it's capacity every year due to aging. The 6200 video cards are rather power hungry, and need 2 12volt plugs to install them (they give you an adapter to convert). So first of all, you will need to upgrade the power supply, as 250watt was huge back in the day, but this day and age, standard watt is around 400-500watt.


If you do end up getting that video card, you won't see much - if any - improvement, as your computer is being held back by the CPU.

I'm not suggesting that you don't get the upgrade, I'm just making you aware of all the scenarios, as I have personally gone through the same upgrade steps....getting what you can afford at the time


Hope this helps!