wanting to upgrade

I have a HP p6115Y (os win vista 64 bit) and am wanting to upgrade the video card and the power supply. It has a Nvidia Geforce 9100 and a 300 watt power supply. I like to play adventure games and have some problems with the graphics I have no idea what is a good graphics card and what I need to look at when shopping for either the card or power supply. Would it be possible for someone to help me with this?

 

Well, your Budget very much controls this, and the type of games you want to play.
I believe that this are your specs:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...portFAQ&prodSeriesId=3942799&prodTypeId=12454

Judging by that you have presently integrated Video, you have a PCI-e slot for independent Video, so any PCI-e Video card will be suitable, again depending on your requirements.
ATI my preferred card or Nvidia is your choice have a look at:

ASUS ATIEAH5750 at around $140.- here:

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_eah5750_formula/

or Gigabytes in the $300.- mark here:

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...5870-all-overclocked-review-introduction.html

In regards to your Power Supply the required minimum will be stated in the specifications in whichever video card you buy.

Make sure you take note of what type of power supply your video card needs, to select the correct type of PSU.

have fun.
hawk22

 

Thanks Hawk22. I am on a fixed income, so I will need to shop around. Hopefully I can find a good one on sale. Is there anything else that I need to look for? Will they all hook up the same? I appreciate your help.
Thank you ,
Terri
(TexasGrandmother)

 

OK Texas nanny see what we can do, you did not mention what type of games you intend to play as this is the shovel for your money.
Going by the hints that you put out I would say it will be somewhat more conservative . I myself am not a gamer but I do play with photos. To get you into mild gaming you could look at the Gigabyte HD 5450 1 GIG PCI-e video card it retails here in Oz at around $75.- so I would imagine that it would be in the US at around the same prize, give or take a couple of green bucks.
Your PC requires PCI-e video cards

The specifications for that card stipulate a minimum 400 Watts Power Supply, there are many available, I would look at a power supply between 450 and 500 Watt just to give you a few watts up your sleeve.

You can google that card and see if it will satisfy your demands, the cards in my previous reply are more expensive and therefore faster for games.

Some new fancy games often require specific specifications, and that is usually specified with the games minimum requirements.

I hope this will give you some idea on what you are looking for.

Good luck and good health

hawk22

 

Look up the System Requirements of the programs (games) you want to run. You should use those as baseline.

You might get better performance now if you turn down the (graphics) settings in the game/s. It should tell you how to in the game's manual.

As mentioned, the information for the graphics card you want to get might stipulate what size power supply you need.

Check what power supply will physically fit into the case. Many OEM manufacturers (like HP) have odd-shaped power supplies and you can only get a replacement from them. Measure the distance between the location of the bolts holding the power supply in, then compare them to some power supplies in other computers. "Standard" power supplies have one bolt offset from a rectangular shape.

Matt

 

Very good advice there from Matt, I had forgotten about that HP problem with the size of (physical) Power Supply's.
Thanks Matt.
hawk22

 

G'Day. First I hope neither of you are in the area that has had so much flooding.
I have finally been able to get back to this. Darn, the more help I get the more confused I get. This does not sound like something this Texasgramie is going to be able to handle. At present I'm playing, or trying to play Alter Ego. It starts out fine but after about 3 to 5 minutes the cursor goes so slow that I can't play. On Penumbra II, the cursor would float on the screen, I had no control. On Return to Mysterious Island 2, it did work just fine and now the game flickers most of the time. I think I updated the driver while playing the latter game. Does this sound like a graphics problem?
hawk22 and Mattman, I so appreciate you trying to help me with my problem!
Terri

 

Hi Terri, thank you for your thoughts, thankfully I don't live in that area and I don't think Matt is either.

Yes it can be a bit daunting, and maybe you might need the help of a family member, if you have any sons or sons in law with some ability.

Looking at the specification from the HP site (link in previous post) your PC is equipped with 8 GIG of Ram, if that is so, you don't need any more Ram.

Having done some googling on that nVidia GeForce 9100 the general opinion is that, if you want to play games, you very much can't go lower than that card.
So yes I would say that all you need is a upgrade on your video card.
Doing a bit of googling again a GForce 8400 will only need your 300Watt power supply and appears to be doing quite well.
Here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130313

This one comes with more credits from gamers it also is a little bit more expensive, but is recommended for 350 Watts but would be OK to use with the games set at slightly lower specs.
Here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130395

Having said all this, please remember I am not a gamer and I have no personal experience in gaming with these cards, I am only relaying to you comments that I have been reading.

As I have mentioned to you before if you find it to daunting to insert a video card, someone you know might be happy to help you with the task.

 

Terri, having looked up the game Alter Ego, it seems that, games of that nature have only minimal hardware demand.
I would suggest to you that you e-mail Newegg and tell them the games you wish to play and ask them to recommend a video card for you that will not require more than your 300 Watt power supply that you have.

Judging by the games that you have mentioned you will not need any card above $70.-. approx.
ATI Radeon - or nVidia 512 MB will be sufficient. The card will need to be PCI-e.
That is the type of card your Motherboard requires.

If you don't get any satisfactory reply any of the above mentioned or

ASUS ATI EAH 4350 512mb at around $42.- will do the job.

cheers