Upgrade for video card and processor?

currently have a 3 yr old HP Pavilion A1412N: Runs great still, I keep everything clean, deleting old internet junk, etc, Defreg. etc.

my system is:



XP media center edition

2Gig Ram, Ive upgraded from Stock 512

200 GB

2.4 Gz

820 intel processor pentium dual core

Nvida 6200SE video card

i believe the system is rated for 250 watts



I would like to upgrade video card to enable better gaming for Flight Sim, Battlefield, Call of duty, etc. How do i pick a better vid card and know it will improve my pc performance. Also I am wondering what other modifications i can or should do with that. What video card would still run, and would i need to upgrade mother board or anything else? Im not really yet to buy a new desktop.What should I do? How do i know if i need a new monitor also to handle the new games coming out now.

thanks for your detailed help|||According to your systems specs, you have a 2.8GHz dual core in it, so I wouldn't change that, at least not right away.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docum…

You have a PCI Express x16 slot, so you can use a modern graphics card. First you'll want to upgrade your power supply in order to handle the new graphics card. That's not a problem, your system uses a standard ATX power supply which is very common and easy to upgrade. The size of the power supply you'll need will be determined by the graphics card you want to use and it's power requirements.

Don't know what your budget is but if you want to keep the total cost of both the card and the power supply under $150, for a graphics card I'd recommend using either a geforce 9600GT or radeon HD 4670. These are lower mid range cards, nothing spectacular, but a considerable improvement over the 6200SE you have now. Here's a side by side comparison of those cards.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?…

Here's another link that compares cards but it gives the cards length as well so that you can measure to make sure a card will fit before you buy it.

http://www.upgraderguides.com/hwdb.php?t…

Here's the cards.

9600GT

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis…

HD 4670

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis…

Here's a Corsair 400W power supply that will fit your system and is able to power either of those cards and your system.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…

You should be able to get one of those cards and the power supply for around $100 after rebates.

If you want to use a more powerful card (also more expensive) than those, that power supply can handle up to a 9800GT or HD 4850. Beyond those cards you would need a larger power supply, but I think you would probably experience problems with your processor trying to bottleneck if you use too powerful a card. I have the 9600GT and the Corsair 400W in one of my systems and it handles COD4 pretty good, nothing like my gaming rig with 2 GTX 260's, but it gives decent frame rates and good image quality.

Here's a link that's for your system that deals with power supply issues. That's not relevant, but what it shows is where your power supply connects to all of your components. This might be helpful when you install the new power supply.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docum…

There's also plenty of videos on youtube that'll show you how.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_qu…

Good luck, hope this helped.



Edit

Almost forgot to mention your processor upgrade. According to your motherboard specs, you can use any Pentium D 800 series Smithfield core up to 3.2 GHz, or, Pentium 4 Prescott core up to 580 and 670. The Pentium 4 would be a downgrade, so a faster Smithfield would be your only option with that motherboard. You can't use a Core 2 Duo or anything other than what's shown above because HP doesn't have bios support for any other processors with that motherboard. If you tried to use a processor that doesn't have bios support, either it wouldn't work properly or it wouldn't work at all.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docum…|||It all depends on some very important details.

Firstly, does your motherboard support Socket 478 processors or LGA775? Does it support newer processors? two key factors you have to focus on when upgrading.

Since you want to play games, I would reccomend a nVidia 8600GT or a 8800GT or even a 8800GTS. BUT, pay attention to the VGA slot on your motherboard. If its a PCIe 1.0, it cant support higher end graphics cards..if its a PCIe2, it can.

so, basically, upgrading your computer depends on mainly on the stuff that your motherboard supports......