Would upgrading my video card work AND be worth the money?

Hello,



I've been looking at upgrading my PC for a while now, and I found that the video card would probably be the best thing to replace, and an upgrade would not HAVE to be all too expensive. However, I'm wondering what other people think about this upgrade, and whether the new video card I was looking at would work in my PC (as in not draw too much power).



Here are my current PC's specifications:

CPU: Intel Core2Duo E4400

Motherboard: Asus P5LP-LE (aka Leonite2, some OEM board, does NOT support PCI-E 2.0)

Sound card: Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic (PCI, been using it for ages :P)

Video card: ATi Radeon HD2400Pro PCI-E 16x (1.0)

RAM: 2x1GB DDR2 (forgot brand, shouldn't matter much, right?)

1 SATA HDD, 320GB

1 IDE HDD, 160GB

1 DVD+RW burner, SATA

3 buspowered (100 mA?) USB devices

And finally, a LiteOn 300W power supply, with 18amp on the +12v line.



I was looking towards upgrading my video card to a Sapphire ATi Radeon HD3850 512MB PCI-E x16 2.0 (75 euros), as I'd read 2.0 cards should work fine in a 1.0 slot, just at slightly lower speeds, and I like the option to go CrossFire in the future (in a new PC with a NEW PSU). However... Would my power supply support this?



I used the Extreme PSU Calculator to work out how much Watt it'd require, and it came down to 284W (at full load), which seemed dangerously close to the 300W the PSU's rated for. I know little about amps, so... Would this work?



Oh, and my PSU doesn't have a PCI Express connector either, though the video card seems to come with a 1x Molex to 1x PCI Express converter (I'd read 1x Molex could cause the wiring to overheat?).



Finally, would it be a worthwhile upgrade, and if not so, what WOULD be? I mostly use programs like PCSX2 (a PS2 emulator, which runs close to but not perfectly smooth on my current set-up) and the Unreal Editor (2D and 3D map maker). I also play games like Unreal Tournament 3 and C&C3: Tiberium Wars.



Thanks in advance :)|||The HD3850 should work. However, it is not a spectacular card. Consider the newer ATI HD 4670. It does not require a PCIe power connector.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15559/6

http://techreport.com/articles.x/15559/1…



PCIe 1.0/1.1 slot won't really slow down or bottleneck most single GPU PCIe 2.0 cards. It is the high-end dual GPU or multi-card set ups that get bottlenecked by the PCIe 1.0/1.1 slot.|||Wow, I'm quite surprised your question generated significant interest in the voting community.

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|||I would use nothing less than a 500w power supply for crossfire but that's just me. Grab a new motherboard that supports better cards and slap a good card in there.



I suggest you check out: www.gamingpcbuild.com

They do computer upgrades or build you a gaming computer based on your budget. The gaming rig they built me is awesome, I highly recommend them.



Edit: they do upgrades based on your budget you can spend.



Ok, well good luck finding parts cheap.