Graphics card upgrade help needed!

[bobcat]

Hi,
I wonder how I can find out what the optimum graphics card upgrade is for my VAIO PCV-RXG408.

160 GB HDD
2.66GHz Pentium4
1024 MB RAM. (upgraded 512MB)
GeForce4 MX 64MB


SONY don't seem to care & PC World "experts" say it is to dated!
My main concern is power consumption of a new Graph' card
and whether it will end up as just another upgrade tragedy!

Has anyone already done this or know of any usefull links?

Help is most welcome,
Bobcat

[Blencogo]

Hi bobcat and welcome to ClubVaio.

You will be limited to something like the GeForce 6600 GT because of your AGP interface. All the fastest cards are PCI these days. At around £106 this gives quite a lot of 'bang for your buck' but it may be overkill unless you play a lot of games and it may be better to go for the bog standard 6600 at £66. It only occupies one backplate but it is quite a wide card (due to its integral fan) so make sure you have space. You have a reasonably fast processor so this will not limit the card's performance.

I'm not sure what power supply you have in your RXG but if it is 350/400 watts you should be OK.

Let's see if anyone comes along who has tried it in your model.

[bobcat]

Hi Blencogo & Thanks for your help,

Seems no else here has tried this upgrade & as i'm limited to a AGP 4x GPU I can see why!
Now although i've tried I'm yet to find out the max power supply so again I can't decide upon a new card. I did come across the below card and it seems slick enough but I need to be 100% sure my RXG can handle it/this:

RADEON™ X1600 core
512MB DDR2 Video Memory
AGP 4x/8x
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c / OpenGL 2.0 acceleration / Shader 3.0
Avivo™ Technology
3D Graphics Resolution of 2560x1600 Max
TV-Out
Smoothvision HD + Adaptive AA
Video acceleration of :MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264


It might seem excessive but 90% of my usage is media orientated ie. gaming (esp online) Giga Pocket, WMP10(every aspect), RealPlayer, Quicktime etc.....
If it can't handle such upgrades perhaps a PC upgrade is needed. Notwithstanding I'm a bit peeved that having payed close to 2k for a top "future-proof " VAIO, that 2/3 yrs down the line I cant upgrade a sole component to a high standard.
It seems I need a PC with a PCI express card or whatever may be the next 'thing'.
What to do? I've always tried to buy the best as it's normaly the most cost effective(Never had a single issue with my PC yet).
However i've by no means cash to burn and so I can't afford to upgrade my PC every several years. Maybe I should buy a XBOX but why would i want to accumulate more clutter, the idea of an "all in one " PC was to simplify. Now things seem only more complicated.
What to do!
What to do?

[seb21__]

ATi's X700 and X800 series is also nice and you can get them for 50-150€.

[magarne88]

I have the same pc, and also looking into upgrading the graphics card, but the main problem is the PSU is only 270w, and also non-standard size - 150 x 135 x 85mm, standard size is 150 x 140 x 85mm.