Whats the best Graphics card my PC can handle?

Question

Hi I've recently bought Modern Warfare 2 and my friend lent me his graphics card which is a NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT, and i have to play in 800x600 Res which is horrible to other people but ive had my share of nukes anyways, i wanted 2 kno whats the best graphics card my computer can handle and buy it.

Spec's:
Here is a Link to the Gateway WebSite.

http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/GXModels/5429/5429sp3.shtml

IF YOU PREFER NOT 2 CLICK ON THE LINK HERE IS THE SPEC:

Processor Intel® Pentium® D processor 830

* Operates at 3.0, 800 MHz FSB
* 2 × 1 MB L2 cache

Chipset Intel 945G chipset with ICH7R
# Memory Installed: 2048 MB DDR2 533 MHz (PC4200) SDRAM (four 512 MB modules)
# Expandable to: 4 GB
Video NVIDIA 6200 64 MB TurboCache video card
TV Tuner Card ATI Theater 550 Pro TV tuner card
Audio Intel High Definition Audio subsystem consisting of:

* 8-channel (7.1) audio subsystem with five analog audio outputs and one S/PDIF optical digital audio output using the Sigmatel 9223 audio codec

Hard Drive 320 GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA hard drive
# Optical Drives DVD +/- RW, 16X Multi-Format Double Layer drive

* Up to 8.5 GB with Double Layer media
* Write max: 16X DVD +/-R, 6X DVD-RW, 8X DVD+RW, 4X DVD+R DL, 40X CD-R, 24X CD-RW
* Reads max: 16X DVD-ROM, 40X CD-ROM discs

# 16 DVD-ROM drive
Media Reader 8-in-1 Digital Media Manager supporting the following:

* CompactFlash Card
* IBM MicroDrive
* Memory Stick
* Memory Stick Pro
* SmartMedia Card
* Secure Digital(SD)/MMC
* Compact Flash
* Multimedia Card
* USB 2.0

Modem 56K ITU V.92 ready Fax/Modem
Network Broadcom 5752 GbE PCIe controller with integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2
Power Supply 400 watt
# Interfaces Seven USB 2.0 ports (two in front panel, one in Media Manager, four in back)
# One integrated VGA external connector (covered), one VGA connector on add-in video card
# One Serial Port
# One Parallel Port
# Two PS/2 Ports (keyboard and mouse)
# Eight Audio Ports (two in front, six in back)
# Three IEEE 1394a ports (two in front, one in back)
# Add-In Card Slots Three PCI Conventional
# One PCI Express ×1
# One PCI Express ×16
# Drive Bays Two external 3.5-inch
# Two external 5.25-inch
# Three internal 3.5-inch
# Input Devices Premium multimedia keyboard
# USB optical mouse
Speakers Amplified stereo speakers
Dimensions (H × W × D) 16.80 × 8.00 × 17.50 inches

Answer 1

As you have a 400watt PSU and a regular PCI-e x16 lane, you can theoretically handle any GPU. However most of the higher end ones will be bottlenecked by the rest of your system, so I'd recomend going with on of the more mid-range chips such as a 5670 or 5750 (for ATi) or a 9600gt or GTS 250 (for Nvidia). All of those cards will take a huge crap all over the 8500gt in terms of performance, and they all have reasonably low energy needs (compared to other cards anyway) so your PSU should be able to handle them.

Answer 2

I would say to play high demanding games you would want something in these ranges. amd radeon 6850 - 6970 amd radeon 7770 - 7970 Nvidia gtx 560 - 580 Nvidia gtx 650 - 690 nvidia gtx titan and 780 me personally i would go with the nvidia cards but that is just me to play on the higher setting i would get a - radeon 6950, radeon 7870, gtx 570, gtx 660 or the gtx titan and gtx 780 but those last 2 are very expensive a gt610 CANNot play new high demanding games at 1080p / at high settings. probably not even at low settings 720p

Answer 3

Your powersupply is 400w, so you'd be best off with an Ati 5670



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871

Answer 4

all u need to know is that it needs to be a pci-e not pci-e 2.0 or higher