How do I know if a video card would be compatible with my Computer?

Question

Ok, I have a Dell Intel Core 2 CPU running on Windows XP (Media Center Edition) 32 bit I believe.
1.86 GHz with 1GB of RAM.
My current video card is an ATI Radeon X1300/X1550. So how would I find a dedicated video card compatible with my computer? Or are they all compatible? In which I would feel really stupid for asking this.

Answer 1

look for windows compatibility

Answer 2

There are several things to consider.

First, you don't have a discrete graphics card right now. The ATI X1300 is a graphics chipset, which is a chip on your motherboard. Does your computer have a PCI Express (PCIe) x16 or x8 slot? If your computer is older it may have an AGP slot instead, but only if it's more than 4 years old or so. So you have to see if you have a PCIe slot to put the graphics card in.



Second, if you get a graphics card, do you have a good enough PSU (Power Supply Unit) to run the card. The faster the graphics card the more power (watts) it will use, and you may run into problems when you play games or watch video with the card using too much wattage for the PSU to handle.



Third, graphics card aren't all the same length. Some are longer and may not fit in your case. Only the fastest cards are much longer, so you probably won't have that problem. But it's best to check. If you have a small case, the size of the card could be a problem.

Answer 3

just find a graphics card and check the minimum specs needed for it. because you should have a graphics card port in the motherboard.