Computer Upgrades – Graphics Cards Pitfalls To Avoid

When most people consider doing an upgrade to their existing PC buying a new graphics cards often seems the way to go but there are some considerations you need to take into account.

How Old Is Your Games Collection?

Before you go diving straight in it would be a sensible idea to assess your actual needs, for example do you play games?. Are you a casual games player that perhaps prefers to save money and buy older or second hand games, or do you want the latest and greatest?

If most of them are 2-D models, you’ll get the most from the graphic cards that are on the market today without needing the more expensive 3-D acceleration. One thing to be on the lookout for is the power of your CPU as this may cause issues. Take care here before you buy anything. Getting the latest upgrade when you’ve got an older chip in your computer will be a waste since the two won’t be compatible.

Does Your Motherboard Support The Card Type?

Bear in mind that different types of cards have different slot types so you need to ensure that the card you buy is correct for your mainboard. The type of card you need for a newer motherboard will vary compared to an older motherboard so you need to choose the right one, the different types are; PCI, AGP and Pci-e

Do You Have Enough Computer Memory?

Most of the time doing a graphic card upgrade will also require a memory upgrade too!

Graphics cards have different amounts of memory and the better (in most cases) the card the greater the memory, and if your computer system only has a small amount of onboard memory then you are bound to have issues as there will be insufficient memory to allocate to your system hardware and installation will either fail or your pc will become vary slow.

Does Your Computer Have Enough Power?

The larger the card the more power they will generally draw from your power supply so you need to take this into account as well, older power supplies may only be around 200w or there abouts, so depending on on the number of other pieces of hardware you have attached, this may cause a power drain which can cause system instability. Also take note that many newer and more powerful graphics cards may need an additional direct power connection so check your cabling before purchase and buy a splitter if your need one.

Is My Case Big Enough?

Even some PC tech’s forget about this one as case design does vary from manufacturer to manufacturer or the motherboard configuration may be such that a newer card will simply not fit!

Typically newer cards are much longer and much deeper than older less powerful cards. With newer cards working a lot harder they tend to generate a lot more heat so onboard cooling has been increase. This tends to lead to a thicker card as well so you may need to move other Pci cards to accommodate a larger graphics card.

A graphics card upgrade is worth the effort but you do need to take account of the above considerations, but if you mainboard is based on the older AGP graphics standard you will more than likely be better off buying new if graphics performance is what you require.

For more great advice about graphic card upgrades visit our Pc support website.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Computers . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.