Upgrading GPU in a Prebuilt

[robmac]

Hi, I'm in need of some assistance and would be really grateful if I could get some experienced minds to help me out.

I'm currently using a Dell XPS 210, which has a 256Mb Radeon X1330/X1550 series card as well as 2Gb of RAM (at 667Mhz) and the E6600 CPU. I just purchased Age of Conan, and although I apparently meet the minimum requirements by some way I am experiencing pretty appauling framerates. With all the settings turned way down and the resolution below the native 1680x1050, I am lucky to get about 16/17fps. I'm also running Vista.

My question really is how much of this performance is due to the relatively old GPU, or is it indeed a system wide problem. As in, I need to upgrade everything or just the GPU. My main concerns are overheating, say if I replace the existing card with a much more powerful one...that and the need for a more powerful PSU.

If it is a case of replacing the GPU, what should I look to put in it's place? Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

-Rob.

[staffsMike]

That particular model only houses a "low profile" graphics card for which there are very few avaliable and none of them are a worthwhile upgrade to what you already have really.

They only cost about £25 though so not the end of the world if you do want to try and change it.

For reference they are the ATi HD3450 and the nvidia 8400GS.

The only thing I can imagine that is letting you down is the graphics card unless vista hates the game. What other games can you play comfortably?

[shadowmaster]

What about this, its the best low profile gfx card I could find

MSI -- MICRO-STAR INT'L CO., LTD.

Not a bad card for gaming, but only at 1280*1024 low/mid settings

There is this but I cant seem to find it on sale anywhere yet-

Galaxy make the first low profile GeForce 9600GT “Blade” - Expreview.com

A much much better card then the 8600gt.

[robmac]

Thanks for the quick response!

Thinking about it now, it has been a while since I bought a new release game. Probably the best examples would be that I have no problems running F.E.A.R., Lord of the Rings Online and World of Warcraft. 2 MMOs and a 3 year old game are not a good start I suppose. LOTR does struggle a bit at times, whereas with the other two I average 30-40 fps. It's not really saying much considering how dated WoWs engine is.

One interesting thing, is that before the game boots it tells me about installing SP1 for Vista, and yet when I went to download it I was told to wait for Windows Auto Update to do that. Could be an issue?

[robmac]

What about this, its the best low profile gfx card I could find

Not a bad card for gaming, but only at 1280*1024 low/mid settings

There is this but I cant seem to find it on sale anywhere yet-


A much much better card then the 8600gt.

Thanks for the advice I see I would be looking at these "low profile" cards, but both of these could go into the system without any cooling issues? The computer came with a 22" 1680x1050 screen, perhaps that could be too much for the GPU I have installed?

[staffsMike]

It certainly is a stretch for that GPU.

The 9600GT is pretty awesome though, I'm not sure how much it would be or where you will find one though.

They have fairly low power consumption and dell PSU's are usually pretty good so it can probably take it