Another upgrading thread quesiton! (PSU and GPU)

[Brimah]

I have decided to upgrade my desktop and am not the most computer savy and would like some input.

I want to upgrade my Graphics card, as right now it is integrated, so horrid. After doing some research, as I haven't upgraded a desktop in over 8 years, a lot of them require a bit of power. My desktop though only has a 300 W PSU. For myself, I am not huge into haveing to run every game on high end, but dont want slow downs, and would prefer to run on the middle group of graphics.

So my questions:
1) If I were to leave that PSU in, what graphics card would you recommend?
2) If I upgrade the PSU, what graphics card then?
3) Is the difference between 1 and 2 worth it in the end?

Price range before I figured out about the PSU problem was 150ish, but depending on the feedback, could be more if it is worth it in the long run.

Other specs on computer:
AMD Athlon II 630 X4 2.8 GHz
6 Gigs of RAM
21" monitor

Not sure what other specs matter for this :D
Thanks!

[Icari]

What motherboard do you have? Is this a prebuilt system? With that PSU you will not get a high end graphics card. If you upgrade the PSU and get a new graphics card you could be looking to spend well over 250+ depending on what PSU and what graphics card you end up getting. Which games do you play so people can recommend a decent graphics card for your system.

[Bockage]

Use a PSU calculator to help you figure out the current draw on your PSU and what it would be with a new card as well. That should help you decide if you need to upgrade your PSU or not. Here's one I found on google: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

[sruon]

1) A GTX260 might run on 300W... Had mine running on a 400W for a while
2) Depends on your budget, count $100 for a PSU, then whatever you have left will decide. GTX460-GTX470 are good choices for limited budget.
3) Yeah, definitly.

[Brimah]

It is a prebuilt system, a Dell Inspiron 570. As for games, SC2 is the newest of them, Borderlands, lots of RTSs like Total Wars and what not. Also would like it to be able to run FFXIV if I ever decide on playing it, but still dont know if I will. They don't have to be on the highest settings, just run well.

[Icari]

do some googling and see what size your PSU is and what can fit in your case, or open the case and measure what you have and use that when looking around. http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/11384...s-card-please/ might be somewhat helpful to you.

[Brimah]

Wow, that link is perfect... only issue is the solution he went with was a link that no longer exists. Was for a PSU GPU combo that upped his benchmark score to exactly what I want... now just to figure out what he went with, he has exactly the same issue as I do. Any clue on what combo he got?

[Brimah]

Welp, got in a new PSU and GPU for my desktop that was recommened in the thread Icari gave me (Thanks again for that thread). And for the results!

Before:
Low-301
High-144

After:
Low-3399
High-2516

And that is just booting it up, installing the drives and running the benchmark. Prolly could do better if I tried, but not a lot I'm sure.