Video Card Upgrade?

[kkolodsick]

I have:
Dell Dimension 4600
2.6G Pentium 4
2.5G ram

Current video card is NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 128M

Looking to possibly upgrad to increase my gaming performance?
Worth the money?

I've been looking around but can't tell which kind of "slot" my motherboard (02y832) has. AGP/PCI express.

Any help/suggestions as to which card would be great.

Thanks

[saphalline]

Usually, PCI slots are white, AGP slots are brown, and PCIe slots are black. PCI slots are the closest slot to the back of the mobo, followed by PCIe, which are most notable for being lower in depth (the height of the slot when the mobo is laid flat). AGP slots are the most recessed and the shortest of the expansion slots for vid cards.

Also bear in mind that PCIe comes in many sizes for the slots, and thus bandwidth and type of expansion card that will work. PCIe x1 slots are the shortest slots to ever grace a PC. PCIe x4 slots are longer by about 50% but are relatively rare on mobo's. PCIe x16 slots are the longest of the PCIe variety and the longest expansion slot for PC's since the days of EISA.

In terms of what vid cards will fit, the type of slot will have the most impact on what is available to you, and at what cost. Judging by your system's specs, I'd say it's an AGP 4x/8x slot. The max power consumption of the vid card that you can use will be determined by your PSU's specs. There's a sticker on the side of your PSU with things like "+3.3V 28A max" and such on it. We need to know that info, although I'm not hopeful of very much on a Dell system (or any other OEM).