AX3400 Slim Top

Hi, a year ago my wife bought me a slim line acer aspire x3400- E3212 and it's a great computer works really well, but lately i've had some issues with playing some games.

System Manufacturer: Acer
System Model: Aspire X3400
BIOS: Default System BIOS
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor (4 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 3840MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 9200
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 9200

I realized it had an embedded card nvidia 9200 and also noticed it has a spot that could be used for a new graphic card. So i've been searching for a couple weeks trying to find results and found some results with asus nvidia gt 430 and an ati radeon hd 5570. I tried searching for these cards but with little luck so i found something similar to the asus nvidia gt 430 http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product...n-CA&pcname=&sku=10161807&ActiveTab=Tab_specs . I've been trying pretty hard to find success stories with out needing to upgrade this and that, but everyone always comes with negative remarks saying that it's a must to upgrade your power supply. So i was wondering if anyone could give me some opinions because this was a girl from my wife and id really hate to blow it up.

thanks

 

For reference

http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/desktop/2010/acer/Aspire/AspireX3400/AspireX3400sp2.shtml

Hi welcome to the forum What games are you having issues with and what are the isssues maybe someone here can help,it may not be video card related?

The card you have chosen need a minimum of a 300watt power supply,you have a 220 watt power supply,I'm sorry but my advice would be the same you need to upgrade your power supply or choose a less powerful card and I would also say get at least a 400-500watt PSU especially if you buy a generic one.

They're not being negative you have been given good advice,your power supply will definitely overheat,the computer will proberbly be unstable and may even blow up,that card draws 84watts from the 12V rail alone.

 

darkspore, dungeon defenders and a few other games i'm having issues with, on low the game jitter's alot. I've read a couple of people saying they were able to add a graphic card with out upgrading there power supply.

 

'A graphic card' being the salient term not 'that' video card.

If you insist on upgrading without changing your power supply you should look at something like this

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5570-review/6

It draws less than half the power of the 430GT but also has about half of the performance but still has a lot more than your onboard card.

Hope that helps

 

Thanks alot

 

I was wondering if the Manufacturing company made a difference to the card? Since there's so many of them and i can't manage to find an original were i live in toronto.
Companies like

Sapphire
Asus
Gigabyte
and so on?

Because i managed to find an asus radeon hd 5570, so i just wanted to double check.

 

There are slight differences,you'll come across a phenomenon on the internet known as "fanboys" who swear by certain brand and some people will say avoid one brand like the plague due to a single past experience but I have owned one of each one of the brands you mentioned and all of them worked fine,I've used all their technical support and found it to be great.

The retailer is of much more importance to me as they will be the ones you have to deal with if the card doesn't work at all or dies within a very short time,wherever possible I think its good practice to buy from a local vendor who you can talk to face to face with your concerns,especially if its your first upgrade,again though you will pay a premium for a "real store" but to me its worth it.

Different cards may also have different clocks,core clock,shader clock and memory clock which is the speed they run at but you usually pay premium for for even slight increases in stock speed,I never buy pre over clocked cards as a rule preferring to over clock them myself.

They usually all offer different deals as with everything,free game/software,higher clocks,OEM "no packaging" ,Budget version,highest performance it really is up to you as to what the best deal is I couldn't choose for you.

Saying that I would strive to get the fastest 5570 you can get hold of within budget to make the most of the performance improvement.