PCI express video card

I have an older computer with a Foxconn P4M8907ma-krs2h motherboard which has one PCIex16 slot and one PCIex1 slot. I have installed Windows 7 Ultimate and all seems to be operating well except that the on board video card is not sufficient for all of the programmes in that system. I am thinking of a low end PCIe 2.0 card such as EVGA GeForce GT 210 520MHz 1GB PCI-Express 2.0 HDMI. The PSU is 300W.
Would the motherboard be OK with this card and is 300W sufficient as I read that modern graphics card are power hungry.
Thank for any advice

 

I guess that would depend on your cpu, 300w is low for a psu if you plan to upgrade.

Generally you can use any video card that doesn't require an additional power supply, the pci-e slot will provide the power as long as your cpu is around 100w mark or less and you don't have lots of additional components.

 

Many thanks Rikky. Logic would say to get a new PSU at about 500/600W. They do not seem too expansive.

 

Quality is a key factor, cheap or old design PSUs can, and do, kill other components when they break down.

SeaSonic/XFX have the best quality PSUs throughout their ranges; all other commonly available brands are much more variable, the worst of them are just bad right across the range.

 

Whether a psu upgrade is the right purchase for can depend on a couple of factors, you ask us if your psu is under powered and we'll usually say yes or I will and it was underpowered when the computer was made. If your cpu 'processor' is old then there's not much point investing in a powerful video card, also if the rest of the computer is old you'll throw away good money trying to keep up.

If you just want a little performance improvement then a cheap pci-e card such as the one your posted may be just the right upgrade. So could you post the model of your cpu please Control panel,system, processor.

If it is an old power hungry P4 a psu upgrade may be the only choice as the system can easily draw close to 250w of real power.

Reference-

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/ProductDetail.aspx?T=Motherboard&U=en-us0000168

 

The cpu is Intel Pentium 4 3.00 GHz
The PSU ia a JJ-300PPGA
Belarc Advisor shows:
3.00 GHz Intel Pentium 4
16 Kb primary memory cache
2048 Kb secondary memory cache
64 bit ready
Hyper-threaded(2 total)

The performance improvement is only required for my wife to be able to use Windows DVD Maker where we get the message "the video card installed does not meet the requirements" and "the video card must support DirectX9 or higher and use Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) drivers.

Hope this helps.
Thanks again:wave

 

The official Nvidia specs call for at least a 300W power supply for the GT 210

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-210/specifications

As has been mentioned already in this thread, power supplies stated and actual capabilities fluctuate wildly depending on the quality, as well as their age. Generally they lose about 5-10% of capacity every year or so as their capacitors age.

That being said, the GT210 only pulls a MAXIMUM of 30.5 watts of power, so based on your pentium 4 CPU it should be just fine.

Please also note that I am assuming you have a single HDD and DVD drive...maybe a few sticks of RAM....

If you have much more than this then you do need to consider stepping up your power supply, and in any case the power supply is something that most people overlook as it really can hurt your system if it fails catastrophically. Even a small upgrade to a 400W power supply would put you far into safe territory.

 

Many thanks rmyere. You assumed correctly. 1 sata hard drive and 1 IDE DVD drive. 2 sticks of RAM. Will take on board the possible upgrade of PSU.

 

Excellent RMY and I concur

 

Bought and fitted a Radeon HD5450 PCIe card, upgraded the PSU to a 500W and all is working well. Thanks to all for your help.

 

Glad everything worked out nicely, and the Radeon 5450 should be a pretty big improvement over the gt 210, and not comparable to what you had before!