I need help upgrading please

[carter43]

This is what I have "The HP Pavilion a6242n-b includes a huge 22" LCD flat panel monitor and is designed to handle today's digital media. Powered by the AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor 4800+, the a6242n-b features an enormous 3.0GB memory, an extra-large 320GB hard drive, multiformat DVD drive and memory card reader."

[T1MT1M]

first things first a CPU is a central processing unit, or the processor, so they are the same thing.

secondly you need to recheck that link cos its dead .

[T1MT1M]

to upgrade the nvidia 6150 graphics card, which can be upgraded to a nvidia 8800 gt if your going cheap or a nvidia gtx 280 if your going expensive, or if you aren[ch8217]t a hard FSX fan and play most other games as well I would suggest the 8800 gt again if going cheap or the 4870 which is midrange but still a very good graphics card.

For a new cpu I would suggest an Intel core2 processor, a Q6600 or a Q9650

There[ch8217]s also the option of buying a whole new computer where you can go to core i7 which will blow those cpus out of the water but your then up for new everything accept hard drive and case which will put you out around $2000

both of these upgrades will give you significant differences in frame rate. but you may also need a new Power supply, a 500 watts will do but a 650 watt would be better.

[carter43]

I was actually thinking about throwing an Nvidia Geforce 9800GTX2 on it. But seriously, I am I have a question though, of course. Will I have to buy anything else to go along with it? Or can I just throw it onto by bone stock a6242n-b and not have to do anything else? I fixed the link btw.

[Wii]

I was actually thinking about throwing an Nvidia Geforce 9800GTX2 on it. But seriously, I am I have a question though, of course. Will I have to buy anything else to go along with it? Or can I just throw it onto by bone stock a6242n-b and not have to do anything else? I fixed the link btw.

Because your computer (same model as mine) has only a 250w PSU, you need to at least upgrade to a 500w or more.

[carter43]

I don't know about the 9800GTX anymore though because after some research it seems that the 8800GTX actually gets the same frame rate as the 9800GTX. Could this simply be because that the 9800GTX produces better graphics thus weighing down the FPS? Another thing, this 3-way SLI stuff that I've been hearing about, does that mean you have to have 3 graphics cards for this? :-?

[T1MT1M]

your motherboard most likely wont support 3 way sli, but about the 9800GX2, if you play flight sim a lot the gtx 280 is 1000x better because 9800GX2 is pretty much an sli card (its just 2 cards stuck together) and sli does nothing, i would go for the gtx 280 anyway.

But yeah 3 way sli means you have 3 nvidia cards side by side.

[Slotback]

9800GTX is a faster card than the 8800GTX in all games but one - Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The advantage the 8800GTX has here is the 384 bit memory controller over 256 bit on the 9800GTX, which gives the 8800GTX an edge in the much needed memory bandwidth.

Depends what you want really. Honestly if I wanted something really fast at everything, fsx included, I'd go for GTX 260. Maybe 4850 or 4870 if I don't use fsx.

[Wii]

I don't know about the 9800GTX anymore though because after some research it seems that the 8800GTX actually gets the same frame rate as the 9800GTX. Could this simply be because that the 9800GTX produces better graphics thus weighing down the FPS? Another thing, this 3-way SLI stuff that I've been hearing about, does that mean you have to have 3 graphics cards for this? :-?

8800GTX is probably the best because anything more will be bottlenecked by the rest of your specs. Your motherboard only has 1 pci x16 slot.
Your mobo:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01077676&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3627659
Your computer's detailed specs:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01154825

[carter43]

Dang! That's a real setback! But hey, it's better than me buying the 9800GTX and then finding out what I know now. So thanks for that important tid-bit of info. Now that I do know that, what would be the best possible card that my setup supports?