Planning to get an upgrade for my graphics card. General questions

[Alequin]

[FONT=&quot]Ok so my current graphics cards is a nvidia 8200 1 GB. It has lasted me a short time but it's not really a card made for gaming and I'm afraid that when Skyrim is released in November I won't run. With my amateur knowledge of computers and others help I believe the rest of my system is ok (Will post that at end. any comments on future improvements would be appreciated) and that only my card really needs the upgrade now. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
So the cards I have been considering are the GeForce GT 430 and the AMD Radeonâ„¢ 6570. Really my question here is which card would you prefer for both performance and money (I'm a student so budget is low) and are both these cards better than the geforce 8800GT?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Second question is how these cards will work with the 8200. This graphics card is and on-board card and I have been told that when the card is upgraded the 8200 will have to be disabled or not set as default. Is this true or is it possible to have both cards working at the same time? [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]System[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Windows 7 32 bit
Athlon IIx4 2.9GHZ
4GB Ram DDR2
Geforce 8200 shared memory of 1GB
(Have I missed anything important?)
[/FONT]
Thanks for reading.
p.s I'm paying someone for the upgrade. I'm not doing it.

 

[Indigo]

CPU is fine, RAM is tolerable, but the video card could definitely be improved as you noted.

The Radeon HD 6570 is a good card, but is going to be underpowered for a game like Skyrim. If you want to experience the game on a higher level, you need to spend a little more on the card. A Radeon HD 6850 is only a little more expensive, but offers much more performance than the 6570, and will almost guarantee good performance in Skyrim. You'd need to be sure your power supply was up to it, but otherwise I say skip the 6570 entirely. I realize not everyone can afford a high end card, which is why I stopped at the 6850.

You noted that you're paying someone else to upgrade, save the money and do it yourself. A video card swap is not hard, it takes one or two screws, and about 30 seconds of effort.

 

[niiko101]

agree with og on this one, no point upgrading to something that wont be able to give you half decent game play, HD 6850 is the best bang for your buck if your not willing to spend to much, but it also recomends a power supply of 500 watts or greater, if i where you id save as much until the game comes out or just a little longer, buy something that you know will support the game and give you great game play and if your power supply needs upgrading do that also, graphics card is as simple to change as counting your abc's, just watch some youtube videos on how to and simple steps. to ne honest i really wouldnt bother upgrading without looking at what the game reqiures first, that way you know what you need to play it because there is nothing like playing one of your favorite games and it lagging after you just spent money upgrading it.

Minimum System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
* CPU: Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz or Althon X2 2.0 GHz
* RAM: 3 GB
* HDD: 15 GB
* Graphics: 512 MB card
* Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
* DirectX: Version 9.0c




Recommended System Requirements
* OS: Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7
* CPU: Core 2 Quad 3 GHz
* RAM: 3 GB
* HDD: 15 GB free disk space
* Graphics: 512 MB Graphics Memory
* Sound Card: DirectX 9 Compatible
* DirectX: Version 9.0c
Supported Graphics Cards:
Minimum – 8800 GT
Recommanded – Geforce GTX 460/Radeon 5850


Note: These are the predicted system requirements. Official will be updated soon.