Upgrading a Acer Aspire T671 Desktop

jackman1

I have this Acer aspire T671 for a year now and I want to upgrade the video card as I have got into games like Napoleon: total war and others total war series and flight sims. I have worked out that if I need a good graphics processor around the 120euro mark I will need a power supply of 450w or more. What I was going to buy is a PNY XLR8 GeForce GTS 250 - graphics adapter and it has a PCI Express 2.0 x16 will this work on my pc?
Or can any one advise me on any better way to upgrade. And I know some one will say just buy a fast pc well my budget is only around 180euro.
Can some one help me? please

Solitaire

I'd need to know your spec (T671 has very varied spec levels from P4 through C2D!), the specs for your PSU (label on its side with rail capacities; 12V is the main worry here) and your monitor resolution. Before we start: Unlike Dell, Acer are always skin-flints when it comes to speccing PSUs and you're stuck with a old 250W unit so a GTS250 is out of the question. Even a HD5750 is unlikely and a HD5670 cutting it tight, so depending on your resolution and the 12V capacity of that standard PSU you might need to buy a PSU as well.

Of course, if you have an early non-C2D variant you're SOL; you really need a new build soon as many games will be bottlenecked by P4 and even Pentium D CPUs

jackman1

Hi solitaire
Yes it has a 12v 250w power supply and a pentium D processor. So you think I would need to upgrade the power supply the processor and then the video card o god. I am 90% sure that this computer has a PCI Express x16 slot ? if not new motherboard? WHY DID I BUY AN ACER i am sorry now.I might as well go and look for a rebuild. what do you think?

Solitaire

I still need to know what resolution your monitor is and how much amperage the 12V rail of your PSU can provide (its on a table on a big sticker on the side of the PSU). Odds are I wouldn't recommend getting anything better than a cheap HD5670 so long as the PSU can take it; if you intend on a new build sometime soon or are playing very CPU-intensive games or most games at a resolution of 1680*1050 or higher then I'd think about saving the pennies for a major upgrade as the CPU might not go the distance...

jackman1

The input 220-240v ~/3.15A 50 Hz
output 250W max
I think you are right this is not worth the trouble. I'm going to save the pennys. I'm just looking at this Irish web site www.CustomPC.ie and they have budget gaming PC's and the can be upgraded in the future they say.

Solitaire

Nearly €300 for a HD5770?! And their basic "gaming" systems run on old €20 graphics cards?! Avoid like the plague!! :eek:
Build your own - it makes your budget go much further. Or get it pre-built on HWVS, they don't charge too much for the privelige and seem to be able to put it together a lot better than a team of chimpanzees, which are in turn superior to a lot of outfits on the Web!