help needed!noob is going to buy a new video card

[kendo65]

Originally Posted by David198502

hey guys.
next week im going to buy a new video card.
which i cant tell yet, because i have still many questions.

1. which cards should i consider to buy?
i noticed, that there are some cards, which have less vram than others, but are more expensive than the "faster" ones....so on which properties should i focus except vram?

For a good summary of the current state of play see this link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...view,3107.html I see Igo Kyu beat me to it...

A word of caution - CoD seems to be more dependent on vram (at least currently pre-patch) than most games so the general recommendations in that list may (?) not be completely on the money for CoD.

Originally Posted by David198502

2.can i buy every video card i want, without having to worry about compatibility with other hardware on my system?or do i have to look which motherboard(for example) i have and which cards fit on it?

Two big issues are:
1. The size of your case and whether it can accomodate certain of the longer cards - I think ATI cards are generally a little longer than nVidia. This may (?) be an issue for you as FFCW Urizen has suggested.

2. Power supply. The more powerful cards require a decent PSU. You also need to be aware of the type of connectors that the card needs (6-pin + 8-pin etc). Your 350W PSU is a limiting factor. Depends what other hardware you are running but general advice would be to get a new PSU. Generally a 600-650W from a decent manufacturer is adequate unless you plan to install dual gpus.

Originally Posted by David198502

3.as you certainly already noticed due to the first to questions and the headline, im totally clueless when its about computer hardware....so here is my third question....
is it easy to install video cards(not the drivers but the card itself)?
or is there any know how necessary to remove the old one, and insert the new one?

thx for the answers in advance!

Yes - it's pretty much just plug and play. Unfortunately the need to upgrade the PSU makes things a little more complicated, but not I would say beyond even a novice if you take things slowly and do a bit of research first.

A suggestion - with the new patch for COD soon to be released , it might be good to hold off and see how the revisions affect the need for vram.
Also, nVidia are releasing their next-gen cards in a few months. There will obviously be a performance boost, but there will likely also be a knock-on effect on the prices of the current generation of cards.

So, if you can I'd say try to be patient at least until the COD revamp comes out.