Well first off, that is a good card. I am running a 9500GT myself, and it works great.
If you do want a better graphics card, then you are looking at around 200-500 dollars, depending on the memory.

First off, are you looking to keep NVidia or is ATI ok? For NVidia, the GeForce GTX 280 is the best of the best.
ATI's best card is the Radeon HD 4800 series, once again, best of the best.

Those two will give you the best picture quality available.

~Lordbob

TBH mate looking at your sys specs your GFX card is certainly your weak spot....

did you build this rig yourself..?? the 9500 seems so out of place in that rig.....

your mobo is sporting a PCIE 2.0 x16 slot, so it will take the latest & greatest from either company, your chip may bottleneck any newer card at stock speeds though, that's just the nature of AMD, not that you'll notice changing from a 9500

this should be one of the easier builds to recommend a card for, 1680x1050, 850w PSU, what model is the PSU..??

what do you primarily use this machine for..??, gaming, media, surfing, i mean surly upping your WEI is not the soul reason for this upgrade..??


SK

Originally Posted by lordbob75

Well first off, that is a good card. I am running a 9500GT myself, and it works great.
If you do want a better graphics card, then you are looking at around 200-500 dollars, depending on the memory.

First off, are you looking to keep NVidia or is ATI ok? For NVidia, the GeForce GTX 280 is the best of the best.
ATI's best card is the Radeon HD 4800 series, once again, best of the best.

Those two will give you the best picture quality available.

~Lordbob

LordBob, Kev could increase GFX power by going down another route rather than the 200-500 dollar route. Kev S could go down the SLi or CrossFire route which is ideal in this situation.

I have 5.9 vista score with my two Leadtek 7800 GTX OC cards SLi'd.

Kev S, - with the proviso that your mobo can take them i.e. 2 pci-e slots (or more) and your mobo can run cards in SLi/CrossFire mode, you could double up on your cards before investing in one new hugely expensive state of the art card i.e. 2 x 9500 cards.

You can run them in SLi (nvidia) or CrossFire (ATI) mode meaning that your system effectively pools the power of both cards together into one, increasing the power two-fold.

The new Nvidia boards even offer triple SLi - OMG! ANd with 8000 GFX cards onwards you can get mutliple monitor display (boo hooo - I can't get this with my 7 series cards)

I think SLi and CrrossFire is excelent for such cases as yours and for the likes of me who want the power of more expensive cards but by combining less powerful cards.

Check out here for SLi and google for more info about CrossFire.

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by kev s148

Originally Posted by skunksmash

TBH mate looking at your sys specs your GFX card is certainly your weak spot....

did you build this rig yourself..?? the 9500 seems so out of place in that rig.....

your mobo is sporting a PCIE 2.0 x16 slot, so it will take the latest & greatest from either company, your chip may bottleneck any newer card at stock speeds though, that's just the nature of AMD, not that you'll notice changing from a 9500

this should be one of the easier builds to recommend a card for, 1680x1050, 850w PSU, what model is the PSU..??

what do you primarily use this machine for..??, gaming, media, surfing, i mean surly upping your WEI is not the soul reason for this upgrade..??


SK

hi the computer is used for about every think but gaming i can remember the make of the psu but it has got two 6 pin power supply's for a graphics card

the only reason i brought the 9500 was it was on offer for £49.95

iam i looking at big money if i want a lot better or will i be better stick with the 9500

no your not looking at big money if you don't game.....i would suggest the below cards for your setup..

Nvidia....

9800GTX+ This card is very powerful & will handle practically anything you throw at it (1680x1050 & below)

9800GT This card is still a great performer & was king of the hill a year ago, this is ''night & day'' difference from the 9500

ATI..

HD4850 This card will out perform the nvidia cards i listed at a great price, but the driver support for these cards is always touch & go.

HD4650 This card is the cheapest card out of the bunch but certainly packs a punch!!, it will perform about the same as a 9800GT for half the price


on paper ATI look the better choice, but they have more than their fair share of compatibility issues & the drivers are pretty scares, you may find ''like a lot of ppl'', to run your new ATI card you will have to use an old driver, if your rig wont play nice with their latest driver offerings

Nvidia on the other hand are far more expensive, but they are true ''plug & play'' specialists, their cards are so rugged they will run on just about anything, & they have hundreds of recent drivers to choose from, so you can find a driver which will MAX performance on your rig..



SK

Originally Posted by Bellerophon

Originally Posted by lordbob75

Well first off, that is a good card. I am running a 9500GT myself, and it works great.
If you do want a better graphics card, then you are looking at around 200-500 dollars, depending on the memory.

First off, are you looking to keep NVidia or is ATI ok? For NVidia, the GeForce GTX 280 is the best of the best.
ATI's best card is the Radeon HD 4800 series, once again, best of the best.

Those two will give you the best picture quality available.

~Lordbob

LordBob, Kev could increase GFX power by going down another route rather than the 200-500 dollar route. Kev S could go down the SLi or CrossFire route which is ideal in this situation.

I have 5.9 vista score with my two Leadtek 7800 GTX OC cards SLi'd.

Kev S, - with the proviso that your mobo can take them i.e. 2 pci-e slots (or more) and your mobo can run cards in SLi/CrossFire mode, you could double up on your cards before investing in one new hugely expensive state of the art card i.e. 2 x 9500 cards.

You can run them in SLi (nvidia) or CrossFire (ATI) mode meaning that your system effectively pools the power of both cards together into one, increasing the power two-fold.

The new Nvidia boards even offer triple SLi - OMG! ANd with 8000 GFX cards onwards you can get mutliple monitor display (boo hooo - I can't get this with my 7 series cards)

I think SLi and CrrossFire is excelent for such cases as yours and for the likes of me who want the power of more expensive cards but by combining less powerful cards.

Check out here for SLi and google for more info about CrossFire.

Hope this helps.

his board is ''mATX'' & he only has one PCI-E slot....

Originally Posted by lordbob75

Well first off, that is a good card. I am running a 9500GT myself, and it works great.
If you do want a better graphics card, then you are looking at around 200-500 dollars, depending on the memory.

First off, are you looking to keep NVidia or is ATI ok? For NVidia, the GeForce GTX 280 is the best of the best.
ATI's best card is the Radeon HD 4800 series, once again, best of the best.

Those two will give you the best picture quality available.

~Lordbob

Uh, the 9500gt is NOT a good card. Its a very low end 9k series card and in all honesty a 7900GS or GT would perform better.

If you don't game much I would recommend at least a 9600GT, though the 8800GT/9800GTs are a VERY good deal still.

That is the Memory used on the Graphics Card itself - commonly called VRAM.