New Video card for Mini Duke

[Duke{CLR}]

My son has a HP Pavilion and I was thinking about getting him a stronger video card. The specs are below. When I plug the current parts plus a GTX 460 768 in a PSU calculator I come up with 340W which is 10 short of the 350W one we installed a month ago. This is close and the slot seems to be a x16 and I'm not sure it's compatible with a 2x16 card. So what do you all think.

Motherboard

Manufacturer: Asus
Motherboard Name: IPIBL-LB
HP/Compaq motherboard name: Benicia-GL8E

Expansion slots
Slot type Quantity
PCI One (One available)
PCI Express x16 One (None available)
PCI Express x1 Two (One available)


HP Pavilion Elite m9426f Desktop PC Product Specifications HP Pavilion Elite m9426f Desktop PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

[Dr.Campinstien]

What size screen? 22in?

[Duke{CLR}]

He has a 19' monitor, WS I think.

[Donziboy2]

Hope I helped on TS with your issue.

BTW

Mini Duke
"Dad your getting weird"

[juneau]

LOL!

[Duke{CLR}]

Yes it was good info thanks, I need to sleep on it.

[Duke{CLR}]

Mini has been fairly good with his chores so I have decided to get his desktop up to speed for BC2 and BF3. My plan is to get a new case, PSU and a GTX 460. I also thew in a copy of Windows 7 but I'm not sure I will be using it for this project. The case and PSU will last for years and allow for future growth, the 460 along with the Q6600 should provide enough HP to play BC2 and BF3.

I hope to get to a point so I can game with him while I'm on the road and get him out of the same room with me when I'm home.

Newegg.com - LIAN LI Lancool First Knight Series PC-K59W Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

I just noticed that this video card dropped $20.00 overnight, and when combined with the $40.00 MIR it $99.00. I have to see if they guarantee prices.
Newegg.com - EVGA 01G-P3-1366-TR GeForce GTX 460 SE 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card


This PSU is overkill for now but with the $40.00 MIR it was the same price as the 620W and we will have room to grow.
Newegg.com - ENERMAX MODU87 EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

[Duke{CLR}]

I cancelled the order and reordered, this is the only way to get the $20.00 off the the 460. Wow I wold think at this price anyone looking for a partner for their single 460 may be happy with a $99. price tag.

[Infamous]

just remember the the gtx 460 SE is not the same as the GTX 460. the SE was for lack of a better word " experimental cards" that nvidia told the manufactuerrs to have fun with. i dont think you can pair up a 460SE with a regular 460. Also, arent the 460SE's 1 GB where as the 460 are 768 or 1gb.

its a good card, but its place is odd. it has odd number of cores etc. i mean its a great card, but its on a different branch of the tree. that branch isnt going to grow.

[Duke{CLR}]

just remember the the gtx 460 SE is not the same as the GTX 460. the SE was for lack of a better word " experimental cards" that nvidia told the manufactuerrs to have fun with. i dont think you can pair up a 460SE with a regular 460. Also, arent the 460SE's 1 GB where as the 460 are 768 or 1gb.

its a good card, but its place is odd. it has odd number of cores etc. i mean its a great card, but its on a different branch of the tree. that branch isnt going to grow.

Hmmm, I did not realize this. This make a future SLI option fairly tough, so I need to buy two now or forget that as an option.

[Infamous]

correct, unless the two engines are compatible. i forget the exact difference, but the SE was a higher end card with something disabled i believe. like if it ran 100% it would be a gtx 470 ( making this #up, dont know for sure) but they disabled one of the cores, thus making the 460SE.

if one wanted to SLI this card, id say pick up two now. they do not seem to re release cards, so if you bought one now, you might not be able to get this card again in 6-12 mos.

i had learned you do not need same manufacturer to SLI/ crossfire, but id like to, and i can no longer find my model 5770 card to x fire.

another thing to think of, the CPU might not be able to do more with 2 of those in SLI than it could with just one. so while two is just awesome, the benefits might not be useable do to CPU bottlenecking.

[Duke{CLR}]

Although I'm tempted to drop the 460SE and hop to a 560ti I hev to keep telling myself that this if for my son. I love him more then life itself but there is no way he should be able to play at max settings right off. I will stick with this setup for now and worry about upgrading down the road.

Thanks

[Infamous]

haha, he did chores, but not high graphics amount of chores!! now if he waxed your car or something right?

i just wanted to point out those lil quirks. i know you like the SE, but its small, and sometimes one doesnt realize the SE is a different model. suck to buy this, and then later think you can pair it up with whatever you had just bought.

i am sure this card will be a monster anyway. it specs out about the same performance as my 5770, a lil better actually, and i run high graphics no issues at all. my card even handles shogun 2 at high/ultra everything. just runs a bit warm, but still nothing to even worry about.

[Infamous]

plus, back in your day, didnt you have to walk up hill both ways just to get to the arcade? then stand in line just to play? kids, bah!! they got it made.

[Duke{CLR}]

His major chore was to weed 450' of a berm, I bet it would cost me more the 4100 to have it done, it's more about the zero point for his computing world then the actual chore though. I'm tempted to build him a nice 2500k system but then he would not appreciate it.