15th July 2010, 4:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 15th July 2010, 4:29 PM by EdenMaster.)
Darunia Wrote:Is it something I could just swap in myself real quick? Or is it a laborious and tricky thing, one for which I'll need to hire someone to install it? Also, while I know it won't be a total fix, will a better video card be enough to make a noticeable difference in all my games, with the same hardware?
Nah, video cards are a cinch to install these days. Basically a matter of find correct port on motherboard -> place card in port -> secure to backplate -> turn on computer. You'll likely need to download latest drivers from the manufacturer website, but aside from that, they're meant to be fairly plug-and-play.
And yes, you will likely notice a substantial improvement in most any game you play (except for the quite older games, obviously). Basically the holy trinity of PC gaming is the video card, RAM, and processor. If it's only a year old I'm going to assume it has at least reasonable strength in those latter two, but integrated graphics are bad bad bad. Getting a new, actual video card in there will make a gigantic difference.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_gef...50_us.html
That's the one I have, it's been very good to me and runs just about anything I play on high settings, and it's less than $150.
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