I am in need of a graphics card upgrade. My poor radeon 9800 pro 128mb is starting to feel the burn with the next generation of PC games. I am, at this point, a newbie at computers, regardless of the fact that I have been using them all my life. So I send my plea out to you. How can I find out if my computer has PCI-Express 16x? And if it doesn't (which im pretty sure it doesn't), What AGP card would you suggest? I have been looking into the Nvidia 6800 Xtreme GPU but do not know how much of an upgrade it is over mine. I have been told to just scrap my current motherboard and go with a new one that has pci-express... but once again I am not computer literate, and would have difficulty transfering everything from my old mobo. That and I have no clue how to install a mobo without screwing it up ;)

So what do you all suggest? I need a card that will last me a while, something that will allow me to play the upcoming games of this generation.

Scaly...

download belarc advisor. http://www.belarc.com/Programs/advisor.exe it pretty much tells u anything about ur computer from the hotfixes u have,from what kindve motherboard u have. here is the pci xpress version of the card u want.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150153

and here is the agp

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150157

the card i have is an ati radeon x800gto. i suggest that if u have agp.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102609

you can overclock it easily with the programs provided and control the fan. you can also unlock 4 extra pixel pipelines from it making it faster. hope i helped

Your XPS probably doesn't even have a PCI-E slot, but that should be a problem there are mid-ranged AGP cards that should work.

What model is your XPS?

0F2905 is the model number.

And where on belarc does it say the slots you have available in your comp?

Thanks for the help btw.

The 9800 Pro only came in AGP, so you don't have a PCIe slot.

The best AGP card is the Gainward 7800GS, which, despite its name, is really a 7900GT, with a full 24 pipes at 450MHz each.

I'm not sure if they ship the Gainward to the States.

If not, then I'd get the x850XT. It's faster than the normal non-Gainward 7800GS, as indicated by these benchmarks:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html

Yep, I'm with jackbomb...if you've been running a 9800Pro, your board has AGP