Which graphic card to get?

I am aware its an older computer, but in my opinion either of these cards are going to be a massive upgrade. I was wondering about the size and will check my case to see if i will fit tonight. I also need to check on the power supply, but for now I do not intend upgrading anything else since getting a new motherboard basically means i might as well get a new computer. Not trying to do that. I think one of these cards should work fine.

YES, the PC4 is going to limit the card, however i still think with this bottle neck it will be way more performance than my crappy 128mb ATI.

 

I was interested in the Asus considering it would be great to watch HD movies through my comp on my 42" HD LCD TV.

 

Why Asus? You don't need that much to watch HD videos. I have a fanless 5450 in my HTPC which plays 1080p flawlessly and upconverts filtering with vector adaptive. Not that Asus isn't a good company (I have their G73JH gaming laptop and love it), but they usually are a little pricey for what you get (gpu wise).

You'd need something better for games though.

 

You still might want to think about the cost-benefit of a new hard drive.

 

Like i said, my computer runs great based off of its current specs. I know for a fact my current graphics card is having problems when using my 42" 1080p LCD TV and it cant handle it. I really am only looking to get a new card at the moment, down the road when I have a job i will for sure upgrade the rest but for now I have to settle with this.

 

My computer already has 2 sata hard drives. I dont really think wiping the drive and reformatting would really make that much of a difference?

 

Are these two different experiences using the same cable/connection type? You might just need to replace the cable to the TV.

Upgrades are always good... but check for other things first. See if you can update the FW/drivers, check with a different output cable, clean the dust out, that sort of thing.

 

I will do some general maintenance/cleaning on the comp and see if that helps. However i am almost positive its the card not being able to handle. When i game, on the tv, the comp crashes and sends lines all over the screen after a certain amout of time (Display issue) and then i have to wait a while to start the comp back up (Im assuming the card has to cooldown). WHen it does start up it says (Overclocking has failed!) and i have to load defaults in the bios and startup normally (once again this tells me video card aint cutting it).

As far as the cable goes, my crrent card is VGA only and the cable is brand new and works fine so i know its not that.

I am almost positive that I need a new card, however I know nothing about powersupplys, what should I know if i get a new card?

 

So you overclocked it and you did it incorrectly. If it works after the card cools down the card is geeting to hot and you may want to look in to an aftermarket graphics cooling system. An overall upgrade of the graphics card would help.

The HDD has nothing to do with the performance of the card. have you tried updating your graphics drivers?

 

Do you have extra case fans for cooling? Spaces for these fans? I have 9 fans on my system to make sure the cards don't overheat. If yours keeps crashing because of the heat, a new card might do the same thing. Do you have any temp probes where you can verify the temp when running OC'd?