Help a Yoda

[Yoda]

So I've had this pretty decent PC for a while and haven't done much w/ it. It's a dell xps 8300. The saving grace here is the 16gb of ram and a i7 cpu. It has a dumpy vid card (radeon 6450) and I bet if I upgraded that I'd be gravy. Trouble is I know nothing about videocards and even what I can put in my machine. I'm pretty sure my power supply is 480w. Since dell makes their own boards it's hard to tell what exactly I have on board.

Any advice on a card? Will I have to upgrade my power source? I'd like to be able to play witcher 1, 2 on this as well as stuff like starcraft 2

[John]

I can't see what that's plugged into.  Is it plugged in to a port the size of the port below it?

The reason I ask is that those are PCI-E x1 ports and the 6450 is the best card I can find that fits into an x1 slot.

However, if the slot itself is about 4x the size (a full size x16 port), you should be able to do any video card that doesn't need an outside power connector with your power supply.  That would probably be a Radeon HD 7750.

[Yoda]

it's got two labels. x16 and whatever that minicard is. My videocard is listed as a x16 so I assume it's that one.

[John]

OK, yeah, the x16 slot is what you want.  So the best card you can get without external power is, as I mentioned, an HD7750.  It's not going to be an amazing card, but you will be able to run everything you want at decent settings and resolution. 

You can find them for under $100.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007827196/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007827196&linkCode=as2&tag=r07f47-20

[Yoda]

Interesting, thanks!
Also, the box has a sword on it. How sweet is that?

[Annubis]

I may as well ask here too. Going to grab a new one too.

SABERTOOTH X79 (http://ca.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/SABERTOOTH_X79/)
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (dual x16)
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x8 mode)

Cooler Master Silent Pro
*I'll update the specs here (Not too sure which model I have, I'll edit in 2 hours or so when off work)

[John]

You have an X79 board, you can run whatever video card you want.  For you what matters is budget.

[Annubis]

I just wanted an easy opinion =P
Probably going to check what Radeon's up to lately.

[John]

So what's your budget?  I'd grab an 7870 if you're looking around $200.  I really like those cards.

[Annubis]

Seems like a pretty good card.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121649&Tpk=asus%20amd%20radeon%20hd7870%202%20gb

Is 260.00$ a descent deal on it?

[John]

Seems like a pretty good card.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121649&Tpk=asus%20amd%20radeon%20hd7870%202%20gb

Is 260.00$ a descent deal on it?

http://www.amazon.ca/Gigabyte-Mini-Displayport-PCI-Express-Graphic-GV-R787OC-2GD/dp/B007PJVB3Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363181292&sr=8-1

$250 at Amazon.ca.  They run about $225 in the US, so that seems right.  At that point it's just brand preference.  I like Gigabyte stuff so I have that card (in 1GB form)