[QUOTE="Shadowhawk000"]Really..? How much more powerful is that to the 8800GT?paraskhos_basic

Yes, the gtx 280 is a great high end card. But it won't run on your power supply. Just look at the power requirements:

Minimum of a 550 Watt power supply. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 40 Amp Amps.) An available 6 pin PCI-E power connector and an available 8 pin PCI-E power connector

Thats just the minimum. It needs 40 amps on the +12 Volt rail. Your power supply only has a combined rating of 36. Also, higher quality power supplys are better. Anything from Corsair would be great. You could get a gtx 260(a fair upgrade) and a decent power supply for under $400. I can suggest a couple if you'd like.

Sorry to take a dump on your parade, but you could seriously damage your system by underpowering it. It may not happen for months, but when your psu dies, it could take alot of components with it.

I found this one at newegg, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152095

It meets all your requirements, except the screen doesn't go up to 1080p. Its only a 15.4" anyway, you don't need that high of a resolution on one of those. I think that the processer would be good, its not clocked really high, but its an intel with decent fsb and L2 cache. The 9800gs should run most games in high settings.

I also have Windows Vista Home Premium and up to 865MB of video memory (whatever that is), I mostly wana play old strategy games like LOTR BFME2 or Rome Total War, Star Wars Empire at war, etc, any recommendations ?Merc009

It sure sounds like its your RAM. I have a theory, although I don't know a whole lot about DDR3 Uber RAM:) I looked up your motherboard on the ASUS website...

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=179&l3=815&l4=0&model=2746&modelmenu=1

And If you look under where it lists the compatible Ram, it lists DDR3 triple channell 1600 (O.C.) Now, I assume that means overclocked. So natively that mobo only supports up to 1333. However, I was under the impression that ram will automatically underclock to whatever the max. the mobo will support. For instance if I put DDR2 800 ram in a board that only supported up to DDR2 667. Thats just a theory, maybe you can try the RAM from your older rig? But like you said, your Ram could just be bad.

I would recommend this computer...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227130

It's actually kinda decent. The 9500gt isn't the best card, but for the price, it can't be beat. I have a 9600gt and I can play most games maxed out. Except Crysis. And some new games I have to turn AA down, but I think the 9500gt will be good. Let me know if this works or you need another suggestion.

The Nvidia 8200 chipset is "OK" for games. Mostly older ones. I have an 8200 integrated chipset that I used before I upgraded to my current 9600gt. It could play most of my older games pretty decently. Just from what I remember:

Quake 4: Good framerates at lower resoutions on high.

Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2: I could set those on high

Call of Duty 4: I played that on low with good framerate.

Command & Conquer Red alert 2, C&C Generals, all high, good framerates.

These are just a few games that I remember playing. Pretty much older games. It depends on what you want to play. For a laptop, its a decent graphics chipset. I was happy with it when I had it.

no budget jus goin to buy it all at different times till i get it all. with ax returns comin up i should be able to buy a lot of it soon. i have bou $300 right now for stuff.gamer4life73

One thing that I would reccommend. And that is to buy all your stuff all at once. And there are a few reasons why.

1. Prices are constantly going down. A processor that is $235 now, might be less than $200 a month from now. And it would really suck if you spend all that money on parts and then when you put it together, all the prices are lower. And you could have spend less.

2. This is the most important reason. If you buy say a motherboard now, and say you actually get the computer build say a month from now, then you have no way of testing if the motherboard actually works. The first motherboard I bought arrived DOA. I was able to return it, but if I had waited too long then I would have lost that money. And other things like ram and cpus might have less time to return them.

I would wait till you get your tax money back. Then you will have some reall money to work with. I will shop around and find some stuff for you, so that you can get an idea of the cost. I will post that back later. I have some errands to run. If you are interested in doing some research, then this forum might be helpful...

http://www.techsupportforum.com/

They have some good sticky posts about how to choose your cpu, power supply, etc.

actually now im gonna build a whole new comp. i want a quad core, but i dont kno much about motherboards and processors. i want an amd processor and ati radeon video card. i kno what video card im gonna get, but in your opinion which motherboard and processor should i shoot for and what type of ram would be compatible with the motherboard. thanks for all ur help btw.gamer4life73

What is your budget?

I found your computer on the Gateway website. It lists all the info you will need to upgrade...