another graphic's card advice thread

hey gang, im looking for a bit of advice or help. im looking to replace what i think is a failing ATI X1600 pro with this card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121266 what i need to really know is whats the difference between the pci express x16 and pci express 2.0 x16? my current computers slot is the older PCI express format. will it make any difference going with the newer stuff? my current machine is a Dell with a core 2 duo 1.8 cpu and 4gb of ram. with the video upgrade i will probably be going to vista ultimate but not sure on the 32bit or 64bit versions. im also looking at upgrading to a quad core cpu.

there's really no difference, because there are no current generation card that can really benefit from the additional bandwidth.

the card you chose is solid, and should be very good as long as your power supply can feed it properly. if it's by a reputable manufacturer and can put out 400W, it should be good enough.

PCIe 2 is backward compatible with PCIe (1), so there's no problem there. You wouldn't notice any significant difference going from one to the other since most cards don't really utilize the extra bandwidth yet.

And, yeah, make sure your power supply is big enough. nVidia recommends 400watts minimum, but you may get away with a bit less (like 350watts) if you don't have too much other stuff in the computer and the power supply is good quality.

still running the stock dell power supply, i have a newer power supply in another machine i was planning to migrate into my current machine, its a 500 or 600 watt antec power supply. i was actually thinking of doing that first before buying the new video card because the weird stuff i have going on with my ATI card ive wondered at times if thats not the problem and the card is actually still ok. sometimes without warning the video card just shuts down and i have to reboot the computer to bring it back up. ive tried 3 different sets of drivers, ive added better cooling to the card, havent seen it above 55c since, and the times it doesnt shut down it does the vpu recover.