Thanks for clarifying on the power calculator, and the information on the rails, psu's spec's tend to confuse me a bit.

a reasonably accurate calculator is all most need to get an idea of how much power might be needed. but yes like any component, a little further research is needed. I.E
I had this happen on my first build's gpu upgrade...had i known or had access to a tool like a power calculator back then I wouldnt have dealt with having to find a psu. I bought a new gpu, but the psu lacked the power to run it. I ended up rushing the decision and getting a psu that wasn't all that efficient or reliable(didn't have a second gpu plug, wasn't sli, but it had the wattage because I just picked a big number). But it was my first build / first major upgrade over a decade ago. Time and experience are great teachers, but you can learn more from failure than success.

I was wondering tho, isn't the 9500 actually considered a lower than an 8800, that the 8xxx and 9xxx were basically the same cards and the 8800 is actually a higher end card? Which makes me wonder why the imageshack link shows that the gpu passed a system requirements check. Probably just my memory showing its age.

But, seeing as the OP said a budget of 220$, can the OP get a quality GPU and PSU for that cost. Without knowing all the components and power consumptions it's hard to tell him to buy one card or another.

Yeah, the 8800's were nVidia's top of the line when they came out. The 8600 GT was a cut-down 8800 GT, and the 9500 GT was identical to the 8600 GT. (The 9600 GT was between the 8600/9500 and 8800/9800.) Isn't nVidia alphabet soup delicious?

System requirements checks aren't always accurate. Some are really awful. But anyway, the best way to avoid more bad experiences with power supplies is to buy quality. There's an unbelievable quantity of cheap crap being flogged as power supply-shaped objects.

Corsair makes excellent power supplies, all up and down their line (though their latest "Builder Series" (CX models) are underwhelming). Antec is mostly good but their "Basiq" power supplies are crap. Seasonic, which makes power supplies for a lot of other labels, is excellent. For buyers in the UK, consider "Be Quiet" PSUs (funny name, but well-made power supplies that are actually made by FSP -- and they are quiet).

$220 (US) will get you a GTX 460 1GB and a good 500W power supply, no problem.

Wow, thanks for all the comments guys, I'll get the power info once I get home from work, I'm not much of a hardware specialist so all this info is great!

I hadn't really considered buying a new pc but maybe in a few months when I've saved some money I will consider it, I am a pretty dedicated gamer so a dedicated gaming rig is essential I guess.


Again, thanks for all the info guys I really appreciate it!

Cheers,
Spooki

Ok, checked the power supply, I'll read what it says on the box because I don't know how much info you guys need:

Bestec
Model ATX0350P5WA
INPUT 100-127V -10A 200-240V 5A 50/60Hz
OUTPUT +5V / 18A,
350W MAX +12VA

I saw a nice Gtx 560 Ti on ebuyer.com its a little over my budget but I see some good reviews, but I'm not sure with my current psu/setup it will be ok,
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/253958

Cheers,
Spooki.

1) I've had bad experience with beQuiet: bought a Dark Power Pro, had it replaced after a couple of days, because it wasn't running properly. After one year and after two I've had it replaced again, both times because of blown elcos. Might be just my luck, though. ;)

2) Quite recently I found out that Corsair is Seasonic build, the same high quality Japanese elcos and stuff. For some reason, Corsair is a lot cheaper than Seasonic this side of the big lake, though.

@spookifish
If you buy the PSU and gpu now, and complement that with a new MoBo and cpu in a couple months, you basically have your new pc in two steps. Except if you're not happy with your case or other peripheral components. If you're not that into hardware, you should talk it over in person with a someone who is and knows your current system and can tell you which parts go well together and which don't. Have fun.

Not all Corsairs are Seasonic; some are Channel Well (CWT). The CWT-made ones are equally good. Corsair has done a very good job of merchandising their power supply lineup.

Seasonic also makes some cheaply built PSUs. Antec sold these as "Earthwatts" a while ago. Current Antec "Earthwatts" are much better units, made by Delta.

As Audrey mentioned, the gpu and psu would be a good starting point. Buying something to build a system around, performance currently might not be up to snuff, but then purchasing the mobo/RAM/CPU combo next chance you get and you could have a whole new system. Be aware though that if you have a proprietary system, Dell, HP, IBM, etc, you will need to purchase a case as well. Proprietary systems have cases aren't designed to allow you to drop any old board in them. My employer about 20 years ago gave me some old dells they were throwing out. At the time I didn't know about proprietary pc's and was given a long lecture by dell support about why they wouldn't sell me a board to put in their case. Basically the mounts for the motherboard are drilled specific for a said model and they couldn't be interchanged. Incorrect mounting could cause damage to the mobo. blah blah blah. Since then the only proprietary I bought was a laptop I needed when I was on the road, so I just stopped into a best buy and bought a piece of junk HP.

Going this route(still build around the mobo/CPU combo, just buy the gpu/psu first)
GPU / PSU now
Mobo/ CPU / RAM and dont forget a cpu cooler, stock heatsinks won't be kind to your cpu
After that, its just customizing, the audio card, NiC, a good mobo will have a decent ones built in. SSD, tv emulator whatever else you want, water cooling etc...

SSD's are great and coming down in price, if you get 1, get 2, and dont go for biggest, just go for 1 big enough to house the OS with a decent amount of breathing room(makes back up and restores much easier), and a second one for games(the increased read/access speed for gaming) and a regular HDD for documents and junk, plus back up. Might be cost prohibitive though. Going RAID with HDD would be a second option, not as fast as the SSD, but still faster than standard set up.
One thing about your current hard drive(s) is are they SATA, PATA or IDE, the drive may not be usable on the new board(some no longer have IDE or PATA) so make sure if you want to transplant the hard drives to the new system, you know the board has a connection for it, otherwise you could try and clone the drive to a new hard drive, but if you go SSD, I'd suggest a clean install of the OS and just transfer the personals over. SATA is pretty much the norm, but there's also SAS, which although similar to the SATA, one will not work on the other, I forget which, but with the larger transfer rates of the new SATA connection, SAS will go away.

As for the PSU, I've been reading alot on johnnyguru, tomshardware, hardwaresecrets?, overclockers, among others because I need to find a psu as well. I was rather suprised at how few of the companies actually manufacture the psu they sell. The key seems to be finding who actually made the product (the OEM). Seasonic does appear to be a solid company, they sell under their own name, but they also make units to sell to others. IE. I and please don't make fun of me have a CoolMax CUG 950B, which is actually made by Sirtec. Although its not going to just burst on fire, its considered a stable although "Bland" power supply. What gets screwy is that companies such as OCZ, Antec, Corsair, etc don't use one OEM. So while one 650W may be built on a seasonic, the 750 might be a less than stellar performer because its by some company that used questionable capacitors. not saying those specific companies should be shied away from, just don't assume because they make one type of product very well, that other things they slap their name on will be as high quality. If a PSU is 50 to 100$ less than its competitors of the same wattage, its probably a good idea to look very closely at it, as its probably junk.

Think that Antec Earthwatts was my first psu purchase. And I agree those weren't that great. I was told at the time that Antec was a good psu. It lasted less than a year because I added a gpu, and the psu couldn't handle the additional card. And I shied away from antec because of it. The others (Audrey and CJr) seem to have a better grasp ont psu's so I defer to them as far as suggestions for brand and size. I just try to offer first hand mistakes, and a rather sparse understanding of pc building. Building one is easy, building a rock solid pc without breaking the bank is an artform.

Excellent advice, sporati.

I have a different take on using SSDs, though. Even though Microsoft put a lot of effort into optimizing Windows 7 for SSD, I don't like using expensive SSD space (easily more than 10x the cost of mechanical disks) for things that don't give me value for that space.

I don't give a rat's ass how long it takes Windows to boot up. I boot once a day, at most. If I can pour a cup of coffee and it's booted by the time I get back, I'm a happy camper.

I don't like software scribbling on expensive disk space. Windows keeps temporary files, update uninstallers, crap like that on the system drive. It even keeps the totally useless pagefile on the system drive, unless you move it.

On the other hand, there's software that has to load resources while it's running. Any graphically intensive game, for example, does this. This kind of software uses the disk as read-mostly and has to read as fast as possible. SSDs are ideal for this. (RAMdisks are even better, but even more expensive.)

So for me, Windows and most programs go on a cheap system drive. Western Digital "Caviar Black" and RE3 drives (tip: they're identical, though you usually pay extra for the RE3 models) are the best available right now. My coding source and object trees go on SSD. Games i'm currently playing go on SSD. If I were richer, I'd put a pair of SSDs in RAID 0 and still use them the same way.