They would need to from the same brand, same generation, like say two GTX260's, unless again you have the Lucid Hydra chip.
Also your board would have to support SLI (with nVidia) or Crossfire (with ATI). Plus you'd need a bridge for the cards as well, they're like five dollars though.
Is this graphics card worth it, I found it on newegg.com! It is PCI-e 2.0 and its a Radeon HD 5750.
The 5750 is the lowest end of the latest ATI Radeon generation. They are not as powerful as the similiarly priced 4870 or 4890, but the features you get can make up that for you.
Features:
1. Support for DirectX 11, the only card currently on market with it.
2. Eyefinity, for multiple monitor so you can display on them with one card.
3. Low power consumption and heat generation, almost half of the last generation of cards.
Remember, you'll have to have a Crossfire supporting motherboard if you want to run two of them in tandem. If you're just putting in that one card, you should be all right.
Make sure your motherboard supports PCIe 2.0 16x
I hadn't checked the current pricing on the 4870, but you're right - I see that the 1GB versions can be had for as little as $155 (www.newegg.com).
I hadn't noticed that the 5750 has a 128 bit memory bus, vs. 256 for the 4870. It's clocked a bit higher on the 5750 (1150 MHz vs. 900), but that means that the effective memory bandwidth of the 5750 is about 64% of the 4870. Naively taking the product of the number of stream processors and core clock, the 5750 would have 84% of the performance of the 4870 - not bad, as the 4870 was the original high-end card in the 4000 series, and the 5750 is the current low-end card in the 5000 series.
Aargh. I hardly know what to recommend.
(I see that if you want a 256 bit memory bus in the 5000 series, the 5850 is the minimum. $300 card, and none in stock at Newegg.)
Does PCI-E 2.0 really matter? I thought that no current graphics cards would be starved for data by a PCI-E (not 2.0) X16 slot.
I would not have imagined that this thread would evolve in the SLI/Crossfire direction. Delilah95's board has a single PCI-E X16 slot, and I don't expect that it's PCI-E 2.0. The chipset is an nVidia 630i, so Crossfire wouldn't be an option, even if there were two PCI-E X16 slots.
Before getting too carried away with what card to get, what power supply is in the computer (Packard Bell IMEDIA D2315 AIO)? Tried looking, but not finding a whole lot of anything. If Packard Bell is anything like Dell/HP, it will have the bare minimum power supply in it to run what the computer shipped with. You may be looking at a PSU upgrade in addition to the cost of a new card.
Pop the side panel off and make note of the total wattage, and also how many watts on the 12V rail (hopefully that info is on the label).
That's a point.
Completely aside from the amount of power the PSU can deliver, the high-powered cards require auxiliary power connections. An HD5750 requires a single PCI-E 6 pin power connector. An HD4870 needs two 6 pin connectors.
There can also be a space issue. The high-powered cards tend to be physically long, and may not fit in all cases.
The most advanced (?) card I spotted that gets all of its power through the PCI-E slot is a Radeon 4670.
It's too bad that only minimal specs for the Packard Bell IMEDIA D2315 seem to be available online. It's hard to tell what would work, especially without power adapters. (Cards usually come with Molex-to-PCI-E converters, even though some manufacturers aren't enthusiastic about them.)
If this gives pause to delilah95, well it should.
I really appreciate the help but to be truly honest I'm lost, the specs listed on my account was all I could find and I have no idea about power supplies etc. I was told by a friend that replacing a graphics card would be easy and I good find a decent one on the market- no problem. The person was from TechGuys actually fixing my computer so he must have has a few ideas in mind- unfortunately I cannot get back in contact with him to ask him about it.
I am very confused and my mum (lol) forced me to get my computer reset (I'm writing from her laptop) as it was cluttered and it will not be back for a week! If I take the Radeon 4670 as a final suggestion and get back to you guys with the power supply could you tell me whether it would be suitable. All your help and suggestions have been great :)
I wouldn't want to take responsibility for dictating (in effect) someone's graphics card choice.
Unfortunately, I can't find adequate information about the Imedia D2315 online, in particular its PSU capabilities.
When you get the machine back there should be a plaque on the side of the PSU that gives its specifications. Also, check for PCI-E power connectors:
Google Image Result for http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuconnectors/pcie6.jpg
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