Upgrading video card and power supply

[vernisan]

My brother needs a video card but me being the smart one here, he needs my help. I got his info from dxdiag and I need a recommendation for two things , a video card and power supply. His current power supply runs at a max of 250w and it seems low, mine being 500w so its the right thing to upgrade in order to get a video card. Please keep video card recommendations "single slot" only since I have no idea how to hook up a video card to a power supply. Single slot ones are simple.

System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Manufacturer : Hewlett-Packard
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor
Memory: 4096MB RAM
OS Memory: 3840MB RAM
Power Supply : 250W Max

 

[bobkn]

What's the model of the HP machine?

I ask in the hope that it's not a small form factor machine. That would determine whether or not its PSU could be replaced with a standard ATX supply, and whether it could take a full-sized graphics card rather than half height. (Card length is another issue, at the high end.)

Is there a budget? I suppose that he might be willing to get one of the current high end graphics cards (Radeon HD 7970 or nVidia GTX 680) plus PSU to drive it, at a cost of $600-700, but it seems unlikely.

 

[M1GU31]

hmm seems similar to my build but let us know what kind of mobo he has and also tells us his budget so I can help you pick out a card and psu dude