Worth it to upgrade my video card?

[Hopester Doofus]

I'm inheriting a computer that was pretty sweet back in the day (that being about 4 years ago).  Basic specs:

Dell Dimension XPS 9150
Pentium D  3.2 dual core
4GB RAM
GeForce 7800GTX  256MB
Dual 500GB HDD

My question:  I'm looking to use this a somewhat decent gaming machine.  Would upgrading the video card to a Radeon HD4850 or 4870 be worth the $300 cost ($200 for the card, $100 for a better PSU) ? 

Thanks as always, gang.

[Calum]

Nice to see you again, Hopester.
The 7800GTX was a great card in its day, now it is a little dates but will run most games out there, just not at maximum settings.
With that CPU I'm not sure a top-end card would be justified.
What's the power supply in there at the minute?
Also, what sort of games are you looking to play?
It might be worth upgrading the processor to a Core 2 Duo if the board supports it, it'd run a lot cooler and even a lower-end Core 2 would be faster.

[Hopester Doofus]

The power supply is only 375w so I'd definitely need to yank it up to at least 500 if I changed the card to one I mentioned.  As for games, I kind of have my eye on the Sims 3.

Of course I could always just fire everything up and probably answer the question myself, but this gave me an excuse to stop by.

Edit:  Nice to see you too, Calum. Hope all is well.

[Calum]

The 7800GTX should be able to handle the Sims 3.
With a 375W unit, you could look at a 4670, which should give you better performance and should also use less power.   I say "should" because I can't find any direct comparisons due to the age of the 7800GTX, so this is more of an educated guess without further research.
I didn't see it was a Dell in the first post ... I doubt you'd be able to swap the processor for a Core 2 model so you'll be stuck with that processor (not that it's a huge problem, but it's very power-hungry for the performance compared to newer CPUs).
If you wanted to spend more and get the performance, by all means go for a quality PSU and jack up the video, the HD4770, 4830 or 4850 offer great price/performance ratios, as do Nvidia's 9800GT and GTS250.
A high-end card though will be held back by the processor - still, it's a solid system, and it's still upgradeable (at some point you may want to change the board so you can upgrade the CPU, but of course you'd be able to keep the other components).

[2x3i5x]

HD 4670 is ~ 10 or so watts greater than a 9500GT, that's what I have found out.... and both are ok with a 300 watt psu given you got decent 12 v rails and you're not piling up on disk drives, hard drives or other computer parts needing power.

I have 2 dvd drives and a 9500GT and a hard drive and its all running on a 300W psu with 19A on the 12V rail which is supplied by HP.

[TheHoFL]

I would say get at least a 500W PSU. I currently am experimenting with two HD 3870's in crossfire and i already have a raptor and 2 other drives. I was having issues with it so i got an 850W PSU and my issues went away. So i would say "the more power, the better...for the performance" 

[computeruler]

With your computer, you would need a proprietary psu, and with another xps I saw, it might have 2 24pin connectors too which is really weird.  But mabye not.

[TheHoFL]

If you have a Frys Electronics near you, i would got there and get and Antec PSU. Those seem to fit in the Dells that i have upgraded. You have to kind of add long screws or something funny like that, but you can get it to fit. The reason why i say Frys is because if it doesn't work you can bring it back with no questions asked. Just  use your debit/credit card.

[patio]

With your computer, you would need a proprietary psu, and with another xps I saw, it might have 2 24pin connectors too which is really weird.  But mabye not.

Nope.
Any PSU will work with that Dell.

[Calum]

I would say get at least a 500W PSU. I currently am experimenting with two HD 3870's in crossfire and i already have a raptor and 2 other drives. I was having issues with it so i got an 850W PSU and my issues went away. So i would say "the more power, the better...for the performance" 

3870's are pretty power hungry cards.
If the 375W in there is powering a 7800GTX, there's no reason it wouldn't power a card using the same or less power, of course a card that uses more power would need a new PSU.

[TheHoFL]

That's why i recommend a 500W or higher.