What are your current computer specs?

 

Hmm. A 2.2 GHz AMD CPU is pretty old. That could be a problem for you, especially if you want to upgrade later. Basically, there are two different types of slots for graphics cards- the older AGP slot and the newer PCI-E slots. If your motherboard is as old as your CPU, it means that it probably as the AGP slot.

The problem is, it's hard to find a graphics card in AGP anymore. You could try ebay or an online store, but you'd be hard pressed to find a decent card. If you just need a replacement, then any old one would do I suppose. If you're wanting to upgrade it, I reccomend you wait until you want to upgrade your whole machine. It'd be easier for you.

Besides, you'll be bottlenecked with the CPU anyway

As for Power Supplies, any old one would do. I've always used generic stock ones, and they've done their job well. If you want to Crossfire or SLI, I'd reccommend a really top of the line one. If not, depending on your card, 600w should do.

 

If I found an overclocked 1gb Nvidia 6200 PCI on E-Bay for like $30-60, it shouldn't be too hard to find a decent AGP card.

 

600-700W? That's way too much. Even the Core i7-based system with two GTX200's in SLI will take only 550-600W in peaks. You can use this to calculate power requirements. I'm sure any 450W PSU will be more than enough for your system, even considering their tendency to give 10-15% less power than declared.

I had almost the same system, with GeForce 6600. It performed good with my CPU, which ran at ~2 GHz. So going farther than 6800 Ultra or 7800 will be pointless.

On the other hand, if you are planning to replace other parts in the future, getting something from 9 Series may be a good idea. I have a 9800GT and the only game it couldn't handle to the moment was Crysis on max, and even it only dropped at times to about 15 fps. Got it for $110 or so.

 

Hmm... Like what systems for example? I'm basing my argument on the study done by guys from the quite popular site in my country. They've connected the power-measuring device directly to PSU outputs and got the aforementioned results.
I assume we are not talking Tesla, quad SLI, raid and two or more CPU's, since those are not often used in home systems.

Oh, I didn't even notice it, my bad. PCI graphic card, that's... exotic. Perhaps the MB has an AGP slot? I can't think of anything released after FX that is using PCI.

 

The 5200 is a PCI normal card mate. And a totally shitty one at that. The FX series was a fucking failure. I have one, shit literally the exact same card sitting about 5 feet from me, alone with a ATI Radeon 9xxx card, and when I slapped in a Geforce 6600 AGP card the difference was staggering.

750i board, e6600 oced @ 3.4ghz, 8800 gts, sound card, 2 sata drive, 2gb ram, 6 fans, H2O cooled, etc. That calculator tells me I should be alright with a 381w powersupply, and it's total horseshit. Hell when you select capicitor aging for having the PSU on 24/7 for 1 year, it suddenly says at least a 500w supply, nice jump. Mine with a 500w fucked up all the time, crashes, the pump wouldn't spin as fast as it should, fans weren't fully speed, etc.

If I tell it I have 2 of my cards SLI'd and I'll be running it 24/7 for more then 1 year, it says I need a 600 w supply. 600w with the CPU taking up 107 of those watts and trying to push two big ass graphic's cards? Not gonna happen. You wanna click the calculator up to peak load, and it shows 673 w. That site might get it's results in what seems like a good way, but play with a system 24/7 for a few weeks running under powered like that, and you'll notice.

750w works fine for my system now no matter what I do to it, but if I got a SLI of the same card I have now I'd want some more. Always go bigger on the PSU, and the mobo.

If I take the i7 975, and SLI GTX 280's and replace the stuff in my system with just those, no overclocking, peak load with 1 year on the PSU shows you need 877w PSU, no peak load, no aging on the PSU and right at 700w.

I've always had a problem with those calculator sites, because they never properly figure out how much load you'll use, and most of them don't take into account initially capacitor aging. Most folks won't see the fine print at the bottom, and wonder why their PSU shits out after a year or so of being overworked.

 

What motherboard model do you have?

 

Here, download this and post screen from the "mainboard" tab.
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

 

Or look on the actual mobo itself. Sometimes it has a name. Also a PCI-e is a long thin slot not like a regular pci slot. Those tend to be short and a little fatter. Also PCI-e is usually colored. PCI regular is usually a beige color.

 

Yikes, i would rather save up for a new mobo and PCI-E card rather than another AGP card. Would save you overall in the long run.

 

AGP slot, which means no upgrading for you. Well, you can, but it will not be money well spent. I can really see no way to gradually update your system – can't buy new cpu because of a motherboard, can't buy motherboard because it won't support your old CPU,memory and AGP video card...

All you can leave is your casing, optic and hard drives. Which means buying at once mb, graphic card, CPU and PSU. Yeah, I'd recommend just saving some money and getting the whole new system later. It's always better, because they will check components for compatibility and run tests.