Need some Sage advice on Video Cards, and Power

[Servercat]

In preparation for some of the exciting games coming out for the holidays , I plan to upgrade my computers aging graphics card....but I'm only a novice in this, and could use a lot of advice.

The Core system is a

Dell Dimension 5100 (Mid Tower case)

Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz Dual Core
2.5Gb Ram
Radeon 256mb X600 PC-E

My first question, obviously, what card would you recommend? I play graphic a lot of shooters and graphic intensive games like Supreme Commander, so it needs to be beefy, but not too beefy (Don't play games on resolutions higher then 1152 x 864, if even that :p) I hope to keep the card around $150, preferably lower :p, but I can go a bit higher if there is a good rebate.



I took a look inside the case, I believe the default power supply/fan is 150w (o.0) if I'm reading the label properly. So I am assuming that I need to upgrade that as well. So any tips there would be welcome.

Lastly, I could use some advice on installing it all. I've put in graphics cards before but that was years ago, on a massive tower that never had one before :p So I am little concerned about the size constraints of the mid-tower. Additionally I am worried about noise, the original dell package is whisper quiet, is there any hope to maintain this?

[a shrubbery]

You can probably get an nvidia Geforce 6800GT with 512MB for under $150 if you look around.  That card will have directx10 support, but the older 7900 series might be faster in many games (but only has directx9 support.)  If you prefer ATI you could get an HD 2600XT.  You can look at tomshardware's graphics charts to compare different cards in different games.

I think you're right, you probably should get a more powerful powersupply.  You'll want to make sure though that the Dell case and motherboard will accept a standard powersupply.  Some Dell motherboards may not accept standard ATX powersupplies.

You probably should take a look at your case and make sure it can fit a standard width card.  Also you may want to check that there is sufficient length for the card.  Some cards may actually list the length in the specifications but most will not.  However by looking at pictures on sites like www.newegg.com you can get an idea of how much longer the card is than the slot. 

good luck!