I'm worried about my computer over-heating though with a top of the line video card.  Considering that the processor only as a heat sync and that there's only one fan, will the system stay cool enough to support the newer cards?

yes you can, virtually any card you want. depends on your budget. unless youre willing to spend a lot of money 256mb isnt worth it on say a fx5200 etc.

Will I be able to tell if the computer starts to overheat?  Will an error message come up?

 

Also I was thinking I could put this http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?c=1&b=g&u=c&catoid=-11241&qp=0&oid=70187&m=0 in the machine to maybe help keep it cool?

yes, the card will have a fan. it will be ok.

I have a 9800 pro and also purchased the same pci fan you are looking at from Circuit City.  I have not had any heat issues, can play games for several hours without issue.  I removed the fax/modem pci card that was next to the video card so I could place the pci fan one slot away from the video card.  Seems to really work well that way.

is the small fan hard to clean out?

So with the small fan would I have trouble running a card like this... http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=50446916&pfp=BROWSE ?

Or will the 256 cards give me problems?

Message Edited by Justin120884 on 05-06-2004 11:13 PM

The fan isn't hard to clean out.  I would imagine you could use that card, I understand that the NVidia cards are a little more power hungry and generate more heat than the ATI cards though.

So you'd think it would be better to get an ATI card?

if youre thinking of spending that much money, you should get a ati x800 platinum edition. the best value would be getting an ati 9800pro. wait a bit for current card prices to go down. if you plan on spending a lot get the latest card at least.

how much power will the ati x800 consume, and how large is the new card going to be?  I know the new Nvidia fx6800's are going to be huge and would no way fit into my case.  Is the ati x800 going to be the same way?