So you know that x1650 is going to be a horrible performer. That card you have has the GDDR 2 as apposed to the GDDR 3 that is also offered on that card model. You might want to look around and see if if you can find the x1650 with the GDDR 3. They are harder to find, but the price is worth it.
That 8400GS is going to give you comparably bad performance. I would actually go with the x1650 GDDR2 over that crappy card. The 8400GS is a 64 bit interface, with a much slower clock than even the GDDR2 1650. I don’t even think it has the HD playback decoding abality like the rest of the 8xxx family. It would be a huge huge mistake to go with that video card. For a temporary solution I would really go with the GDDR3 x1650 until you can get something better like an ATI 3850, 3870, or Nvidia 8800GT 256MB or 512MB. If you can consider it now I would really recommend going with one of the above because they are the best valued video cards offered for like ten years.
the video card is cheap that was actually the point. I plan on upgrading after Nvidia’s next release which I think is in February. the 8400gs is 20 dollars after the rebate and will be used as a back up/test card after I upgrade, so it will rarely be touched so I wanted the cheapest thing i could find that was PCI express. IF i had the extra cash though I would go for that 8800GT in hart beat
that original 1650 was an open box and I decided that was not a good idea.
Yes yes it is house. I originally did not have a Power supply on my list but then i decided I want to keep my old PC working so I got another PSU and that shot my budget for a good graphics card oh well I don’t game a lot anyway.