Questions about a desktop (for gaming)?

Question

I game but not that many new games really, and I was wondering whether GeForce 9500 GS will be good enough, it says it's up to 2303 mb shared. Can anyone explain what this means, like will this be better or worse than a 1024 mb graphics card w/o sharing?

the system is here: http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10313285&whse=BCCA&Ne=5000001+4000000&eCat=BCCA|84|22493&N=4009833%204294967235&Mo=5&No=2&Nr=P_CatalogName:BCCA&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDesc1&lang=en-CA&Sp=C&topnav=

Answer 1

short but simple answer:

that is a GREATcomputer and you will need no upgrades at all to be able to play games like half life and call of duty 4 if thats what your looking at.

6gb of ram!?!?!?  9500 geforce!?!?!  i have a 8800gt and mine is phenomenal optimal performance.

seriously great computer. no upgrades needed. you can pretty much run any game you want with a few exceptions (ex. Crysis)

Answer 2

Technically, the more dedicated video memory your graphics card has the better performance it will get; in your case, you are talking about shared video memory, which means it "borrows" graphics memory from your RAM when it encounters demanding tasks.  You should still have the same amount of shared memory if you get a better graphics card, but with the added bonus of having more dedicated memory.  While 2303 mb is plenty of memory for most of todays computer games, having a better graphics card will be able to render a cleaner picture, but in your case, I don't think you will notice much of a difference since your machine is already working with a lot of shared memory.

Answer 3

It means that your video card is onboard, not a separate card. It means that since you have 6gb of memory, part of that will be used by the video card. For example, say the card is set to use 512mb of memory for itself, that leaves a bit over 5gb for the system to use.

Onboard graphics tend to be slower and poorer performing than standard add in cards.

I found a site with pictures of inside the case :

http://product.pcpop.com/000105584/Pictu...

I don't think you can upgrade to a video card. I see some PCI slots but I don't see a PCI-E or even an olde AGP slot. I see one card that is closet to the processor with some black bulge on it. but that doesn't look like a video card.,

Nope it's not a video card:

http://product.pcpop.com/000105584/Pictu...

So no you can't upgrade the video.