# How do I know if my motherboard is compatible?



## Thrawn (Nov 14, 2007)

I'm looking at doing some upgrades to my old Gateway 710x Desktop, one of them being a new graphics card. I like the Palit version of the Nvidia 8800 GT, but how do I know if that will work with my computer?


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Sorry but it appears your system is too old and only has an agp 8x slot , and will not support the 8 series. While upgrading an agp system isn't impossible , it is slower then a pci-e or pci-e 2.0 system.

Also the psu in the system is a basic 300 watt which will not support high end gpu's either. You can still upgrade the machine to a relatively good spec , it will just require a psu also. If you would like to continue to go with the upgrade we can help find a psu video card combination that fits into your budget.

also for reference.
http://www.ciao.com/Gateway_710X_Peak_Performance_P4_3_GHz_17_TFT__10137663


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## Thrawn (Nov 14, 2007)

Yeah, I didn't figure it'd be cheap, but I just realized that we installed an ATI Radeon 9600 a few years ago, so I might decide to just upgrade some of the other parts. 

How hard/expensive would it be to upgrade the psu (if possible?)? Would the low-end psu affect any other upgrades (I'm looking at some RAM, a new Dvd/Cd/Blu-ray drive, and anything that'll help it run a lil faster)?


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

The 300 watt psu will restrict you to only small upgrades. Adding more memory will be fine. So will the blueray drive.

However , the radeon 9600 is not blue ray compatible. Blueray compatible cards are available for your agp slot. But.... Your cpu might struggle with blue ray definition. Since your cpu is a single core pentium 4 , the video may play back very choppy. Even with a blue ray video card.


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## Thrawn (Nov 14, 2007)

Geeze....That sucks. Startin to sound like buying something new and upgrading it might be better...


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## emosun (Oct 4, 2006)

Yea sorry to be a downer. But would be better in the long run to purchase a new pc.


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