Hi, not being very computer savvy, I managed to upgrage from onboard graphics to a Nvidia geforce GT610 about two years ago. the difference was quite good, but now I think they could be even better, so I was thinking upgrading to a GTX950, which is not too expensive (£140ish).  I'm hoping it'll be plug and play, like the 610, but I'm unsure whether my power supply will be man enough.  Is there any where I can tell what my power supply is without opening the computer please? Are there any other issues I may encounter? TIA.

Why the upgrade? Are you a gamer?.
If you're just browsing the internet, looking at photos etc. I doubt you'd notice any difference.

It probably says on the back of the power supply, near the mains socket. However, if it runs 1 graphics card, it will run the other, as long as you don't have 4 hard discs running.

Trainsim2017 and occasionally MS flightsim X

Quote from: TrevL on July 04, 2017, 08:55:40 PM
Trainsim2017 and occasionally MS flightsim X

Luv train sim and I've got a 6 year old card. Runs just great. Never less than 20 frames / sec on really detailed station departures etc.
Not an expert though. There are bound to be a few experts around. Good luck

hey @TrevL I did a little look around
https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-610/specifications
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-950/specifications

GT610 Standard Graphics Card Dimensions:
Length: 5.7 inches
Height: 2.7 inches
Width: Single-width
Thermal and Power Specs:
Maximum GPU Temperature (in C): 102 C
Maximum Graphics Card Power (W): 29 W
Minimum System Power Requirement (W): 300 W

GTX 950 Graphics Card Dimensions:
Height: 4.376 inches
Length: 7.938 inches
Width: Dual-width
Thermal and Power Specs:
Maximum GPU Tempurature (in C): 95 C
Graphics Card Power (W): 90 W
Recommended System Power (W)**: 350 W
Supplementary Power Connectors: 1x 6-pins
** Recommendation is made based on PC configured with an Intel Core i7 3.2 GHz processor. Pre-built system may require less power depending on system configuration.

So you can see the base power requirements are just 50Ws more (recommended capacity). You will need a spare power input, so if all the cable from your power unit are all used, you won't be able to use this card fully if at all.

Perhaps more relevant is the space required, the GTX basically requires twice as much room, it's twice as thick and will require more space length-wise into your case.

Hope this has been useful.

I find games like Trainsim don't tend to be very taxing on Graphics cards released in the last 5 years. You might be able to get better graphics performance from your existing card by updating the drivers if you haven't already done so. Some utilities from NVidia also let you fine tune the settings for the best game performance for the selected game. No idea if this is the case for Train Sim.

So you can see the base power requirements are just 50Ws more (recommended capacity). You will need a spare power input, so if all the cable from your power unit are all used, you won't be able to use this card fully if at all.

you can buy 1-2 cable splitters so that yoiu can power your new card.

a new PSU is £25-30 and could be a good investment? they are standard sizes and are easy to replace/fit.