Video/graphics card, whats good?

A video card is the same as graphics card. A high end graphics card is preferred for video rendering and for gaming. Here is a list of high end video cards. Be advised that some video cards would might require a larger power supply. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html I can't tell you what the numbers mean but you can look them up. Unfortunately your existing graphics card is a low end and probably not good for gaming.-http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=GeForce+6150SE+nForce+430+D Edit- You might want to re submit the second half of this question as a new question. Here is a 6 month old article but I know Hard disk drives have gone up in price temporarily. http://www.pcworld.com/article/238006/build_a_gaming_pc_for_under_1000.html

First, yes, a video card, graphics card, GPU, all refer to the same thing. One slight rule of thumb: the more expensive the better. That being said you should never rely solely on price, always go with specifications. Of course without understanding more about the GPU you won't really know how to stack up one GPU against another like that. So you're best option (and personally the best option there is) is to compare benchmarks. This tests a lot of different GPU's and rates them all against each other. I don't know if the first answers link is the same as mine, but here's the site I use: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/ You'll want to check the high-end cards, even some high-ends are relatively cheap (130$-200$). The numbers are basically like car model numbers. They like to get all flashy, and they really don't mean anything besides their iteration. They do, relatively, go in order. A 580 is better than a 560, a 550 is better than a 520, etc. HOWEVER, that is not true for all numbers. Like yours is a 6150, which is a higher number than 580, but gurrently a GTX 580 would blow your 6150 out of the water without a second look back. I actually think nForce 430 is a reference to the chipset on your motherboard, could be wrong, but it sounds familiar. Not really important though. You also need to make sure you match the specs of the GPU you want to buy. Your power supply is the biggest factor. And of course any modern GPU's use a PCI-e x16 slot, just google it and you'll see what it looks like (this is the slot you put the GPU into, so if it's not the same type it won't work).