what is your shell/case/housing ?

Don't want something that won't fit!

Do... you... want measurements? XD It's a pretty big desktop.

15x7x14

Take it to Fry's Electronics if you can

According to your specs here:
http://us.gateway.com/gw/en/US/cont.....l/DT.GDDAA.004

I'm thinking you should be able to fit most cards. I'd recommend probably something not too expensive but still nice, like a GTX 670 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16814121637

Do you have a budget limit?

I enjoy my ASUS nVidia GTX 780 DCUII

Do you have an extra PCI slot available? How large is your case?

I found out the hard way a long while back when building my first computer that graphics cards can be pretty large. x.x

What's a PCI slot?
I can't exactly take my case apart to tell you usable space (while using it) but getting measurements now. XD
Roughly 15x7x14, rounding down.

Looking up the specifics on that computer, I can't help but notice that it has only a 300w power supply. That may be inadequate to handle the addition of much of a video card, though apparently the new nVidia cards have gotten pretty efficient.

Yeah, I noticed that too while researching... mmf. :[ But can't you have a card with another power supply?

That could turn into an enormous mess. If the motherboard connection does turn out to be that complicated, an external power supply could certainly be finagled, but wiring to get them both to turn on at the same time could be tricky if the Gateway power supply doesn't use standard wire colors. On all else, I think it's just splicing brown wires together, that's what I seem to recall doing on mine when I built it in '07, but I could have colors confused.

Ouch, yes :( This does make things much more complex. You will need to replace that power supply if you want something more powerful.

Ok, Give me Case Specs (HxWxD)
Motherboard (for the types of PCI available. if you have a PCI 2, that's great news)
And give me your price range and degree of games you're running. (next gen, current?)

15x7x14, aprox,
I'm not sure how to get that to you. reading up on what PCI means now. o^o;
No more than 200, and nothing too fancy. Skyrim, Sims, etc. Sadly, high-graphics.

ah, roomy, that gives you good options.
Just tell me your MoBo type and I can get that for you.

Oh, also, your PSU wattage would be useful.

It has a PICe x16. Relatively new, but only a 300w power supply.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16814202011

This looks good for Sals needs..
but sal, you'll definitely to up your PSU. 500W minimum(my opinion)

How would I go about doing that?
Is upgrading the power supply particularly difficult? Unfortunately, I don't know too many tech-savvy people out here so it's either do it myself or pay a fortune.

Both simple and difficult.

The hard part is not shorting out anything. (anti-static wrist strap removes that problem fully.)
you have to disconnect EVERYTHING., and then unscrew and remove your PSU, install and attach the new one, and then reverse the uninstall process for the old one.

its like disassembling anything that you put back together, mostly by memory.
just with 200$+ components.

Oi vey!
God, I'd be terrified of fucking something up. -^-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....LkCFcOe4AodkxgACg

As long as you have that, the level of fuckup shouldn't be TOO severe.

Awe it's not hard on new machines. I have built over 150 machines and fixed hundreds. The older ones are the harder ones to fix. new ones you snap in a part, connect power and you close the case and are good to go. Heck if you have windows 7 or 8 it even installs the basic driver for you. I would still get the new one from the video card company but they make it easy now.

Thanks for the encouragement! ;w; I need it, fersure.

Backup is a good idea anytime. Harddrives fail and can at anytime so I always tell people at least put important stuff on something like a jump drive or a DVD or a backup drive so when a drive fails (they will in time) you have your important stuff yet. As far as anti static (i never use it anymore but should at times) that isn't as important anymore with shielded parts but is still a good idea ^^

Play it safe with expensive toys.

And I lost 2 years of porn when my flash drive corrupted, I had a HDD backup thankfully.
And most modern drives are good for 4-5 years with good care. 2-3 for laptops.

mostly I trust the DiskGaurd (autobackups at every bootup and shutdown in a dedicated partion.) tech I have.
barring corruption, a stable shock free drive is stable for a LONG time.

Yep, backups are a good thing. I have two drives (cloned) and still have a backup portable and a 64gb jump so can have all my stuff safe. Heck lost 3 machines (5 hard drives) a while back due to a lightning strike. Not all surge protectors live up to their claims.

I have a triple layered Surge Protector. and a Faraday cage nearby as well.
(Hooray for paranoia.)

And, boy do I know that. my only computers HDD went after 6 years.. 2 years back.. I lost a whole lot of data.. the OS disk didn't have all of the drivers I needed either.

Yup.
that they are.

I gotcha...

Okay, so my list so far looks like;

anti-static guard
and
the sapphire card

Now I just need to know where and what psu to get, I believe?

And many a backup will be made, just in case. o^o;;

PSU : Power Supply Unit
Where the cable from the wall goes into the machine.

Lol, I posted the same one. Sorry for not reading your post first. Nice card though I agree ^^

Board: Gateway DX4870
Serial Number: 114962190001485
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. P01-A1 03/12/2012

Just using the Belarc Advisor...

If you are running those games you really do not need a very great card. This card would work fine (may have to upgrade the power supply) but is very reasonable. it is faster than my card and I can still run Skyrim at max settings with my older card. You would save $100 and have plenty of power for your games. :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16814202011

I think you both linked the same card. XD Definitely bookmarked. Now I just need to figure out how to upgrade the power supply.

Yeah sorry I should have opened his link. you may be able to just get by with your current power supply but my worry is gateway and dell can be bad about odd connectors they use on some parts so upgrading power supplies can sometimes be difficult.

I can see how that might be an issue...

Yeah some companies don't want you upgrading your PC. They want you to just buy a new one. Heck I can build a PC a quarter of the cost they want and it is faster! Anyway if you get a slightly slower card like the one Marcusfox recommended it should work with what you have, no power supply upgrad needed.

I wish I had a really clear idea of what sort of games would need the better card and where that cut-off is.
Obviously my integrated card doesn't work for shit if my games crash, but I can't help but wonder at what point would it crash on the 7750.
You said you have it in your comp so maybe you have a better idea than I do. c:

If they crash it may be a different issue. But well depending on the computers parts, what game and what settings you use for the game can determine how well the card does for you. If you want to play all the brand new games on 3 monitors all at full HD and ultra settings you will need a expensive card. If you have one monitor and don't have to see all the hairs in your enemy's beard you can save your $ and get something like the 7750 or slower. Heck I have a old 5770 card that can play all my games yet but not on ultra settings.

Sounds good! c:

Cool, hope I helped you a bit. But now I am going to bed or I won't want to get up for work tomorrow morning. Take care and good luck with your project ^.^

Thats why I have a burning hatred for all things Dell.

They use an OEM OS. burning it to the Mobo and CPU or APU, removing any major upgrade capabilities.

JMW, that's the one I recommended for him.

The first review on Amazon says it is lacking the correct power connector for higher end video cards. (either 4 or 8 pin thing, I am behind the times by about two years?). Though you can get adapters to add the connectors.

The real issue will be is that the power supply is 300w max. This will be low for any type of performance card. So you may need to upgrade the power supply as well.

That said, I recommend finding something in the $150 ish range. That always seems to be the sweet spot.

So I would say a GTX 650 Ti or GTX 560 Ti, if you want to go Nvidia. (I know nothing about ATi cards, sorry.)

Something like this maybe (super quick search before bed). http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16814130838 It even has the adapter you would need, but the minimum power supply recommendation is 400w...

Although the PSU calculator I use says you might be able to get away with 275 to 325, that would be cutting it close?

So basically, anything high-end would short out faster...
Guh, when I got this comp I was pretty confident I wouldn't game with it. XD Shit.

That's exactly why I said screw it and build a really high end desktop (almost three years ago though...).

If it hadn't died I would toss my old power supply your way. :(

Sounds like it's going to be a pain in the arse... -n-
I'm not a hardcore gamer or anything, but I would like to play the few I have without it crashing exponentially. XD

Think my comp is 300W...

Okay, so I think what I've learned from this thread;
I can replace the PSU I have (300W) with another (say the 400W) and other than possibly shorting something out, it's fairly simple. Then it's just a matter of popping the card into place.
God, I need all the help I can get apparently. XD But I'm determined to learn!

yeah honestly i wouldn't trust the PSU in a pre-built pc to even be able to push a full 300W. if you really want to give it a shot, a 7790 from amd or a 650 Ti from nvidia would do okay at those games. but i would honestly just get a 7750 instead since it consumes low power and doesn't require a 4 pin connector. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16814121633

That would work fine too and solves your connector issue. the 7750 is a great card; it's what I have in my machine now and works great for me.

It's so much easier with pictures and a read out of your specs. Belarc advisor is a good free software profiler I like not sure if anyone else does. Going off of what you have said so far I would recommend something cheap like a 640 and upgrade your power supply. Sorry can't be more help unless I have the tower in my hands.

Changing out a power supply is not hard, but it is a little tedious. If you open your computer, you'll see that everything gets a power cable. The motherboard gets two or three. Every device has its own kind of plug, so you simply have to plug the right kind of cable into each one. It's dead simple.

The power supply itself is held on by only four screws. They're all the same, so it's easy to change them out.

The whole exercise is just being careful and not banging and breaking anything. And never ever leave a loose screw inside your case. It will short out something eventually.

Thanks. c:
I'm definitely more of a visual learner than anything else, so this helped give me a better idea. If someone popped open a comp to show me now I'd probably have fewer questions.
It doesn't help that many things have multiple names or acronyms. :[

Okay, here's my computer before it had much in it. It might look scary at first, but there's a pattern to the mess. And once you're familiar with one computer, all the rest are remarkably similar.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/11529669/

And remember to plug everything back in and not let the loose cords hit the fan blades.

Being a pc/laptop tech by trade for almost 10 years. Seems the simplest solution would be a 600 watt power supply http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16817139028 and a decent video card of your choice. If you're adding a dedicated video card (one the plugs in on the PCI-Express x16 slot) typically no technician should recommend anything less than a 500 watt power supply with around 30 amps on the +12 volt rail. Unfortunately that is one thing that gets overlooked aside from wattage of a power supply is amperage. I've seen some cheap 700 watt power supplies with only 18 amps on a single 12 volt rail, when coupled with a high end video card typically $250+ in price the PSU gets overloaded and shuts off or you get weird pc glitches. When you get the new power supply plug everything back in the same way you had it the old one plugged in, them plug in your pci express 6 or 6+2pin connectors to the video card. Lastly..the new power supply with have the PCI video card connectors and the main 4 or 8 pin motherboard CPU connectors. Don't plug in the 6+2pin into the motherboard or you'll fry your motherboard. This is the simplest webpage to give you an idea of the different connectors http://www.playtool.com/pages/psuco.....onnectors.html you will have extra SATA, Molex, and maybe an extra PCI-E connector too which you can zip tie or tuck away in an extra DVD rom bay towards the front of the computer tower.

There are several secondary power supply boxes designed to put a modern video card into computers with a weak power supply.
These go into the 5.25" bay where the optical drives normally go.
Not sure if yours is equipped with two bays though; you might have to sacrifice the disc drive if that's the case.
(Though a USB-powered disc drive should do fine when the occasional need arises.)

Example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16817101044

Whoops, that one's out of stock and discontinued.
Here is one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16817206001

When in doubt, BUY FROM A BRICK & MORTAR. If you're not sure what the specs mean, its worth the extra $10 that they tack on for the ability to stop in and ask for a replacement if its not the right type. Much better than having to ship it back and pay for shipping again and still not be sure if its right.

Also it gives you the advantage that you can ask the staff there about it. Maybe take a picture of your mainboard with your phone and bring that in. They'll should be able to tell you what's compatible with that.

Generally speaking, the engineers are pretty good and if its not compatible, it won't physically fit in the slot. So there's little risk of damaging your computer if the card is the wrong type because it won't fit. Just don't force it in if it seems like it doesn't fit. If it seems like it doesn't fit, its probably the wrong card for the motherboard.

I have a spare 9800 GTX+ it's not super new, but it's still fairly powerful (you can't play this years games on max graphics settings, but otherwise..)

If you want it for art, it should me way more than enough. Also, you'll still want a better PSU.