Please help with vid card choice for older PC

[drumnbass]

Hi, Im pretty PC savvy, but not an expert like many of the people here and I havent kept up with the tech since I got this rig , and I need some help. I have an older PC and I want to upgrade the video card to play some games that are older as well, but the video card in there right now is a TNT2

I thought a x1950 Pro would be good, but it seems my PSU cant handle a card like that (is this right?) after reading the Sapphire forums. I looked into that more, and the issue about the PSU and how many 'rails' it has and the specs of the rails are something I cant understand and I dont want to end up getting a card that wont work for me.

These are the system specs:
Asus P4P800 SE (Intel 865PE Chipset) with P4 3.0 GHz
PSU Enermax EG465P-VE 431w (specs here enermax website)
1 GB DDR 400 RAM
AGP8X (AGP 3.0)
2 HDD's
2 optical drives
(if more detail is needed please let me know and I can sort it out)

The games I will be playing ask for 256MB video ram, pixel shading support, and DX 9 support.

being able to support dual monitors would be nice also, dual DVI again if possible.

I dont want to upgrade any other parts, as I'll get a new rig in a year or so anyway.
Thanks for any help!

 

[imported_Kiwi]

ATI's 7th and 8th generation high end graphics cards are serious energy consumers, but an Enermax is among the best of PSUs, and 430 watts for their product is better than 600 from the cheap brands. All you need to do is know the 12 volt amperage the PSU affords, and the current requirement of the X1950 Pro (in amps). In today's terms, the X1950 Pro amounts to high-middle level, and is slightly less of a power hog than most of the X1950 cards, so you may be OK.

(I do not tend to follow links, such as the one you showed for Enermax, when I'm here in this room, where I use dial-up, not broadband, so I'll leave it to you to learn the amperage numbers for each end of the compatability check.)

 

[MarcVenice]

Looks to be 33amps on the 12v rail. It should be able to handle a x1950 pro no problemo

 

[GullyFoyle]

Look again. That's a 460 watt power supply (I own the same). It should handle that video card no problem. I don't have an x1950, I have a 7800GT, but I would trust this power supply with just about anything short of SLI.