Guide: Upgrading a Video Card (GPU)

This guide will cover upgrading a video card in a typical consumer PC.

This guide assumes that you have already upgraded your power supply if needed. See Guide: Upgrading a Power Supply (PSU)and Guide: Choosing a Power Supply (PSU)for more information.

Some low wattage cards such as the HD 7750 see so little wattage that running them on a 300w original power supply is acceptable.

Some computers ship with a higher wattage power supply and can safely skip to this guide as well.

This guide will be using a HP pavilion desktop

We have already upgraded the power supply in the previous guide.
Guide: Upgrading a Power Supply (PSU)

Locate the mechanism that holds the PCI slot covers in place, they may be held in place with an external clamp, or by internal screws.

Remove the PCI slot covers occupying spaces that will be used by the video card.
Some may be easy to remove replaceable covers and some may be weak metal that has to be removed.

Insert the video card into the appropriate slot and ensure that you pay attention to anything that may get in the way such as cables or the PCIe slot latch
If you want to remove a card you will need to use find this latch to unhook the card before removing it.

Most gaming grade video cards will need power directly from the power supply, the plug coming from the power supply will either be a 6 pin PCIe power cord, or a 6+2 pin PCIe power cord as shown

Some cards may need more than one PCIe power cord. This example needed two 6 pin cables, the +2 cable is not connected.
Also used was a 2x molex to PCIe adapter as the PSU only sported a single PCIe power cable.
Many video cards will include one or more of these adapters but it is recommended that you double check your wattages should you need to use it.

The video card is now installed, replace the side panel, start your computer, and install drivers either off the included CD, or off of AMD or Nvidia's website.