First off, it's been about 7 years since I was inside a desktop.

So, in a great display of ignorance, is this one of those new fangled PCI-E sockets?

If so, could any one suggest a half decent card (512 or over) for sub £100?

The onboard graphics aren't that great for watching fillums.

Yes, thats a PCI/E slot.

Most onboard graphics though are perfectly capable of playing films, have you updated the drivers to the latest version.

For £100 you wont get anything much better than the onboard graphics. To get anything decent you need to double your budget and also factor a new PSU at the same time.

Cheers!

Right then, I won't bother upgrading for a minute or two.

That's a PCIe x16 connector and probably also wired for x16 lanes.

It may be PCIe 1.1a or 2.0

A 8600GTS £40 offboard graphics card with a section dedicated to MPEG2 acceleration should stuff most older onboard items, however most newer onboard cards have this feature now.

What are the onboard graphics or the chipset?

I would disagree with Manny actually...

Check this guide out and just get the best you can afford.

Onboard is 256MB nVidia GeForce 7050MB.

No impressed with it really, and neither is Vista!

Is that 256MB borrowed from system memory, if so that is why it chugs.

Just go get a mid range or high end card from one of the previous generation of NVidia graphics cards (I only say this as you don't get any odd NV/ATI issues as you can when running both) for about £40 then go have fun.

As manny said though, before you do that make sure you do have the NVidia drivers from their website.

For just over £100 you could get This

Great if you play the odd game or have a high res monitor. But might be overkill if you don't.

I've arrived back from PC World (I know, but they've got a sale on). I picked up a PNY GeForce 8500GT for the princely sum of £42.

It's a much improved display! Well worth buying.

For just over £100 you could get This

Great if you play the odd game or have a high res monitor. But might be overkill if you don't.

I've got one of these and they're fantastic. Coupled with a Quad core at 3.2ghz and 3gb memory, HD films and games at max res are no probs.