Okay so I have an HP Pavillion P7-1003w. It has a ATI Radeon 4200 integrated graphics card and within the last 3 months I have purchases an NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 PCIx16 graphics card with hopes of making games run better. Apparently It hasn't done much so I would like to know, what do the people think?

 

The quad core you have is the more basic Athlon kind, which may not be doing you any favors, but is OK. The 430 isn't that much of an upgrade from the 4200, I hate to say, and that 250w power supply isn't helping at all (most 430 cards recommend 300w minimum).

I'd make two recommendations. One, buy a more powerful power supply. Depending on how serious you want to get, at least 500w. That will handle most mid-range or below graphics cards fine. Two, if you are going to get a little more serious with games, return the 430 and spend a little extra. A 550 series card or greater would be the ticket (or a newer 650 or greater series card if you want something a little newer). I have a 560 Ti right now, about a year old. While it is not freaky-fantastic, it does the job quite well. With the 560s getting cheaper now that the 6xx cards are out, I have been debating whether to get a 6xx series card to replace it, or doing dual 560 Tis.