Last Friday after work I wandered over to a local computer shop and picked myself up a new video card. Back in my university day I used to keep my machine on the cutting edge of gaming technology, but since getting married and buying a house and a car it has been financially impossible to drop the kind of money needed to keep even relatively up to date.

Of course, as a WoW addict it didn't really matter - the game runs on a toaster after all - but now that I'm between MMOs and back into single player games, I was starting to feel the age of my machine. Before making the trip to the computer store I did my homework and determined that a new video card would give me the best improvement for my money, and that the ASUS GTX 260 was the best price point at this time.

The ASUS GTX 260

I got home, cracked open my case, ripped out the old video card, opened up the nice shiny ASUS box...... and then my jaw hit the floor. While I had heard that video cards had increased in size, I was completely unprepared for the monstrosity that is the GTX 260; while the card is normal height, it weighs in at a staggering 10.5 inches long and two inches wide. Feebly I positioned the card above the freshly vacated slot and my joy turned to dust as the card clanked against the frame of my case - there was no way this beast of a video card was fitting into the computer.

So, today I trundled back to the computer shop, this time carrying my entire system and the oversized video card. By the sly gleam in the service technician's eye when plunked the machine down on the counter I could tell that he knew exactly what the problem was - I'm sure it is a common ailment. After discussing the sizing issue with the tech it was clear that my only option was to upgrade my case, and while I was at it I sprung for a new power supply to make sure the GTX 260 wouldn't starve.

The new box will be ready by the end of the day...... hopefully she'll be worth it!