Lol I told her essentially the same thing in a PM but I should have put that info up here for all as well... didn't want to get too geeky up in here.
I will say though that bottlenecking is less of a problem the smaller (and lower rez) your screen is though and before it can even be an issue there is the point of size to consider. Many of the newer video cards are much longer than ever before (10+ inches is not uncommon) and many older cases will not fit them no matter what you do (short of rebuilding the system into a new case which I have done many times for people to accommodate new parts).
Assuming you can fit it the next concern is adequate power as a cheapo 350 watt PSU (or even a more powerful unit without the dedicated VC leads needed or enough amps on the 12v rail) will not be able to power a top of the line videocard or even many of the midrange cards depending what else you have in your system.
Then there is heat (especially an issue with newer Nvidia cards) and noise as a new card producing a lot more heat without adequate case cooling will cause all the fans to spin louder and create noise (that is if the fans are thermally aware... if they are not then the heat will just bake everything inside the tower or lead to CPU/GPU throttling and or crashes).
Assuming all that is not an issue in your case and the card fits and has adequate power and cooling then yeah you may be spending a good sized chunk of change and not seeing the performance increase you wanted due to other slow components holding your fast new videocard back. A couple generations between the old and new parts should be ok but the further apart they are the more of an issue it can be.
There is more but those are the key points.
WHAT WAS THAT???? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE
OF THIS JET ENGINE BUS I JUST STOLE.
I will say though that bottlenecking is less of a problem the smaller (and lower rez) your screen is though and before it can even be an issue there is the point of size to consider. Many of the newer video cards are much longer than ever before (10+ inches is not uncommon) and many older cases will not fit them no matter what you do (short of rebuilding the system into a new case which I have done many times for people to accommodate new parts).
Assuming you can fit it the next concern is adequate power as a cheapo 350 watt PSU (or even a more powerful unit without the dedicated VC leads needed or enough amps on the 12v rail) will not be able to power a top of the line videocard or even many of the midrange cards depending what else you have in your system.
Then there is heat (especially an issue with newer Nvidia cards) and noise as a new card producing a lot more heat without adequate case cooling will cause all the fans to spin louder and create noise (that is if the fans are thermally aware... if they are not then the heat will just bake everything inside the tower or lead to CPU/GPU throttling and or crashes).
Assuming all that is not an issue in your case and the card fits and has adequate power and cooling then yeah you may be spending a good sized chunk of change and not seeing the performance increase you wanted due to other slow components holding your fast new videocard back. A couple generations between the old and new parts should be ok but the further apart they are the more of an issue it can be.
There is more but those are the key points.
WHAT WAS THAT???? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE
OF THIS JET ENGINE BUS I JUST STOLE.
*Floors it*
WOHOOOOO!