Looking for new vid card

[pkm masta]

I am looking at new video cards. I have a 375 Watt Power supply. I know that a lot of cards have minimums set in the 400's just wondering if my psu can handle any of these. If you have any suggestions about any cards, they are welcome.

[davelisowski]

Re: Looking for new vid card

Most of the high-end GPUs require additional power (need a 5 pin power connector available), which means a 450W PSU minimum. 6800XT says it only need 300W PSU, but that's an old card. 7900 GTX requires 400W PSU. X850XT requires 350W PSU. I don't really keep track of ATI cards. I use nVidia myself.

The PSU is really for stability. You could risk running with insufficient power, but that can damage things. I wouldn't recommend using anything less than the minimum.

I'm using a 6600GT because of lack of $ and a strong PSU. So far it works fine, with everything on high (except shadows: off, and light: low). Draw distance 100%. 3GB of RAM helps take the load off of the GPU.

:edit: I typically buy the mid-range video cards because the high-end ones cost so much, aren't that big of a boost, and GPUs are obsolete so quickly (sometimes less than 1 year) that I can't justify spending the extra $ on one.

Maybe move this to the Tech. Support forum. More people will respond there I believe.

[pYura]

Re: Looking for new vid card

I am looking at new video cards. I have a 375 Watt Power supply. I know that a lot of cards have minimums set in the 400's just wondering if my psu can handle any of these. If you have any suggestions about any cards, they are welcome.

7900GT non SLI. I have 7900GT 512MB and 380W PSU. Works great.

[venny]

Re: Looking for new vid card

i recommend a new psu too. u might get lots of crashes with your new gpu becos of insufficient power.

[imported_MrWobbles]

Re: Looking for new vid card

i have a 500W PSU, i think, but im running a 7600GT just fine, and it was $140, cant beat that http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ice=&maxPrice=

[Jofaba]

Re: Looking for new vid card

you didnt mention if you're agp or pci-e. I have an X850XT PE for sale if you're interested. It's AGP and about $150.

[pkm masta]

Re: Looking for new vid card

using pcie

I saw on some site they did wattage tests for the 7900 gtx, 7900gt, and 7600gt and with the gtx the computer used 360 watts. I've heard something about dual rail on the psu does anyone know what this is?

[StevenNevets]

Re: Looking for new vid card

Heres what you're looking for then

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130283

You can run it, just not in SLI

[imported_MrWobbles]

Re: Looking for new vid card

i always wondered, do you need a special psu to run sli, and if so what do they have that other psu's dont?

[scrogathon]

Re: Looking for new vid card

more connecters and usually dual 12 volt rails.

[Bucknasty]

Re: Looking for new vid card

i have a x850xt pe pcie and although it says 350w, it needs more than that esp if u plan on planning for several hours
so i would upgrade to be on the "safe" side

[pkm masta]

Re: Looking for new vid card

Just bumping the thread. I would like some more responses.

[Drexor69]

Re: Looking for new vid card

I see a lot of speculation about power supplies in the earlier comments. Thing is it's not quite as simple as saying "My 380 watt PS works fine so you should be good". Different companies rate their power supplies differently.

Wattage isn't as important as the number of amps on the 12v rail because that's what the video card uses. You need to have at least one rail that's 20 amps or higher for the newer cards, prefferably you'd get a supply with dual 12v rails with at least 16 amps each (so your CPU and GPU aren't drawing from the same rail)

Best bang for the buck right now IMO is one various of the 7900GT's, they are easily overclockable and not unreasonably priced.

[firezip]

Re: Looking for new vid card

I have a 40 dollar 430watt ThermalTake. It doesn't have dual 12v rails.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153023

[Drexor69]

Re: Looking for new vid card

Umm, yeah, that's a sketchy power supply. Only 18 amps on the 12v rail but 30 amps on the 3.3 and 5v rails. Unless you're planning on power a bunch of fans (and not much else) this is not a good power supply...

Here's how it breaks down:

Amps * Volts = watts. Do that for each rail and add them together to get total wattage rating. That being said, the power supply isn't rated to actually run at peak capacity on all rails simutaneously so actual rating is somewhere below that theoretical peak depending on what temperature the power supply was rated at (temperature also plays a big role in how they rate power supplies).

It's easier and cheaper to put more amperage on the low voltage rails so they do that and cheap out on the 12v rail. That allows them to market the power supply in such a way as to sound like you're getting a good deal (you're not) for cheap (it is cheap).

15 amps is more than enough for any modern system on those rails (3.3 and 5).

In reality you probably need a minimum of 20 amps on the 12v rail for a modern CPU and video card. For any sort of SLI or Crossfire you're going to need to have multiple 12v rails for best results.