Recommendations for video card running 470 watt PSU?

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docsavage20

Looking to upgrade from a GeForce 8600 GT for online FPS games. Running a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 470 ATX PSU on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L mobo, DVD drive, hard drive or two.

Looking for recommendations for the most video card (PCIe) I can run with this. Not too proud to go Ebay/used.

Thanks!
 
Looking to upgrade from a GeForce 8600 GT for online FPS games. Running a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 470 ATX PSU on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L mobo, DVD drive, hard drive or two.

Looking for recommendations for the most video card (PCIe) I can run with this. Not too proud to go Ebay/used.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ebay...looked like a chicken ranch between broods, nobody bothered to
clean the floor, last time I checked video. A roach stop.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-specifications-atx-reference,3061-12.html

You'll have to look at Tom's Turkey Shoot, assess what you have and
are doing, and how far you want to push it. Stick to one of the lower
tiers and do lots of research for advancements, at the top of that
tier, at what graphics were doing at the same time your motherboard
went out of date. That would be timed at around 500-watts' worth.
Or, don't do nothing, let them do it, catch a decent 600-750 watt PS
for $40, on rebate or sale, and drop some bucks on a vidboard.
Graphic cards, seriously, wouldn't be worthwhile looking at less than
$75/$100. For a gamer, though of course you are, that just might be
some mid-tier, $50 fun. Boils down to a $10-30 board rebated at
minimum/marginal performance, or taking a splurge for possibly $100
for both a PS and higher-rated video.

My idea of playing crap these days, though, is printing out a scifi
book on occasion for the mental sweet-tooth fairy.
 
Looking to upgrade from a GeForce 8600 GT for online FPS games. Running a
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 470 ATX PSU on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L mobo,
DVD drive, hard drive or two.

Looking for recommendations for the most video card (PCIe) I can run with this.
Not too proud to go Ebay/used.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

A very rough rule of thumb, is you can't use more of a video card,
than there are connectors on the power supply.

This is a spec for the Silencer 470. 12V @ 26A. One 2x3 PCI Express connector.

http://www.pcpower.com/downloads/specs_3824.pdf

You didn't state processor, so I'll use some round numbers.
Assume a 95W LGA775 quad. 95W/0.9eff * 1/12V = 8.8 amps.
Two hard drives at 0.6 amps each. One optical at 1.0 amps
when a CD is spinning. Allocation for cooling fans of 0.5 amps.
Total 12V amps so far 8.8+0.6+0.6+1.0+0.5= 11.5 amps

That means, of the 26 amps available, we're left with 14.5 amps.

If we look up a GTX 570, that uses two power connectors,
and a total of 2.6+8+8.8= 19.4 amps. So we're short by about
5 amps, and one PCI Express connector.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/geforce-gtx-570_4.html#sect0

If we drop down to a GTS 450, that uses one connector
for power and a total of 2.7+5.2=7.9 amps. And the article
shows other interesting cards such as GTX 460 we could check out.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/nvidia-geforce-gts-450_4.html#sect0

The GTX 460 1GB card uses two power connectors and the
amps on +12V are 2.3+6+3.4= 11.7 amps. That would be
getting pretty close to the 14.5 amp remaining limit. To make
the second power connector, we could try a four pin
Molex to 2x3 PCI Express connector, to supply the 3.4 amps
input. (I don't like adapters, and running the 6 amp
input off an adapter might be a mistake.)

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460_6.html#sect0

The GTX 460 768MB isn't that much less. Still two power
connectors and 1.6+2.2+6.2= 10 amps of 14.5 left.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/gigabyte-gv-n460oc-768i_4.html#sect0

So to avoid temptation, you could find a card with one
PCI Express connector, and chances are it will be OK.

Now, to work some total power numbers. We can check current
on 12V, but also need to estimate total power as well.
We'll use the GTS 450 at 7.9 amps. The processor and
drives were 11.5 amps. Total 12V amps is 19.4 amps.
12V * 19.4 amps = 232.8 W. Add in 5W per each hard drive,
7.5W for optical drive logic board, 50W for motherboard
chipset and RAM, 10W for USB loads, brings the total
estimate to 232.8+5+5+7.5+50+10=310.3W. The standard 50W
mobo allocation is probably too much, but the overall figure
is "comfortable" at 310W of 470W available. And the current
of 12V @ 19.4 amps of 26 amps available, leaves some room as well.
If you went with the GTX460 768MB at 10 amps, that's 2.1 amps
more than my worked estimate, so would add 2.1A*12V=25.2W
to the total, or 335.5 watts. Still doable, but would
require using a 1x4 Molex to 2x3 PCI Express adapter
to make a second connector. I'd plug that to the 2.2 amp
input power connector.

Xbitlabs used to be a good source of power numbers, but
they're getting lazy now, and doing "Anandtech style"
reviews. Which is a shame. When no power numbers are
available, I have to take the useless "estimates"
from pages here (estimate probably from Nvidia or ATI).
I much prefer measured values to estimates, as sometimes
the estimates are just too high for planning purposes.
Statistically, I'd need to measure a hundred video cards,
get a mean and standard deviation, to have useful data.
Measuring one card isn't very good (so my statistics professor
would tell me), but I happen to like it :-)

http://www.gpureview.com/videocards.php

Don't forget to check the benchmarks on the card you select.
The video card business is dishonest enough, that sometimes
a 2008 card can be faster than some cheap 2012 card. Nvidia
has rebranded some of their GPU chips, as many as three times,
so just because the "model number is higher", doesn't guarantee
a screamer of a card.

Good luck,
Paul
 
The GTX 460 1GB card uses two power connectors and the

amps on +12V are 2.3+6+3.4= 11.7 amps. That would be

getting pretty close to the 14.5 amp remaining limit. To make

the second power connector, we could try a four pin

Molex to 2x3 PCI Express connector, to supply the 3.4 amps

input. (I don't like adapters, and running the 6 amp

input off an adapter might be a mistake.)



http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/nvidia-geforce-gtx-460_6.html#sect0
Click to expand...


I appreciate the in-depth info. The GTX 450/460 look like they'd be within my rig's capacity, but I wonder about running a PCIe-2 card in a PCIe-1 slot. Seems like I'd be losing some of the capability of the card?
 
I appreciate the in-depth info. The GTX 450/460 look like they'd be within my rig's
capacity, but I wonder about running a PCIe-2 card in a PCIe-1 slot. Seems like I'd be
losing some of the capability of the card?
Click to expand...

This article is old now, but it tests with various lane-widths
on a PCI Express video card.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sli-coming,927-9.html

That page, shows SpecViewPerf results, which do have a
dependency on bandwidth. SpecViewPerf is some kind of CAD
benchmark, possibly using OpenGL. When I've run that once
here, it ran dog-slow on my gear. It was supposed to
resemble an animation, and it looked like a slide show
(2 FPS).

Their one game result in that article, on the next page,
uses hardly any slot bandwidth at all. They could have used
a few more games, when they tested.

If you have a slot wired x16, it probably doesn't make that
much difference whether it's Rev.1 or Rev.2. If your video
card has a fair amount of RAM on it, that can help too
(as sometimes, compressed textures can be stored for
an entire game level, in onboard RAM). The only time
going overboard with video card RAM isn't a big win, is if
you're stuck with a 32 bit OS (address space limits). If
you have a 64 bit OS, then the more the better.

If you do happen to find an article which is more modern
than the Toms article above, post back a link. I haven't really
seen a lot of review site interest in how much difference
the slot improvements make.

Paul
 
Looking to upgrade from a GeForce 8600 GT for online FPS games.

Looking for recommendations for the most video card (PCIe) I
Click to expand...

What CPU do you have? These can limit the performance of many games
no matter how fast your GPU is.
 
I appreciate the in-depth info. The GTX 450/460 look like they'd be within my rig's capacity, but I wonder about running a PCIe-2 card in a PCIe-1 slot. Seems like I'd be losing some of the capability of the card?
Click to expand...

might - although functional would be in first order. should be...
wiki...
without function you couldn't compare for the missing lion's share or
cat's meow.


PCI Express 2.1

PCI Express 2.1 supports a large proportion of the management,
support, and troubleshooting systems planned for full implementation
in PCI Express 3.0. However, the speed is the same as PCI Express 2.0.
Unfortunately, the increase in power from the slot breaks backward
compatibility between PCI Express 2.1 cards and some older
motherboards with 1.0/1.0a, but most motherboards with PCI Express 1.1
connectors are provided with a BIOS update by their manufacturers
through utilities to support backward compatibility of cards with PCIe
2.1.

after functional,
 
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