Video Card Recomendation

[Boozeman]

No, I'm not running any fancy PSU. My 12V rail has 15A if I read correctly.

Manufacturers do very conservative estimates, because they need to have all circumstances and possibillities covered. Real world is often different.
The E6600 is not a demanding CPU in terms of power. Nor are the vido cards I recommended. A state of the art quad core will draw twice the power of the E6600, an overclocked i7, which most hardware test sites run even more than that. That alone leaves enough room to operate an E6600 and a reasonable midrange GPU ( i.e. a 4670) with power to spare for what it takes to power an OC'd i7.   

As for the 6 pin connector, thats no big deal either. You can get adaptors for the normal 4-pin conncetors for a few bucks fifty. Everthing that draws more than the lowly 75W the PCIe port supplies will need the extra connector. That is no indicator for a particulary hungry video card. In fact the really demandig cards come with 2x 6pin, or even 1 8-pin and 1 6-pin soultions.     

Too bad that bmwgs already ordered the 9500GT. It's not a good match for his CPU, nor the PSU. Both could take more of a video card.



 

 

[Skuzzy]

You are making a lot of assumptions about power supplies that are not accurate.

Every power supply manufacturer has its own idea of what overhead they should or should not allow.  No one knows the exact number, except the manufacturer.  You can get an idea of the overhead by looking at the rated input current rating and the rated efficiency of the supply.  With that number reduced by around 20%, you have a good idea of what the static load the power supply will handle.  Keeping in mind that will not take into account the power up load, which is substantially higher fr a very brief period of time.

If you exceed 80% (varies actually, but typically it is 80%) load on any rail, according to the rating of the supply, and the power supply fails, taking out various components with it, the manufacturer is free to invalidate your warranty.

Bottomline:  It's not worth the risk.

[Boozeman]

Skuzzy, I agree that noone should run his in PSU or any rail to its max. rated power for various reasons.

However, in this case we are well below that. My PSU can deliver max. 180 W on the 12V rail, while my 3870 draws 110-120 W under load. Thats 60-66% of the rails capacity.

bmwgs PSUs 12V rail is rated at 216 W, and a 4850 will at max draw 140W under load. Thats again just 65% of the rails capacity.

The 9500 GT that has been recommended draws about 40-50 W under load. Thats 20-25% of the rails capacity. That is so little, that the PSU is not even running in it's best efficency range.

Compared to the 9500GT, the 4850 is on average almost 3 times faster.
bmwgs wanted the fastest card his system can handle. I think it can handle a 4850 just fine.
       

[Skuzzy]

You are talking about the static draw and are not considering power up surge.

15% overhead is not much overhead.  You cannot run a switching power supply passed about 80% of its rated capacity or you risk the power getting 'dirty'.  At 65% you are pretty much at the maximum you want to draw from the supply and still allow overhead for startup surge.

I was not addressing this particular system.  I was making some comments on what you had said.

[TheZohan]

i used to work for this company that would get PSU's from china and they basically just asked us what stickers you want on the PSU. i would beware of any no name brand  low priced PSU's as a caution. and i am not sure how many other companies do that

[bmwgs]

Received the new card today, and what an improvement.  The 9500 works better than the 7950 did.  If a single mid range video card improves the games this much, can't wait until I get the new rig from TilDeath.

Thanks BE and all for the recommendations.

Fred

[BaldEagl]

Glad to help and happy to hear you're satisfied with it.

[Fulmar]

A 7950 GT should easily out handle a 9500/8500.  I really think your PSU was not powerful enough for that 7950 and lowered its performance considerably and caused its early death.

[bmwgs]

A 7950 GT should easily out handle a 9500/8500.  I really think your PSU was not powerful enough for that 7950 and lowered its performance considerably and caused its early death.

No doubt.  Just shows how little I knew when I bought it.  Not that I know that much more now, but at least I'll post something on the forum and let others argue it out for me.   

I understand the 7950 should have been a better card, but to my old eyes this card seems to be better than the 7950.  I have a solid frame rate of 60 at any resolution, and the picture quality seems to be much superior.  My core temperature is around 41c on load with he other core being in the low to mid thirties.  The 7950 wasn't overheating but the temps. did run a bit higher.

Thanks again.

Fred

[BaldEagl]

A 7950 GT should easily out handle a 9500/8500. 

I'm not so sure about that.  Here's a side by side comparison of a 7950 and the exact 9500 that he bought (I've bolded the differences):

Chipset      
Chipset Manufacturer   NVIDIA   NVIDIA
GPU   GeForce 7950GT   GeForce 9500 GT
Core clock   565MHz(vs. 550MHz standard)   700MHz
PixelPipelines   24   32
Memory      
Memory Clock   1430MHz(vs. 1400MHz standard)   2000MHz
Memory Size   512MB   512MB
Memory Interface   256-bit   128-bit
Memory Type   GDDR3   GDDR3
3D API      
DirectX   DirectX 9   DirectX 10
OpenGL   OpenGL 2.0   OpenGL 2.1
Ports      
DVI   2   1
TV-Out   HDTV / S-Video Out   1
VIVO   No   1
General      
Tuner   None   
RAMDAC   400 MHz   400 MHz
Max Resolution   2560 x 1600   2560 x 1600
SLI Supported   Yes   Yes
Cooler   With Fan   With Fan

Granted the memory interface on the 7950 is a big advantage but that ASUS 9500 looks to be a screaming little card.

[Skuzzy]

Yes, but that 41% higher memory bandwidth of the 7950GT is going to make a huge difference in the performance.

[Krusty]

Not always just the clock cycles that tell what's faster. Can be a clue, yes, but 9500s are low-to-mid range cards, 7950s the top of the line (for their time). There are benefits there.

Manufacturer: nVidia
Series: GeForce 7
GPU: G71 
Release Date: 2006-09-06
Interface: PCI-E x16
Core Clock: 550 MHz
Memory Clock: 700 MHz (1400 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 44.8 GB/sec
Shader Operations: 13200 MOperations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 8800 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 13200 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations: 1100 MVertices/sec
Max Power Draw: 82 W
Noise Level: Moderate
Framebuffer: 256,512 MB
Memory Type: GDDR3
Memory Bus Type: 64x4 (256 bit)
DirectX Compliance: 9.0c
OpenGL Compliance: 2.0
PS/VS Version: 3.0/3.0
Process: 90 nm
Fragment Pipelines: 24
Vertex Pipelines: 8
Texture Units: 24
Raster Operators 16

versus:

Manufacturer: nVidia
Series: GeForce 9
GPU: G96 
Release Date: 2008-07-29
Interface: PCI-E 2.0 x16
Core Clock: 550 MHz
Shader Clock: 1400 MHz
Memory Clock: 800 MHz (1600 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 25.6 GB/sec
FLOPS: 134.4 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate: 4400 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 8800 MTexels/sec
Max Power Draw: 50 W
Noise Level: Moderate
Framebuffer: 128,256,512,1024 MB
Memory Type: GDDR3
Memory Bus Type: 64x2 (128 bit)
DirectX Compliance: 10.0
OpenGL Compliance: 2.1
PS/VS Version: 4.0/4.0
Process: 65 nm
Shader Processors: 32
Pipeline Layout: Scalar MADD+MUL
Texture Units: 16
Raster Operators 8


So the 7950 has significantly better memory bandwith, texture and pixel fill rates. The 9500 has more pipelines, but less processing units to USE said pipelines.

[BaldEagl]

I really wasn't expecting to see that large a difference in memory bandwidth.  I'm convinced.

[TheZohan]

for the money you got a good deal. the cost of replacing it with another 7950 wasnt worth it.  though someone on craigslist was selling one for 50.00 used