X1950Pro vs X1950XT - noise and power

I was just about to click buy, then I thought I should really consult with the people of Hexus to see what they have to say.

I'd like my computer to be reasonably quiet, and the graphics cards to preferable vent out the back of the case to avoid cooking the rest of my computer. So I lined up either a HIS X1950 Pro or a Sapphire X1950XT. Now I'm not really sure of the noise level of the XT but it is a good card for the price.

Then I thought to myself: "Chuff, am I going to be able to power either of them?"

I've got a 430W Antec PSU (2*16A 12V rails) which from what I can find seems to be borderline. It's only powering an X2 3800+ EE, 2*1Gb 1 sata hdd, 1 dvd-rw, floppy and PCI wireless card so the overall system load shouldn't be too bad (no overclocking), but it'd be shame to spend over £100 and have nothing working. The problem is that I can't really justify spending the extra £80 on a new PSU :(

Should I play it safe and stick with the X1950Pro, or is that still going to be too much load? And how do the 7900GS's compare for power requirements if the X1950's are out of my league? They seem to be the same price for slightly lower performance and mostly noisy looking coolers.

Cheers!

According to the latest CPC:

X1950XT = around 289W max
X1950Pro = around 233W max
7900GS = around 187W max

In terms of performance XT > Pro > GS.

What games / resolution will you be using?

I found someone here claiming the X1950pro uses 70W and the X1950XT using 120W. Considering you don't have much in the system I reckon you should be fine with either, but the X1950pro wouldn't be any problems at all.
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache...nk&cd=20&gl=uk

Up to 1280 x 1024 go with the Sapphire X1950Pro Ultimate.

Anything higher and I'd get the Sapphire X1950XT and fit it with Zalman VF900-CU.

The x1950pro will run no probs on your system. The x1950xt should be okay too.

I've got a x1900xt running on mine with a 465w PSU and I have to say Im a little worried it might struggle as I'd like to try overclocking my CPU at some stage.

The problem with both of these cards is unfortunately that while their overall power draw isn't excessive, the draw from the seperate power cable is very high. This leads to some odd power requirements and systems with dual rails can often struggle.

There have been odd reports of blank screens with x1950pros, but I think that was with early revisions - the ultimate edition or the new reversed direction cooler from sapphire has probably eliminated them.

As far as noise.. I have to say despite the inelegant solution, the 1950xt is pretty quiet. Admittedly it's noisy as hell when it cranks up.. but it never really does crank up in my system. It smoothly increases so that you can hear something, but it's not annoying. This seems to be because they've set the temperatures when the fan cuts in very high - my card runs around 80C a lot of the time, perhaps higher.

Cheers guys.

I'm currently on 1280x1024, but hoping to get a 1680x1050 20/22" screen once a couple of paycheques have come in. Got 2 month of summer to kill before my job starts so wanted to get back into gaming.

Thanks for the 1950XT noise info kalniel, sounds like it should be nice and quiet when it's idle which is what really matters. There's vivo on both the cards I picked out as well which is a nice bonus (Wii :)).

Not sure about the Zalman coolers, can always get one later but I think I'd need to fit a front fan and crank up my rear fan from minimum to get enough air flow through the case to move the hot air.

Think I'll go for the XT, ebuyer doesn't state any power requirements so if it doesn't work I can always try sending it back...

can back up kalniel's comment about the noise - at desktop it's perfectly acceptable and it does blow out the back, regardless of what everyone says about that cooler.