DX10 Card Power Requirements / Recommendations

[Syd]

Fairly simple question - I think.

Will a 500W Seasonic PSU (bout 14 months old) be ample to run the following

AMD 4800+ 939
2GB Ram
3 x HD
DX10 Graphics card

(rest of spec is in sig)

Just thinking that a card will be the next upgrade, the 1800 is really pushed/unplayable at native res 1920x1200 - fortunatley I mainly play WoW atm

What do you reckon on the PSU ?

and what card would you recommend ?

[shaithis]

That's pushing it a bit IMO.

I had to upgrade my PSU from a 580w yesterday after getting power-related issues since installing an 8800GTX.

I have more devices in my system but then I also had an extra 80w to play with.

Upgraded to a 730w and not getting any power-on issues anymore.

As for what card......with WoW I can run 2560x1600 2xAA @ 60FPS (running 2xAA due to a known issue with WoW and the 8800 series causing crashes in new zones, seems a work around for now is 2xAA), the only time it dips below that is near certain braziers, hunter frost trap effects etc

[tigerboyce]

Well the only DX10 card out is the Nvidia 8 series that comes in three differnt sizes now: 768mb, 640mb, 320mb that varies from around £200 to £400+

And i think that PSU may work im not sure but i think going for a higher wattage like a Hiper 580w is a safer bet

[Syd]

Thanks for those thoughts guys.

Shaithis - nice to see you are still WoW'ing and spearheading the ultimate WoW gaming rig crusade
I bet that 30" Dell looks incredible, was it worth the upgrade from the 24?

[shaithis]

It does look superb on the 30" and there is a very noticeable difference between running it at 1920x1200 (which I had to with my x1950XTX) and the monitors native resolution.

It also took me a few weeks to adjust to the beast as well, it is huge.

It still looked spanking on the 2405 though

[GSte]

You could try this:

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

[kalniel]

Wattage unfortunately has little to do with it. You need a good ampage on the rails supplying the card - at least 20A on the direct rail and greater than 38A combined would be my estimate for the lowest range.

[DratUK]

Wattage unfortunately has little to do with it. You need a good ampage on the rails supplying the card - at least 20A on the direct rail and greater than 38A combined would be my estimate for the lowest range.

He's spot on, this has little to do with wattage, the 12 volt line supplies to the vid card cpu and 4/8 aux lines. Hence the amperage and efficiency are the most important aspects. Seasonic have as good a reputaion as any. Which particular model do you have. Checking the Seasonic website the S12 500 Watt shows 17 amps on 12 v1 and 16 amps on the 12 volt 2 line 33 amps total.
To run the rest of your rig and I assume you would want to go for the GTX to get the best out of that monitor I would suggest something along the lines of a Corsair HX 600 or a 650W Silverstone ST65ZF both are good PSU.

[Flewis]

PSU's also deteriorate over time, roughly 10-15% in a year. So that 500W PSU is no longer producing 500W, probably more like 430W or less. I would say that you definitely need an upgrade if u want an 8800.

[Syd]

He's spot on, this has little to do with wattage, the 12 volt line supplies to the vid card cpu and 4/8 aux lines. Hence the amperage and efficiency are the most important aspects. Seasonic have as good a reputaion as any. Which particular model do you have. Checking the Seasonic website the S12 500 Watt shows 17 amps on 12 v1 and 16 amps on the 12 volt 2 line 33 amps total.
To run the rest of your rig and I assume you would want to go for the GTX to get the best out of that monitor I would suggest something along the lines of a Corsair HX 600 or a 650W Silverstone ST65ZF both are good PSU.

Thanks for that Drat, what are you playing atm and how does your system fare at native res?

[DratUK]

Hi
BF2, COD2, Supreme Commander and HL2.

I've had the Dell for a month now and I gotta say it has made a diff to my gaming, pin sharp a better "natural" perspective of peripheral movement.
Frame rate wise with my current rig there is no drop in frames with all the above games at 1920 x 1200. FEAR minimum was 47 ave 113 with everything full on. To get the best outa the games with this monitor and above the GTX has been a dream.

[[R4A]Bigman]

It's amazing quite how much you can get out of PSUs.

My friend has just bought a 8800GTS, has it in an overclocked Core2Duo E6400 system with three hard drives and an optical drive. Also has lots of cathodes and fans (so plenty powerific).

His Hiper 350W psu I told him would definitely not work in that system, but some how it does. We have tried a 450W (cheap) psu which booted one in four and a 530W Antec which wouldn't even boot. I suspect the Antec wouldn't boot as it didn't have a proper PCI-Ex connector.

We jammed a watt-meter on the computer and at absolute full load (i.e. both cores + graphics working) it draws just over 200W from the mains. Still, I reckon its probably just about on the limit of what the psu can handle.

Obviously the 8800GTX is going to take more juice to get it going, and (as said before) you need to be looking at the amps on the 12V lines. I'd imagine you are looking for 18-20A per 12V rail (i.e. 36-40A total) for your whole system.

Definitely stick with good names in power supplies - its not worth having a cheap one.

Antec, FSP, Hiper, Seasonic and Tagan all worth a good look.

[silentvoice]

PSU's also deteriorate over time, roughly 10-15% in a year. So that 500W PSU is no longer producing 500W, probably more like 430W or less.

The seems high. I know components degrade over time but I didn't realise by that much!

Take the Corsair 620W powers supply. It comes with a 5 year warranty so worst case scenario (15% deterioration per year):

0 years: 620W
1 year: 527W
2 years: 448W
3 years: 381W
4 years: 323W
5 years: 275W

So you end up with only 275W! That can't be right. lol

Can someone clarify this?

[Hottentot]

Brand name PSUs won't degrade 10-15% a year, maybe in five years they would. The real PSU degrader is overheating and if your mains supply is poor quality, the spikes your PSU has to even out.

[Vroomparrot]

You could always go to various suppliers, tell them your spec and ask for their recommendations on psu's, or whether the one you are looking at will be good enough. If they don't know, or you get no reply, they're probably not worth dealing with.

If you then find it wasn't up to it you can always go back to them and say you bought it on their advice - any decent supplier should take it back.

[Blitzen]

Well the only DX10 card out is the Nvidia 8 series that comes in three differnt sizes now: 768mb, 640mb, 320mb that varies from around £200 to £400+

And i think that PSU may work im not sure but i think going for a higher wattage like a Hiper 580w is a safer bet

You are joking right?
I wouldnt let a Hiper anywhere near a high-end card.
Thats very bad advice.

(and your sig is very irritating can either you or a MOD turn it off)

Some of the other posts here are really confusing also, and very wide of the truth.
For some reason, alot of people think that you need an enormous PSU to run the 800's. Unless they are going to be used in SLI its just a myth.

A good brand like Seasonic/Enermax/Corsair/Silverstone/OCZ with 500W+ and 12v=38A+ is more than enough for these systems.

The guess work and scare-mongering doesnt help anymore tbph.