Feeding my new card

[Loud_Silence]

I'm thinking about buying a new graphics card to replace my 8600GT. It's very good, but its starting to give me problems with games like ArmA 2 and Crysis.
I've been looking on stores around here and card specs on the internet, and i've found a nVidia GeForce 9600GT for 100€ (some 140$ USD). Wiki says its a bit faster than the GeForce 9800GT, and its cheaper, so i think i'll buy that.
But i have a 410W power source and i don't know if that would be enough. I don't have any power problens right now.

[AVGWarhawk]

See what amps the card requires to run. Purchase a power supply that can push the amount of amps the card is asking for.

[Loud_Silence]

The store website only shows the watts needed.
This is the card on ASUS website:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=uaHqwtnkmltVBl1o&templete=2
And this is the card's page on the store's website (in spanish):
http://www.alternate.es/html/product/details.html?artno=JCXVJ1&showTechData=true#tecData

[AVGWarhawk]

I have found that you need 400w in the 26 amp neighborhood. So, you just might be fine with what you got for a PSU. Can you crack open you case and see the specs on you PSU? The specs sticker is usually positioned so you can see it.

[Task Force]

I myself would get a better psu for the future.:yep:

so whats the max you would want to pay for a GPU, and whats your other system specs.

also look at the cards realiability reports and stuff.

I myself use newegg, good to read user reviews.

[Loud_Silence]

The PSU sticker reads this:
+3.3v -> 22A
+5v -> 21A
+12v(1) -> 14A
+12v(2) -> 13A
-12v -> 0.6A
+5sb -> 2.5A

System specs:
ASUS M2A-VM;
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+, 2.5ghz;
nVidia GeForce 8600GT 512MB DDR2 (ASUS EN8600GT MAGIC);
4GB DDR2-667;
Hitachi HDS725050KLA360 (500 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II);
SONY DVD RW DRU-810A;

[SteveW1]

The PSU sticker reads this:
+3.3v -> 22A
+5v -> 21A
+12v(1) -> 14A <--------
+12v(2) -> 13A <--------
-12v -> 0.6A
+5sb -> 2.5A

System specs:
ASUS M2A-VM;
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+, 2.5ghz;
nVidia GeForce 8600GT 512MB DDR2 (ASUS EN8600GT MAGIC);
4GB DDR2-667;
Hitachi HDS725050KLA360 (500 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II);
SONY DVD RW DRU-810A;


Looking at what you have written about your PSU the 2 I have put arrows beside are what graphics cards these days are using for power. I would recommend looking for a PSU where those 2 values are around the 18+ amp area, I use an ATI HD 3850 graphics card and the PSU I use for it is a Vantec ION 2 450 watt with 20 amp on the 12volt rails. This was about the smallest PSU that was recommended for my card.

I hope this helps in some way.

Steve

[Loud_Silence]

I found this PSU on the same store. Its quite cheap and i think its from a decent company.
http://www.alternate.es/html/product/details.html?artno=TN5VZ4&showTechData=true#tecData

[SteveW1]

Doesn't seem to be all that bad looks like it has all the connectors you will need and more than enough amps on the 12 volt rails. I'm not sure as to the Dollar value of it as i'm in Australia and I think that's in Euros?

Steve

[SUBMAN1]

PSU - minimum 30 Amps total on the +12. I'd recommend at least 40 Amps though. This will give you the option of possibly having enough power to run dual vid cards at some point in the future.

-S

[AVGWarhawk]

In a pinch and money lacking...what he has selected will do just nicely. :03:

[Arclight]

I'm not so sure. A PSU isn't something you want to save money on, especially if you're gonna plug in a relatively demanding graphics card. My brothers PC started falling appart not long after putting in a new card while still running a crappy PSU. His HD was first to go, soon followed by DVD drive. :nope:

[Loud_Silence]

I don't have my eyes on dual cards. I could do that somewhere in the future, when i have a lot of money to spend. Anyway i need a new MB to do that because this one only has one PCIe.
Anyway, 40amps??? A standard car batterie here gives out less amps!

55 euros are 75$USD

[AVGWarhawk]

Yes, plenty. Do yourself a favor. Read review on the model you are looking at. I always read user reviews. They are the one best indicator in finding out if the product is good or a pile of crap. :up:

[Loud_Silence]

Newegg says the card is pretty good. But it's funny because i found a complain about the size of the card, and that can give me problems. The card will fit inside my case, but barely...
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e375/Loud_Sil3nc3/PICT0003.jpg
Sorry for the bad quality of the pic

To the right you can see the main SATA drive and my backup IDE drive behind the black cable. There are also some electronic components on the MB that the card is gonna miss by the thickness of a hair.
My english sucks...

[Task Force]

Whats your case.

[Loud_Silence]

Whats your case.
No idea:D
Its more than five years old, but anyway is ATX (the MB is uATX). Sometimes i wonder why there are standards...

[Task Force]

ever though about a ew case.:hmmm:

[Loud_Silence]

ever though about a ew case.:hmmm:
Man thats another 100 euros minimum!

[Castout]

If I were you I would go for 9800GTX+ instead of 9600GT . . .I used to use 8600GT too before I switched to 9800GTX+. 8600GT was enough but with games like Empire Total War coming then I decided to get 9800GTX+. However you definitely going to need a new PSU if you buy 9800GTX+ imo.

And yes 9800GTX+ is more expensive than 9600GT but you are going to use your GPU often and for quite some time so you might as well delay your buy and get something better than 9600GT. At the minimum if you're a gamer you should get 9800GTX+ imo or 4870. if you think hey that some euros more expensive than 9600GT try to spread those money value over the period you expect to use your GPU and think about how long you're going to stick with it.

You could expect that a good enough GPU to give you about 3 years of service before they become overwhelmed by newer games. A very good GPU(Read the most expensive ones) could give you about 5 years or a maximum 6 years of service before they become outdated however their price tag usually don't justify buying them unless you have extra cash to burn and in 3 years they would have lost their cutting edge performance anyway. Can you see yourself using 9600GT for a foreseeable future? Like 2 to 3 years ahead from now? if you can then go ahead buy it. However if you can't then it would be a waste of money buying it.

I don't mean to preach I'm just saying that you would be better off in the long term by delaying your buy and pick something better.

My 9800GTX+ fits tightly to my casing I had to remove my HDD and placed it in other slot to get the card to fit.

[Loud_Silence]

I can't spend a lot of money right now. I don't even know if i'll be able to buy a new case (100€ minimum), a new PS (50€ minumum) and the card (100€) right now...

[AVGWarhawk]

Get your card and PSU, jam it in there and have fun. :up:

[Castout]

Or you can delay that buy for a couple months. Imo worth the pain of waiting. But it's all up to you of course.

As far as I know the 8600GT and 9600GT use the same chips only that 9600GT is clocked higher than 8600GT so I wouldn't expect to see substantial gain in performance from your current condition.

Cheers!;)

[FIREWALL]

I just looked at TigerDirect.com and saw 3 or 4 cases with 450 watt psu starting at $39.99 on up.

There's bundle deals like that all over.

[Loud_Silence]

Or you can delay that buy for a couple months. Imo worth the pain of waiting. But it's all up to you of course.

As far as I know the 8600GT and 9600GT use the same chips only that 9600GT is clocked higher than 8600GT so I wouldn't expect to see substantial gain in performance from your current condition.

Cheers!;)

The basic 9600GT is clocked higher than the basic 8800GT. The core clock is not much faster than the 8600, but the shader cock is almost 50% faster and the memory clock is twice as fast. Plus, the 8600 has a 128 bit bus, the 9600 is 256.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units#GeF orce_8_.288xxx.29_series