New graghics card

[Westlo]

First of all thanks for the advice, anyway my PSU is 450W but it doesn't have a 6pin PCI Express connector, would the Sapphire come with a 6 pin adapter? What would you recommend aside from the Sapphire 4850 that would work well with my current system for interests sake?

[Westlo]

Just to update I went to go buy a 4850 today but they were out of stock so I ordered it in, picked up 2 gig of ram as well and I'm getting a 60W power supply with the 4850. I'll upgrade the processor/motherboard next when a few games I want to play are nearing release.

[Ioriya]

Originally Posted by Craymel

Okay, here's the deal. My Nvidia Geforce 5500 has gone and died for some reason. So I thought If I was gonna replace it, might as well get something better. I have a few questions though. I like to watch fansubs in the highest quality possible. So I usually get 720p fansubs if available. Playback was never exactly smooth with my graphics card. If there were hundreds of tiny details on screen it would lag and become out of synch till it was over. My desktop is 2 years old.

3.00 GHz pentium 4 processor
512 Mb of memory
graphics card nividia geforce(R.I.P.)
Don't know what the other video card on the desktop is, but it is not as good as the dead one was.
OS Ubuntu 8.04

My question is can a good graphics card improve playback of 720p fansubs. Would I possibly be able to play it back with no lag what so ever?

Just so u know, from what i hear, 5500s had cooling issues. Specifically with the fan, because after a while the lubricant that keeps the fan going dries up and this causes the fan to stop. Once this happens the GPU burns out and ur left with a dead card.

This happened to my FX5500, all i need to do was get some motor oil and detach the fan to apply it... but it was too late.

[Furuno]

Originally Posted by Westlo

First of all thanks for the advice, anyway my PSU is 450W but it doesn't have a 6pin PCI Express connector, would the Sapphire come with a 6 pin adapter? What would you recommend aside from the Sapphire 4850 that would work well with my current system for interests sake?

Yes, most of high-end graphic card use a (not too) lot of power because of their high performance. Because of the PCI-Express can only deliver 75 W of max power and the card require more than that, the card will have an additional 6-pin or 8-pin power connector(s) to provide adequate power for the card. In this case, all 4850 cards would needs one 6-pin power connector, however the lower series card (X4XX or X6XX series) don't need that much amount of power, so the connector is absent on them. On another side, more powerful card, such as 4870X2 use two 6-pin power connectors.

Another note, something to be considered when buying a power supply. I found out that there's many people getting paranoid about how much they system use power and get themself an overkill PSU. An overkill PSU usually will just only add more dollars to your electricity bill. This is because a power supply works at their best efficiency at somewhere nearing their maximum sustainable (not peak) power. In simple words, if your systems only use 200 W (like mine), it's useless if you use 500 W (I'm using 380W, the smallest available with cheapest and better quality ). You can check your power requirement with a lot of online PSU calc on the web. Like this one.

So, umm... I guess we're kinda derailed from the main purpose of this thread. Let's go back...

So, what's about you now, Craymel-san?

[Kurz]

Furuno your comment:
"An overkill PSU usually will just only add more dollars to your electricity bill."

is completely false.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story2&reid=94

Power supplies are usually efficient unless you stress them.
It doesn't cost you more money in terms of electrical bills, if you get a higher capacity powersupply.

You can get a 500W for your setup.

I find its better to be in the use about 50% of your power supply's output
1. To be on the safe side.
2. Future expansion.
3. Less heat dump since the PSU is designed for more draw.
4. Speaking of heat dump, less heat = less fan noise.
5. If you want to make sure you system is 100% stable with system voltages,
its better to be around 50% of designed draw. There is less noise in the signal.
A more stable signal can mean longer living components.

If you want gaming power, Many drives, fans, its generally better to get a bigger power supply.

Don't go cheap on a power supply, go to johnyguru.com they have some of the best reviews around for powersupplies.

[hobbes_fan]

PSU's only draw what they need. It's at low loads where the PSU's become inefficient. So ideally you want something that is at least 70%+ if not 80%+ certified efficient. So it doesn't add anything to your power bill, at least nothing considerable maybe $1 per month at low load 24/7 . What the problem is - is you will end up spending $3-400 instead of $80 - $100. A PSU capable of a constant (NOT PEAK) 500w and around 30amps on the 12v rails covers nearly all single video card PC configurations with room to spare. YOu're looking at 600w-750w for your average high end xfire/sli system.

[Lelouch]

The graphics card in theory should come with an adapter that attaches to a molex connecter from your PSU to the graphics card's 6pin.

Review of the card: http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/ind...1&limitstart=2

bottom photo shows a power connecter on the left of the photo.

[Furuno]

@ Kurz :
What I mean here is already stated partially by hobbes_fan. A PSU is not running at their maximum efficiency under low load. So, it'd be wasted if you use 500 W PSU when your system only needs 200 W or so. However, I'd agree that you shouldn't go with unknown PSU, that'd be bad for your systems. Get a PSU with great performance, and name brand with nice reviews.

Don't mind my PSU by the way, It's something from the case, I'm too cheap to buy something like Thermaltake, Antec, FSP, etc... Well, mine's a good PSU anyway ,78% efficiency and nice amps on the rail...