Quick GFX card advice needed

[Bounty]

Right now I have a Geforce G100 which is a tarted up 8500 GT. I can get a Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 (the DDR2 model) for the cost of shipping. Should I go for it or not bother? Google says the Radeon is a bit better but I am not good with this numbercrunching crap.

[Mr Bean]

Figure about a 15% performance increase, a proper 8800 would beat it but as it's under a 9600 then yes a 4650 beats my 9600 I have in my mothers computer in the few informal tests I ran.

[Joviwan]

and the 4650 is probably better on power consumption, which is something I assume only because my last two radeon cards have been better than comparable nVidia's in terms of power consumption.

[Bounty]

Cool. I know it's a small step up but hey, $9 for a $60 card that costs $90 in retail here...

[Bounty]

Last question: I have a free PCI-e 2.0 slot, the card is PCI-e 2.0. Is there anything else I need to look out for? Do these things come in different sizes?

[Zixinus]

Check whether its x16 PCI slot (it should be longer than a regular PCI and have hook-thingy that is supposed to hold the card) and not a 4x or 2x PCI-express slot. Though, if you have those, chances are that you have at least one slot for a pci-e card.

The other thing to check is power supplies. This caused me quite a headache once I got my 4850. You need at least a 450W power supply and here's the thing: don't buy cheap. In fact, I recommend Corsair brand (I have a 550 VX) and but really, I would suggest very careful research on the subject if you need a new one, otherwise you might end up with a fried computer.

[Haruko]

Yes, get a Corsair. Something in the 400 to 500 watt range is good. What matters more than the watts is the quality, and Corsair delivers at a decent price at Newegg.com.

If you have never installed a power supply before, do what I did and read up on how to do so online, and even print out one of the more useful and easy-to-understand guides. If you are too uncomfortable doing it yourself, see if you can find a local computer repair guy (or friend) who can do it for cheap (or perhaps free, in the case of the friend), because if you have to use a service like Geek Squad or whatever Staples has, I think they're going to rip you off so bad for something that only takes a few minutes (mostly because you have to work a mess of wires). Besides the obvious tips that a good guide will give you (such as unplugging everything in your computer and turning off the power supply before messing with anything inside), one thing I somehow learned to do while taking an computer repair ROTC class in high school is to rub the outside of the computer tower frequently. In this case, the karma would be very real. Of course, there's laying your hands on the old power supply itself to discharge electricity.

I never installed a power supply before the Corsair one for my new computer this year, but I managed to do it myself in under ten minutes (most of the time because of my extreme caution, but also because it took awhile to figure out that some of the power supply connections can be split, allowing me to plug in a necessary 4-pin connection on the mother board (can't remember its purpose, only that it's necessary)). I know I needed to get this new power supply because the GTX 260 I bought would be too much for my crap 580 watt XION power supply to handle. But, in fact, the XION only had to handle my much weaker ATI Radeon HD 4550 512MB, and it still managed to crash my shiny brand new computer while I was performing BASIC TASKS (such as web browsing, for fuck's sake). (Since the new power supply, my computer has never crashed.)

Anyways, look, here's that Corsair 550 VX I use, and that Zixius recommended above, available at Amazon.com RIGHT NOW for $90 with FREE shipping:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139004

And then there's the rebate. I got my rebate within a month.

[Haruko]

Last question: I have a free PCI-e 2.0 slot, the card is PCI-e 2.0. Is there anything else I need to look out for? Do these things come in different sizes?

I don't think there's anything more to wonder about, because, to the best of my knowledge, there is only PCI-e 2.0, not PCI-e 2.0 x4, PCI-e 2.0 x8 etc. Or am I the one who's wrong about this?

-edit-

I just did an image search on Google Image and it seems that there are 2.0 slots that run at x8 mode or x16 mode? Here is the image with helpful text to differentiate the two types:

http://media.photobucket.com/image/PCI- ... r_pcie.jpg

Sorry for my ignorance, I'm only used to the regular PCI-e slots.

[Ace Pace]

Uh...what you said makes no sense. PCI-E 2.0 is simply PCI-E but "faster, stronger, better". Everything about PCI-E, including the multiple slots of x1,x2,x4,x8 and x16 still exist.

PCI-E 2.0 is fully backwards compat with PCI-E, and should not present a problem.

[Haruko]

Uh...what you said makes no sense. PCI-E 2.0 is simply PCI-E but "faster, stronger, better". Everything about PCI-E, including the multiple slots of x1,x2,x4,x8 and x16 still exist.

Ah, thanks.

[Bounty]

Oh fudgecakes. I totally forgopt about the power supply. I don't know what sort of no-brand PSU I have right now but it's at best 300W.

Newegg won't do me much good, unfortunately, they don't ship to Europe.

[Ace Pace]

There are a large number of shops in both continental europe and britan that ship all over the continent. Zac should know the british one, Salm german ones.

It's probably a good idea to get a name branded PSU, but the wattage is definetly enough.

[Bounty]

What, the 300W or the 500W? It looks like most half-decent cards expect 400 as a bare minimum.

I'm not sure if money right now stretches to a €100 PSU when the old one is practically brand-new.

[Zixinus]

Trust me, I gone trough this: just get a good-branded PSU from the start, spare no expense and you'll be set for years. Do otherwise and you'll end up wasting more money than if you just brought an expensive one from the start, including possibly replacing existing components. A good PSU should last you trough several coming hardware upgrades and despite being less complex, it is the most important part of your PC.

PSU brand sellers often lie a bit about wattage. It's important but not necessarily accurate overall description of the actual performance of the unit.

Brands are important because its not just the design, but the quality of the components that matter most of all. One of the tricks about PSU is measuring their weight. The more heavy the PSU is, the better. Of course, getting the thing boxed is also a sign of proper quality.

Try to search for local, online shops. I got my Corsair VX 550 for a reasonable price of 17000Ft (about 69 euros).

[Joviwan]

I don't know how much energy the radeon takes, but I was running a 3870 on a 375 watt power supply.

You say your PSU is brand new, but only 300 watts? That seems wrong somehow. If it was running the nVidia, it should run the radeon.

[Zixinus]

Not necessarily: my old PSU ran a Geforce 7600 GT just fine but couldn't handle my new 4850. A PSU's faults could not be revealed until you put in a more power-hungry component that puts a PSU to its limits. I've read about tests where a supposedly bad-brand 550W PSU couldn't handle the load that good-brand 400W PSU handled with grace.

Again, component quality will effect how stable a rail's current/voltage is.

Oh and I forgot to answer a previously raised point: get more wattage than less. Of course, just remember that brand is more important.

PSU manufacturers like to lie a bit. They expect their clients to be mostly ignorant and possibly buying their stuff on large orders, to be put into office machines that will not weight down the performance enough for the PSU's faults to be exposed. Low quality also decreases lifespan, so people will buy new PSU more often.

[Ypoknons]

If you're switching PSU anyways it might be worth it to check out the 4770. Almost twice the price but twice the power IIRC, but that power crosses the threshold for many modern games at 1600x1050. I have a Mobility 4670 myself, which is equivalent to the desktop 4650 - it does most things fine, but I have to keep the resolution low and details on medium.

[Zixinus]

Yes, I've checked and the differences between the 4850 and the 4770. The 4850 is more powerful but only slightly and require less watts (80 instead of 110 IIRC).

Still, I recommend you try to get as high-quality PSU as you can afford. Do a bit of google research and you should find a list or two of what to buy (I'd happily link them but I've didn't bookmark them). You won't regret it.

Installing a new PSU for me was rather simple. After all, once you figure out that some type of connectors are built in together (I first thought that the CPU's 2x4-pin connector is actually an 8-pin graphics card supply) you just have to put the relevant connections into the relevant holes.

[Resinence]

Hilarious Thread.

The 46xx series only use about 20 watts more than your old 8500GT at peak load, they don't even need the extra PCI-E power adapter. It will most likely run fine. But hey what do I know, better to listen to everyone else and waste money on a PSU after you just bought a card simply because it was cheap (great deal btw).

PS I run a HD4670 and core2duo machine on a generic 400w PSU, OH NO IT WILL CATCH FIRE.

[Bounty]

Maybe the power loads changed with the rebranding - The Nvidia site says the G100 uses 35 watts at peak, while the 46XX uses 70.

Things, is I didn't buy this desktop for gaming and hadn't had real plans to upgrade it soon, so it's a budget model with a budget PSU - either a 250W or a 300W one from what little I could find in terms of specs. If I can install the 4650 and not blow anything up, fine, but if there is even a chance of things breaking down I can live without it. Spending as much as the card would have cost anyway for a PSU just to get a marginal performance increase is not worth it.

[Mr Bean]

Hilarious Thread.

The 46xx series only use about 20 watts more than your old 8500GT at peak load, they don't even need the extra PCI-E power adapter. It will most likely run fine. But hey what do I know, better to listen to everyone else and waste money on a PSU after you just bought a card simply because it was cheap (great deal btw).

PS I run a HD4670 and core2duo machine on a generic 400w PSU, OH NO IT WILL CATCH FIRE.

I've seen the results of a PSU catch fire. If you buy generic your asking for trouble down the line. You get a capacitor blown out under a load and if it does out-right melt the control board it will catch fire if you get unlucky. My job for the past nine years including my time in service has been around computers and PSU's going up is one of the prime ways to lose an entire computer. Pretty much the only way. Since I've started working at my current job I've seen two HP laptops who power adapters fired the mainboards and a Compaq desktop that featured that great melted plastic smell and parts of the PSU melted and dripped onto the CPU fan.

[Zixinus]

I've found a site listing a few good brands and also a general introduction to power supplies as a whole.

Also, here's a roundup of cheap power supplies.

Let me give a few golden quotes, shall I?

Chiefmax 650W

Sure enough, after a few minutes of test one, we got an electrical zzzt sound and the unit was dead. At 184 watts, it died. Seems a long way from 650 watts, doesn't it? We didn't even get a chance at using the scope on this one, it went out that soon.

Powork PW-650

Yes indeed, we're looking at the dark horse of this roundup. The Powork *titter* hung in there longer than every other unit in the roundup. But, by test five we're starting to see the voltage regulation suffer a bit, along with efficiency. This was accompanied by the smell of something electronic getting very hot. Finally, there was a muffled pop and the unit went gently into that good night.

Premier PS-ATX-300P4

Um... she's not doing so good. In fact, she's not even powering up for test one. 5VSB is there, but way below what it should be at 2.65V.

I had a new nickname for this unit after test three. Based on its behaviour therein, I hereby call the Silence Blue "Sparky." Because of the fireworks that went off in it when it died. Honestly this thing lit up faster than Kleenex roasted by a flamethrower.

I had a new nickname for this unit after test three. Based on its behaviour therein, I hereby call the Silence Blue "Sparky." Because of the fireworks that went off in it when it died. Honestly this thing lit up faster than Kleenex roasted by a flamethrower.

Topower TOP-300SSA

The first thing noticed when the unit was turned on was a buzz whenever it wasn't running (standby mode). Already, this is a pretty clear indicator that this unit wasn't going to behave itself. Sure enough, as soon as we hit test three it quietly shut down, never to run again. While regulation was ok, efficiency took a massive nosedive between tests one and two, again most likely due to the sorry state of the primary capacitors. This so far has turned out to be the only PSU in the roundup that has made me feel sorry for it.

Allied AL-D500EXP 500W

The test five results should give you a pretty good idea why the crossloading tests weren't done. Quite simply, right after test four was begun, after recording the data and scope readings, the Allied exploded. And I'm not talking about the quiet pop of a blown fuse either, this was something to make one holler things like, "Incoming!" "Honey, I'm so scared, what's happening?" and, "You'll never take me alive, coppers!" This was accompanied by a light show to rival the best Hollywood pyrotechnics displays.

So, yeah, cheap can get you wrong. If my dad and I would have just gone with a Corsair from the start, we could have saved 15 000 FT.

. But hey what do I know, better to listen to everyone else and waste money on a PSU after you just bought a card simply because it was cheap (great deal btw).

My Chieftec also ran my 4850 fine... except that the OPC protection constantly clicking in.

Do you know what an Over-Current Protection is for? It kicks in when a component wants to take more power than what the PSU can supply. Even though it had 450W on the box (or side of the case anyway). It's there to protect both the component and the power supply (its also there to protect everything else in case of a short-circuit, but that's another matter).

It meant that the PSU was not fully capable of supplying my card and thus the rest of my comp. I didn't even put it under full load but it still kept clicking.

But what do I know? Don't buy high-quality components for the most important part of your PC (not the most essential, but the most important from a standpoint of functionality), just pick of any random brand and you won't have any nasty experiences like a capicator blowing one or graphics card getting fried or be unable to bare its given performance limit.

PS I run a HD4670 and core2duo machine on a generic 400w PSU, OH NO IT WILL CATCH FIRE.

1. For how long have you been running this?

2. Again, a PSU's faults will much more appearent when put under heavier load. Put in a 4800 instead of a 46xx and you'll have problems.

3. PSU quality is not constant: sometimes bad-brand PSUs will keep working without a problem for years and sometimes a good-brand PSU will pop on the first go. Even with good QA, a problem can happen.

[Haruko]

I've found a site listing a few good brands and also a general introduction to power supplies as a whole.

For the listing part, there is also this:

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

[MKSheppard]

Also, put in a much larger PSU than you actually need; who cares if you waste more $$ in electricity that way -- it means the PSU will be under a much less stressful load and last longer -- the extra cost of the electricity from the PSU will be outweighed by the savings of not having to replace major components.

[Stark]

Or just buy one that isn't shit? The idea you need to over-watt (ps that's not how power works but anyway) to ensure reliable power is complete horseshit. That is indeed the ENTIRE HOOK behind the premium PSU market, for fuck's sake.