7600GT v. x1800xt+PSU?

[chief5286]

Sorry I've posted a lot about this, and sorry for the long post.


Here's the thing. I want to upgrade my gpu but I am having a really, really hard time deciding which path to take. Between the 7900gt and the x1800xt, I would go for the x1800xt (you may disagree on this choice, but I think just about everyone agrees that they are booth decent deals at this time). The thing is, to run either of these cards I will (most likely) have to buy a new PSU. My current 450W PSU only has 18Amps on the 12V rail (while it might run those cards, If I'm going to drop $330 on a gpu I don't want to risk it).

So, for the x1800xt and a PSU, it comes out to $443 shipped.

The other option is the eVGA 7600gt OC for $195 shipped ($180 after rebate). I want great performance, but I am having a really hard time deciding to spend $445 on a gpu & PSU.

I have Oblivion, and while my 6600gt does OK, the game just doesn't look all that great AND perform well. I can run it at 800x600 or whatever on low, but it just doesn't look that great. Higher res it works, but very low FPS.
I would also like to give Call of Duty 2 a try and get better BF2 performance (though it does perform well enough).

Would the 7600gt be a worthwhile upgrade? I really want the X1800XT, but the price... I can afford it, but I don't know if I want to. If it were just the x1800xt without the needed PSU, I don't think I would have nearly as much of a problem deciding on that.

Which way would you go?

Thanks for any feedback. This is a really tough decision for me.

 

[RichPLS]

These are my current PC specs...
Lian Li PC-60plus Black Aluminum Case (w/TR-3B Black Thermometer/Fan Controller 3.5” bay)
Opteron 175 (2x 2.42 GHz, 2MB cache, Socket 939, .09 micron, E6 stepping, OSA175DAA6CD)
ThermalTake BigWaterSE 12cm liquid cooling system complete kit
Asus A8R-MVP Motherboard (ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire, socket 939, SATA2)
HiS X1800XT Graphics Card (625 MHz/700 MHz OC core/1500 MHz/1600 MHz OC mem, Dual DL-DVI VIVO 512 MB PCIe)
ATI TV Theater 550 PRO Tuner (PCI TV and FM Tuner)
4x 512MB Corsair Micro Xpert DDR RAM (2-3-3-8-2T (spd 2-2-2-5-1T) TwinXP 1024-3200XL)
2x 74gig Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives RAID-0 (WD740GD RAID0 150gig Boot Drive)
2x 250gig Western Digital Caviar SE16 Hard Drives (WD2500KS storage and data)
Plextor 716AL Black 16x DVD/CD Burner (IDE slot loading type)
Antec TP-II 550 Power Supply (550 Watt ATX12V v2.0 PSU)
Dell 2405FPW 24-inch LCD Monitor (UltraSharp Wide Aspect Flat Panel Display)
Logitech G-15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan
Case Fans 5 in total (2x SilenX 120mm intake, Adda 120mm exhaust blower, SilenX 92mm exhaust and SilenX 80mm Fan)

and according to FutureMark’s results ~ 4,935 3DMarks06 and 9,881 marks in 3DMark05 performs pretty well... IMO...

I bought a Kill-a-Watt power meter that you plug power cord into and it reports actual power usage from wall socket.
Surprisingly, my slightly overclocked PC and GPU while running 3DMark06 peaked at only 325 watts! also, this test was done while the TV Wonder was active in background running TV and several IE browsers were open plus a MS Word 2003 open too. This result only got me 4,777 3DMarks06 tho, it was intended for using more watts than high scoreing.
I kind of expected a bit more, basing this on results from specs and power draw hardware sites that you input hardware components like...

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

but I am pleasantly surprised, just thought some readers might be interested in someones real life and unbiased independent results.

Just another report, I am running my
TV Wonder in a transparent window,
have 3 IE browsers open,
MS Outlook open, and
AutoCAD Land Desktop open and working in it...
Wattage power draw is pretty steady at 180 to 190 watts...

So far the highest power draw I have seen is running 3DMark06 with TV Wonder running in background and that was at
325 watts peak
That is a lot less than I would have guessed.

Based on this limited information from my PC, I preclude that my AMD Opteron rig overclocked at 2420MHz from 2200 consumes
≤ 200 Watts at Idle
≤ 250 Watts during Boot Up
and
≤ 350 Watts at Max 3D Benchmarking using 3DMark06

Note: This is only the PC measured at outlet from the Power Supply, my LCD Monitor is not measured in these results.

I would get the X1800XT 256MB version and use your current PSU, it is the same speed and spec as the 512MB version and can be found for around $290... The 512 version around $330