7900GT Power requirements.

[balvan64]

I ordered a new 7900GT today.
Now these are the Power requirements on Leadtek's site:

A minimum recommended 350W system power supply (with 12V current rating of 20A).

My Power Supply unit has 400W.
but only 12V16A.

Anyone tried runnig these cards with lower Amper?
Must I buy a new Power Supply unit?
Does only Expensive PSU comes with 12V20A?

 

[Primitivus]

You might run into trouble. Try it out with only CPU, GPU, RAM and HDD and see if it's stable. Maybe safer to upgrade the PSU though

 

[bluntside]

WORD 8)
You will definetly need a new psu for the 7900gt, cuz thats what I ended up doing Id rather be safe than sorry, what are you running? you might be able to slip by, but i really doubt that you could

 

[spiritbreaker22]

You should be able to get a decent PSU for about $60-$70 that is about 450W. Unless you plan on SLI or Xfire in the near future you can save a fair bit of cash by getting one that isn't certified for either and is in the 450W range. After all, the $$$ spent for the 7900GT you don't want to limit it by a weak PSU. Try Newegg.com or Tigerdiect.com and see if they have any sales for overstock and you could save a bit more too.

 

[moparman390]

It's hard to find (and expensive) a power supply with 20A on the 12V+ rail that's any good because at that point they just move up to dual rail power supplies. Get a dual rail power supply. Any dual rail power supply will have more then 20A on the 12V+ rails. Most will have over 30A on the 12V+ rails. With dual rail power supplies you simply add the two rails together to get your total Amp rating. My power supply has 18A on 12V+ Rail 1 and 16A on 12V+ Rail 2 for a combined 34A. 30A is the minium for 7900GT SLI, but they don't make 30A single rail power supplies (there may be a couple out there but fot the most part they don't make them) so this is how you get the power to handle high end graphics setups. Get a dual rail power supply and it will easily handle your video card and probably be able to handle SLI later on if on if you choose.

 

[carpcmelee]

u might just need a new psu, cuz wen u play oblivion on a psu limited pc, bad things can happen. (snap, crackle, pop are in a meadow......)

 

[carpcmelee]

It's hard to find (and expensive) a power supply with 20A on the 12V+ rail that's any good because at that point they just move up to dual rail power supplies. Get a dual rail power supply. Any dual rail power supply will have more then 20A on the 12V+ rails. Most will have over 30A on the 12V+ rails. With dual rail power supplies you simply add the two rails together to get your total Amp rating. My power supply has 18A on 12V+ Rail 1 and 16A on 12V+ Rail 2 for a combined 34A. 30A is the minium for 7900GT SLI, but they don't make 30A single rail power supplies (there may be a couple out there but fot the most part they don't make them) so this is how you get the power to handle high end graphics setups. Get a dual rail power supply and it will easily handle your video card and probably be able to handle SLI later on if on if you choose.

for sli on 7900gt's u need a minimum of 28 amps, not 30. but i guess more wouldnt hurt.

 

[bluntside]

The Antec NeoHe 550Watt
A kick ass psu, but there are better :twisted:

 

[jaguarskx]

A non-overclocked 7900GT 256MB GPU uses about 50 watts. A non overclocked 7900GT core is running at 400MHz, and memory runs at 1400MHz. A 110nm 7800GT has been measured to use 56w. nVidia released a statement that the 90nm 7900GT should consume about 6w less than the 7800GT.

An OC'ed 7900GT @ 500MHz/1500MHz may draw 25w more, but that is merely a guess.

What is the rest of your system?

 

[balvan64]

Other stuff that takes up power:
3 HD.
1 DVD.

My PSU has 400W and 12V16A.

 

[desilver]

The newer cards are 90nm and chew "less" power, do more,and do Cine as well.
http://www.leadtek.com.tw/eng/company/press_1.asp?id=267

seems everything is being put onto smaller fabrications, perhaps when 60nm is reached there will be dual GPU cards.

Undeniably, the WinFast® 7900 series have the most powerful, fearless, ultra-realistic graphics processing capability ever. It delivers 1400 million (7900GTX) vertices processing /Sec, 24 Pixels per clock (peak) - the same as the earlier 7800GTX, with its blisteringly fast RAMDAC and compatible with next generation graphics standards: Microsoft® DirectX®9.0c Shader Model 3.0, SLI technology and HDR (High dynamic range) lighting. WinFast PX7900 is built to provide unprecedented high definition gaming quality.

These graphics accelerators allow users to experience delicate video quality and gaming graphics with the latest 90nm process technology

 

[Primitivus]

What is Leadtek paying you?

While I think that Leadtek makes some of the best NVidia cards out there, what you said is 'arguable', not 'undeniable' and DX9, SM3.0, SLI & HDR are all CURRENT generation features, NOT next

 

[desilver]

As I thought. If you wish to take it up with them the link is supplied
(in last post) The promo is off their web site.
Just think of it as propaganda.

 

[Primitivus]

As I thought. If you wish to take it up with them the link is supplied
(in last post) The promo is off their web site.
Just think of it as propaganda.

lol

 

[chuckshissle]

A 350W PCI Express compliant system power supply (with 12V current rating of 20A or more)

Your amperage is not enough but you can try it out anyways. It might run but then not stable or it could display an "Underpower" message and would automatically set the card to it's lowest settings. But there's no harm in trying it with a lower amps psu, higher voltage and higher amperage psu would be the one. If it does run without underpower then test it to see if its stable. If not then go buy a good psu of 450-500watts with 12v 20A rating.

 

[specter]

Is not very hard to find a power supply with 30A on +12V rail. I have a Vantec ION2 460W power supply with 30A on +12V rail and it's not expensive. I paid 80$ and I am very pleased with it.


Vantec Power supplies