Video Card?

[cheli2400]

Got an HP e6300, put in geforce 7300 le 256 mb pci-e video card. Just using a stock 300 watt PSU. I was told that a pci-e card with 256 mb of GDDR3 (geforce 7900 gs) will run faster & better than a pci-e card with 512 mb of DDR2 (geforce 7600 gs). Will either of those cards run on 300 watt PSU? The 7300 le is quiet, which is what I want. I do some gaming, some photo editing, & dvd & stream video watching. Is it worth upgrading, or is the 7300 le I have good enough for now.

 

[Guest]

Ram, wether it's the amount or even sometimes the version GDDR2 VS 3 is not all that important.

The core/architecture is!
In this case, the 7900GS is a much better performer than a 7600GS
Toms chart

I dont think your Power Supply is good enough
See for yourself

Oh and wrong spot again!, my GF told me that too this morning

 

[4745454b]

The only thing you do that actually uses the video card is the gaming. Assuming you find your current frame rates acceptable, then no upgrade is needed. If however you don't like what your seeing, an upgrade is needed, but this is where things get complicated.

You might be able to get the 7600GS to run ok, but the 7900GS does need a 350W. I realise that the 7600GS also claims to need a 350W, but I doubt it ever really uses that much. The 7900GS however probably does, so a new PSU is in order. I'd talk to HP or find a HP forum for advice on upgrading the PSU.

 

[jaguarskx]

You should have no problems running the 7600GS with a 300w PSU. It's estimated to only use about 27.4w. I would bump that up to 30w just to be on the safe side though.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/power-noise_6.html

The 7900GS has been measured to use up to 45.1w:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/x1950pro-gf7900gs_6.html

That small difference of 15w - 18w can be significant for a 300w PSU. Especially since all 300w is not delivered on the 12v rail, where the CPU, GPU, fans and hard/optical drives draws power from. If I had to make a guess then I would say your 300w PSU probably will not deliver more than 180w on the 12v rail.

 

[qrhetoric]

You know, this kind of thing can vary buy the quality of the PSU, but you can probably handle the 7600.

Bruce

 

[shinigamiX]

Your PSU will blow up and take you with it.

Just joking. You should be fine.