I have a 380 Watt PSU and am looking to update to my Geforce 7600 GS Silent edition. I am having troubles finding out how much power each of the 3dcards of this generation use...
Do all ATI cards in the 1900 series require at least 400 Watt?
I want to upgrade to something that will allow me to play DX10 titles (not necesarilly with all the DX10 bells and whistles) when they come out, at a resolution of 1024 * 768, at a playable framerate.

Oh and I currently have an athlonx2 3800, but will be upgrading that with a phenom x4 when they finally arive.

This one seems quite good when it comes to power usage:
http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/chrome_s27/

I was afraid of a reply like that.
Thanks tho.

The thing is, I JUST bought that power supply for a different (low end) computer and found out it was better than my own old one, so put my own old one in the low end computer and now I am using the 380 one.
Could have bought something much better if I would have known this beforehand.

I was kinda hoping for the new ati cards (65nm) to use low power, but I guess even the 2600 cards need better PSU's.
Sucky.

Oh and never heard of S3?
Surely you once had a computer with an S3 Virge in it right?
Everyone did.

I read a review on that S3 card when it came out last year and I think they were trying to break into the market with something that would perform but just couldn't keep pace with the Nvidia/ATI offerings.
As to power supplies,if you game most any vid card that is worth buying is going to be power-hungry,at least for the forseeable future .Mpilch's PSU recommendations are pretty solid.

I know nVidia bought out Voodoo, but not sure if that is what you were thinking of?

That's like saying General Motors bought "Focus"

Voodoo was a product, 3Dfx was the company

S3 made some shitty 2D cards in the 486 and early pentium days, and have made a few attempts at shitty 3D cards since.

Check this article - it lists video cards and their power requirements. Then figure the difference in output of your old PSU and your new one, and that will give you an idea of how much you can safely step up. My guess is a 7900GS or 7950GT. ATI cards are generally more power hungry.

That is weird.
According to that list the geforce 5600 FX uses the same as an ati 1950 pro.
I allready had a 5600 FX in this system, so maybe the 1950 pro is a good upgrade without having to buy a PSU?

I didn't see the rest of your system specs or the PSU either."380w PSU" doesn't tell me anything but IMO I wouldn't trust it.

The thing to look for is how many AMPs to the 12v rail or rails.

Okay what I have is:

Cooler master extreme power 380W
Asus M2NPV-MX
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
1GB 533 mhz ddr2 ram
Asus Geforce 7600 GS Silent


I am kinda having troubles finding out how many amps...
Where can I check this?

I have this table on the package:

So that is either 10 or 15 Amps?
Or 25?

That forum list/post is ridiculous.

They still base their HD2900 numbers off the early rumours, not actual power consumption. I wouldn't trust any of those numbers.

Better to base any decisions or discussions off a credible review site that actually tests the cards, like Xbit-Labs;

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

As you can see the numbers don't match that other thread. Maybe it's the voltage difference in Aus that makes their numbers so funky.

Xbit Labs 7900GS - 45.1w / 8800GTS 105.7w

AtomicPC 7900GS - 45w / 8800GTS 106w

25 amps on the 12v rails isn't enough juice if you want to upgrade your card.Might as well get it over with and cough up the cash.The rest of your system looks ok.Another gig of ram would help also.