Power eff. Vistas capable card? Suggestions?

[Modeller]

Hi (from the UK),

Am putting together specs for a machine which Im going to OC. Im stuck on Graphics. Graphics wise, Im looking to do run of the mill everyday Vistas stuff but not much else, The computer is really for number crunching.

What i'm most interested in is power efficiency but still fully Vistas capable and not a radiator!. Any thoughts?

Initial thoughts:
INNO3D GeForce 7200GS 128MB with 512MB Turbo Cache DDR2 PCI-E $36ish
Gigabyte GF 7200GS 128MB DDR2, PCI-E DVI HDTV Out Retail $36ish

Thanks.

Al

 

[thuan]

AFAIK ATI HD 3000 series has powerplay feature http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd3400/index.html which is kinda like intel speedstep. You can get either a 3450 or 3470, they both support vista aero interface.
But to be honest, if you want to do a lot of number crunching and want to squeeze out every little power you can get from your CPU, XP or linux is a better choice. It is even better if your app is written in purely console and running on a linux box without GUI. I'm not being bias here, posting this from a Vista machine, and I do notice vista use a little more of my CPU leading to slower audio and video encoding which you can say pretty much number crunching.

 

[rodney_ws]

When people run folding at home, aren't some running that on their GPUs because the GPU is more efficient at certain types of numerical operations? Perhaps the OP needs to clarify what app(s) he plans on using so more accurate advice can be given.

 

[alastairadb10]

Hi, thanks for the posts.

thuan

Thanks thats what I was looking for. Was hoping there would be an inexpensive card that advertised as low power but still capable...

The one thing that did worry me though - perhaps unnecisarily was
"300 Watt (450 Watt for dual ATI CrossFireX™) or greater power supply recommended
Certified power supplies are recommended and
1GB of system memory recommended"

Does this mean its power / ram hungry?

Im currently running Vistas as trying to learn the new OS but someday soon will use Fedora.

Rodney_ws

The programs Ill be running are
MODFLOW96 (a groundwater modelling package, Fortran finite difference code - loads of floating point calcs for ~6hrs continuously)
and
FightAIDS@home (like folding, BOINC) when not running above.

Pretty much continual CPU usage.

I know very little about graphics cards, have read the stickies but have no idea how I could use GPU's to assist? in model running...would love to find out how! Is it that programs can be run on the GPU instead of CPU? I guess it depends on the program/task...

Cheers
Al

 

[Modeller]

P.S. changed my username and loged in with wrong one (used the old one last post)

 

[thuan]

No, don't worry that card should use about 25W as I'm running a HD2400XT (which is one generation older and should a little more power) in my HTPC which has Core 2 Duo 4300 at default clock, two HDs, one DVD-RW and 3GB off a 300W PS. As for RAM that's what they say but well if you plan to run Vista you should have at least that amount anyway.

MODFLOW96 as the name suggested it was originally released in 1996. And it doesn't even support multithreading AFAIK not to mention acceleration by GFX card.

I don't know much about FightAIDS@home, but well I don't see anywhere it mentions that you can use a GFX with it.

With folding home the best would be a PS3, 2nd is the ATI 1900XT on a computer with appropriate client.