Power supply dilemma

[bruzed]

I currently have a 450watt power supply running my 7900gs. I was wondering if the this power supply would run a 9800gtx adequately, or should i just bite the bullet and get a new power supply and install a geforce 260 and get the extra benefits that has. I have a dual core amd 4600 cpu, MSI nforce 500sli motherboard.

 

[bobwya]

I currently have a 450watt power supply running my 7900gs. I was wondering if the this power supply would run a 9800gtx adequately, or should i just bite the bullet and get a new power supply and install a geforce 260 and get the extra benefits that has. I have a dual core amd 4600 cpu, MSI nforce 500sli motherboard.

What make is the PSU anyway??

A decent PSU - even as low as a Corsair VX 550 - should run a single video card configuration like yours (GTX 260, etc.):
http://hothardware.com/Articles/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-280-and-GTX-260-Unleashed/?page=13

Ideally you would want a safety margin (to allow for capacitor aging, etc.) even if your existing PSU has ~400 Watts on the 12V line. E.g. a good quality 550+ Watt PSU.

I think perhaps an Athlon 4600 would bottleneck a 260 GTX but the ATI/Nvidia price war has certainly brought down the 260 price a lot - so who cares!!

Bob

 

[chookman]

As bobwya asked... What is your current PSU...

As for your 260/9800gtx questions what is the size of your monitor. If youve got a 19" LCD at 1280x1024 it almost pointless getting the 260.

 

[bruzed]

I have a RAIDMAX RX-450K 450W ATX12V Power Supply and a 22 inch lcd monitor. How badly do you think the new card would be bottle necked do to the 4600 cpu

 

[Zecow]

Dont' think Raidmax will cut it... its not a quality PSU

 

[chookman]

Definetly wont cut it.

Quality brand name ~500w PSU would be enough Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, PCP&C

The 9800GTX will be enough to push your 22" and it shouldnt be significantly bottlenecked by your CPU

 

[bobwya]

+1 chookman

Lose the Raidmax PSU and get a decent one.

A 9800GTX would be your best bet for 22" gaming on that CPU. You won't be sorry though it will blow the 7900GS out of the water!!

Bob