9500GT? Help greatly appreciated!

Alright guys so I have a dinky 360W PSU and a radeon 3650 hd 256mb.
I most likely will NOT be upgrading the PSU but I would like to upgrade the card.

I now need the best video card I can get that requires less than 360watts of power.

After looking around it seems that the Nvidia 9500 GT would be my best bet.
I would love to have some input from the community though.

Also a quick question. Since i've been thinking about going with the 9500 GT I gathered a few links..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150322 (1gig xfx card. i like this one but its a bit pricey for a 9500)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130395 (same thing from EVGA for cheaper)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121267 (an asus 512mb gddr3)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150332 (an xfx 512mb gddr3)

Basically to break it down. Which is better, a 1gig gddr2 or a 512mb gddr3?

Also, if you think theres a better card than the 9500 GT that would work for me then feel free to tell me!
And if it makes any difference i have a i7-920 processor and 6gigs of ram running on vista dualboot with ubuntu.
Thanks in advance.

The BEST video card without the extra power plug would be the 4670.

HIS Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Turbo 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 $80 ($70 after MIB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161252

Much much faster than a 9500gt while drawing the same if not less power. If thats a bit pricey you can get a 4650 for $40 after MIB which is still much faster than a 9500gt with less power.

Here is Toms Chart to compare the cards
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 218-6.html

The 4670 will play any game minus crisis on highest settings on medium resolutions. With 3 sticks of ram and a I7 processor I doubt you could handle anything over a 4670. A 4830 would need an extra connector and be 110w vs 70w with the 4670 (55w with the 4650).

And to answer your question reguarding DDR speed, 512MB DDR3 will always be better than 1GB DDR2.

Swapping the PSU wouldnt void your warranty. You can buy upgrade parts on Dells website and install them yourself without voiding the warranty. Just dont go overclocking and expect anything in return. I changed the processor and added a video card to my wifes Vostro 220s and its still under warranty.

That sapphire is a nice card and the extra ram will come in handy if your gonna be playing Crysis. While reading the reviews of the Sapphire I came across this one that applies perfectly to your situation:

""Pros: Uses low power. Even if the specification is for 400W, it runs nicely (so far) with my 350W PSU. I noticed a huge improvement in gaming speed and frame rate (my previous card was an Radeon HD 3450, 256 MB that came with the Dell Studio). Game rating jumped from 4.1 (graphics) to 5.7. I play, among others, Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Far Cry 2 and all run in high settings. Another plus is that it occupies only one slot. For the price, a card like this is hard to beat.""

The 9600 GT is a bit faster but it needs an extra 6 pin plug and the 2 dells ive bought in the last year didnt have it and they didnt even have any molex plugs at all for an adapter and only 3 sata plugs, which 2 are used by the hdd and optical drive.

Also the 9600GT is 100w vs the 4670 70w. When your only working with 360w, 30w is a big difference. You would gain maybe 5-15 fps depending on the game with the 9600gt. Either way the 4670 will play anything on high at medium resolutions just fine.

you can use a molex to pci express doggle, you can buy them at frys of best buy, my brother has a dell so it will run, when a box says min 400 that takes into account that it's a system with a top of the line cpu and fully loaded system,

Thanks for the input steckman. How long have you been running your card off a 250W psu?
Any stability issues? Do you game heavily or are you a more average computer user.

Also I like the gddr4 but it seems gimmicky to me.
It's basically the only 4670 with gddr4 memory and its priced decently.
hmmm.

Well I think i've named the best variants of the 4670 card on here already, i'll compile them below:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161252
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161251 (a new one, the same HIS IceQ turbo with 1gig on board)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102804
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102818

So which one is the best?
Also im really not liking the 128-bit memory interface on these cards.
So im still up for suggestions on PSU + GFX card.

Oh, and to answer your other question: I don't know which one is best, but of those four choices I would take the GDDR4 Sapphire.

the radeon 4670 ddr3 is a very very good card. but, the price of the ddr4 version is too high. it costs 90$ from sapphire's original site. while you can find radeon 4830 (which is even more powerful than geforce 9800gt) in 85$ after rebate. it's also true that ddr4 version is stronger than the ddr3 version, but it's not the best bang for the buck for it's price. you can see the ddr3 vs. ddr4 benchmark from firingsquad.com (posting date march 06, 2009) -

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] efault.asp


so, i think buying the radeon 4830 is a lot better deal than the 4670 ddr4. but if you plan for ddr3 version, you're good to go.

The cooler on the HIS looks nice, but the article at firingsquad spoke highly of the Sapphire cooler. The HIS is factory overclocked, but the firingsquad article says that you should be able to overclock the Sapphire one even further (thanks to the nice RAM). If you count rebates, the HIS is $90 while the Sapphire is $70. Taking all that into account, I would still go with the Sapphire.

Well even right now with my 3650 I can play crysis fine at 1280X1024 0xAA medium (high shade).
So im sure with the 4670 id be able to do 1680X1050 medium-high.
I'd sure like to play high settings at 1080 but i'd need to find a psu and card deal for under 200..
After reading this http://www.voidware.com/index.php? [...] 3&Itemid=2
I know that the Antec EA500 PSU fits. Right now its 75 at Newegg (thats including tax, + free shipping)
so that gives me about 125 to blow on a video card.
My problem is that the card needs to be worth spending all that extra cash to get a new psu.
I really didnt want to get a new PSU but that seems to be the only way ;-(

I like the 4870 but assuming id need the 1gig (1080 res) theres no way im gonna find one for 160...

Well there you have it guys.
Best GFX card for ~125 bucks.
Preferably 1 gig, gddr3+ and 256bit+ bus width.