Power Supply/Graphics Card Compatability

[Arkusai]

Being very limited in my knowledge of such things I was wondering if a 300 watt power supply (what my computer currently has) would properly run an ATI Radeon X850XT which lists its requirement as 300 watt power supply or higher recommended. I have two hard drives in my computer, which might effect this.

Is it too risky? Or is it safe? I ask because I can either pay $172 on NewEgg for the X850XT with no new pus, or I can spend $233 and get a 7600GT and a new 500 Watt pus.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

 

[uber_g]

get a new power supply 450 watt and up will do

look for antec or the ultra power supplies there cheap and work good



300 watt aint going to run things to good

 

[Arkusai]

Ah well, thanks. It looks like I'll have to blow over $200 dollars to get a graphics card and power supply combo that works in my computer. Oh well, thanks for the help anyways.

 

[Newf]

If the computer you have has a quality PSU, it might work, but I'd look at a new PSU. You did not mention what computer you have now. If It's a Dell or other brand name then be careful buying a new unit - they are often not compatible. If it's generic, then you can do this:
FSP AX450-PN $51+7 4/06
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817104954

 

[RichPLS]

These are my current PC specs...
Lian Li PC-60plus Black Aluminum Case (w/TR-3B Black Thermometer/Fan Controller 3.5” bay)
Opteron 175 (2x 2.42 GHz, 2MB cache, Socket 939, .09 micron, E6 stepping, OSA175DAA6CD)
ThermalTake BigWaterSE 12cm liquid cooling system complete kit
Asus A8R-MVP Motherboard (ATI Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire, socket 939, SATA2)
HiS X1800XT Graphics Card (625 MHz/700 MHz OC core/1500 MHz/1600 MHz OC mem, Dual DL-DVI VIVO 512 MB PCIe)
ATI TV Theater 550 PRO Tuner (PCI TV and FM Tuner)
4x 512MB Corsair Micro Xpert DDR RAM (2-3-3-8-2T (spd 2-2-2-5-1T) TwinXP 1024-3200XL)
2x 74gig Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives RAID-0 (WD740GD RAID0 150gig Boot Drive)
2x 250gig Western Digital Caviar SE16 Hard Drives (WD2500KS storage and data)
Plextor 716AL Black 16x DVD/CD Burner (IDE slot loading type)
Antec TP-II 550 Power Supply (550 Watt ATX12V v2.0 PSU)
Dell 2405FPW 24-inch LCD Monitor (UltraSharp Wide Aspect Flat Panel Display)
Logitech G-15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan
Case Fans 5 in total (2x SilenX 120mm intake, Adda 120mm exhaust blower, SilenX 92mm exhaust and SilenX 80mm Fan)

and according to FutureMark’s results ~ 4,935 3DMarks06 and 9,881 marks in 3DMark05 performs pretty well... IMO...

I bought a Kill-a-Watt power meter that you plug power cord into and it reports actual power usage from wall socket.
Surprisingly, my slightly overclocked PC and GPU while running 3DMark06 peaked at only 325 watts! also, this test was done while the TV Wonder was active in background running TV and several IE browsers were open plus a MS Word 2003 open too. This result only got me 4,777 3DMarks06 tho, it was intended for using more watts than high scoring.
I kind of expected a bit more, basing this on results from specs and power draw hardware sites that you input hardware components like...

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp

but I am pleasantly surprised, just thought some readers might be interested in someones real life and unbiased independent results.

Just another report, I am running my
TV Wonder in a transparent window,
have 3 IE browsers open,
MS Outlook open, and
AutoCAD Land Desktop open and working in it...
Wattage power draw is pretty steady at 180 to 190 watts...

So far the highest power draw I have seen is running 3DMark06 with TV Wonder running in background and that was at
325 watts peak
That is a lot less than I would have guessed.

Based on this limited information from my PC, I preclude that my AMD Opteron rig overclocked at 2420MHz from 2200 consumes at the wall socket...
≤ 200 Watts at Idle
≤ 250 Watts during Boot Up
and
≤ 350 Watts at Max 3D Benchmarking using 3DMark06

Note: Adding or rounding up a bit to rule out inaccuracies; This is only the PC measured at outlet from the Power Supply, my LCD Monitor is not measured in these results.

Compare your components adding or subtracting for your components and estimate yours to see if you think your current power supply will work

 

[Crashman]

You should check out the review of an Aopen re-labeled Fortron Source 300W at SysOpt. Fortron Source 300W power supplies can put out nearly 400W, and FSP is generally better for its rating than Antec.