Power Consumption of ATI Radeon 9700 PRO

[over_c]

I am considering upgrading my graphics card to a 9700 Pro, and am concerned about the increase in power consumption.

My current specs are:
Intel P4 2.8C w/ Intel box heatsink, fan.
Asus P4P800
2x256 MB Kingston HyperX PC3500
MSI Ti 4200 Video card, w/ 128 MB ram, AGP 8x
TDK 40x16x24x CD-RW
Western Digital 80 GB HDD w/ 8MB cache, 7200 rpm
Additional 40 GB, 7200 rpm HDD
(don't remember the brand, cache)
2 case fans, one HDD fan
Antec 350W Smart Blue power supply.

Will the additional power needed by the ATI 9700 Pro be a problem for me? If I have to get a larger power supply, then I am not going to get the new video card.

Thanks.

 

[addiarmadar]

Hmmm my spider senses is telling me that you will need a bigger psu. You got alot of drives

Barton 2500+ @ 2200mhz (10x220 vcore @ 1.8)
Asus A7N8X Dlx 440 FSB
1gb Geil GD pc3500 Dual Channel (2-3-3-6)
Segata 80gb SATA 8.5ms seek
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro(420/720)

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Check <A HREF="http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?lp=de_en&url=http://www.computerbase.de/article.php?id=227&page=1&sid=f549612517a551806603113e4c4a83ae" target="_new">THIS German Review</A> (translated by babel) it should give you and idea, but yeah running so much stuff in your rig proabbly means you're often going to brush up against the top end of your PSU, even though it is a relatively good quality PSU.


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[over_c]

Thanks for that link. That was a very useful article. It looks like the Radeon 9700 Pro will pull up to 17.6 more Watts under stressful conditions. I am not using my second HDD for anything right now (I had intended to put a Linux partition on it, but never got around to it). Any guesses as to how much extra Wattage I could free up by removing it?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

HDs average 10-15 watts depending on type IIRC. So that would likely do it.

Here's a link to a basic chart for idle working speeds for a DeskStar 75XP which would be a good idea for most other modern drives.

<A HREF="http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/perf/spec/otherPower.html" target="_new">http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/perf/perf/spec/otherPower.html</A>


- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! - <font color=green>RED </font color=green> <font color=red> GREEN</font color=red> GA to SK

 

[pauldh]

Quick question, are you Overclocking? If so and you boost your voltages you may have a problem. I have a NF2 XP2500+, 2 optical drives, 2 HDD's (WD 8MB'ers), 2 80mm case fans, huge AeroV heatsink/fan, Santa Cruz sound card, 2 sticks PC3200, and an Antec Lanboy with your same 350w Antec Smart Blue PS. It does absolutely fine without overclocking. And correct me if I'm wrong but the radeon 9500 Pro is a power hog too like the 9700 Pro. Mine ran absolutely fine, but when I overclocked my CPU to a 200 bus (xp3200+ setting), I could not run benchmarks successfully without lockups. With a Ti4200, or a Radeon 9800 non pro, I had no problems overclocking. I suspect that the Radeon 9500 pro's power req. and the 350w PS may have been the reason. Anyway, I never got around to putting in a True430 watt to test the theory.

But the Antec smart350 is a good 350w PS. If it were a cheapo brand, forget about it.

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9500 Pro, Santa Cruz, Antec 1000AMG, TruePower 430watt

 

[over_c]

No overclocking for me. I intended to, but I think applied a too-thick layer of Arctic Silver and as a result my chip gets really hot under full load as it is.

Anyway, I went ahead and ordered it. I'll post again later if I have any problems. Thanks for all your help.