Which AGP card

St Bruno

Need a new gfx card and i dont know which one to pick out of these two, they are both pretty much the same price, but ones a Nvidia and the other an ATI. Id rather not spend any more than 120 as this will be the last gfx card i buy before i get a new pc altogether. I do like my gaming and yes i know i should get a new pc:D but the funds arent there, Thanks for reading.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=378202
Vs.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=421933

Solitaire

No competition, the HD3850 puts the 6800GT out to pasture. Of course, even the HD3850 (most powerful AGP card evar) isn't going to touch the performance of any PCIe card past the €80 mark Even the HD4670 beats it

St Bruno

Cheers Solitaire, one thing ive just noticed, on komplett it states that a 450w psu is needed for it, unfortunately ive only got a 350, one of these i think -
http://www.cluboc.net/REVIEWS/power/fortron_source/fsp350-60pn/index.htm.
So i presume the ATI card wont work unless i get a beefier power supply?

uberpixie

St Bruno wrote: »

Cheers Solitaire, one thing ive just noticed, on komplett it states that a 450w psu is needed for it, unfortunately ive only got a 350, one of these i think -
http://www.cluboc.net/REVIEWS/power/fortron_source/fsp350-60pn/index.htm.
So i presume the ATI card wont work unless i get a beefier power supply?

If it def a fortran 350W you will prob get away with it.

Brothers run a core2duo with a 8800GT 512mb off a Fortran 350W.

Thry usuallly are pretty solid PSUs while usually not the most efficent.

Solitaire

Should be fine, very little 12V power but IIRC AGP cards are only permitted to use a maximum of 1A on the 12V rail anyway

5uspect

I've run a HD3850 in a crappy Dell workstation (250 Watt) with out a problem.
Now that was only for heat sink testing purposes.
Its a great card!

thepcgp

The wattage rating of a PSU is the maximum output power, or the total amount of power that can be drawn at one time. When you power on your PC and the hard drive(s) and fans spin up, there is a surge of power that is needed to get the moving parts such as fans and hard disk platters from stationary into motion. This is where the power draw peaks; when you first power up the PC. After that, the power being drawn is considerably less.

The short of this is that the graphics card mentioned doesn't really require a 450W power supply, the manufacturer recommends this perhaps because the card has a slightly higher draw than previous cards, or perhaps because they are assuming you have multiple optical drives, multiple hard drives, and/or multiple fans. If you have 1 hard drive, 1 optical drive, and 1 fan in your PC, then depending on your processor, you could probably run this card with a 300W PSU.

Hope this helps!

St Bruno

Cheers for all the info guys, at the moment theres a soundcard and 2 hard drives so the worst case scenario ill rip out one of them out if i have power issues, many thanks for all the useful info:)
LAst question i hope, will that psu i have definete;y have a plug on it to fit that card, i read some where that the ati one requires a 6 pin connector, as i recall my last gfx card used 4 pins.

5uspect

The card should come with the 4pin to 6 pin converter cable.
The Club 3D one did anyhow.

thepcgp

From what I've read, this card requires a PCI-e 6-pin power connector, which looks like this:



If you PSU doesn't have one of these, you can convert 2 standard 4-pin molex power connectors (like the ones that connect to your IDE drives) to the 6-pin pci-e connector using an adapter, I found one here. But there will probably be one in the box. Email your supplier and ask them.

St Bruno

Thanks again, i stuck a thread up in the komplett forum, should get an aswer as quick as a mil to them.

thepcgp

hopefully!