Help me pick the right card

[Ironman5000]

Erm...Just had a look around and according to PC World this 7750 card requires minimum of 400w supply when I only have 220w - http://www.pcworld.com/product/pg/1036120662/detail check under compatibility.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Ironman5000

[Rennn]

Renn with Nvidia the one thing i missed about them cards was adaptive v.sync. You could play the game with the fps untouched and yet not have screen tearing. I always have max aa :yes:

 

D3DOverride is triple-buffered vsync that works in any game. That shouldn't affect performance.

[Rennn]

Erm...Just had a look around and according to PC World this 7750 card requires minimum of 400w supply when I only have 220w - http://www.pcworld.com/product/pg/1036120662/detail check under compatibility.

 

To be fair, they are planning for the worst case scenario with a more power-hungry PC overall. For example, Thor has a rig that would draw more than 200w even without a video card, but you don't.

 

Several people in the Newegg reviews say it runs perfectly well on a 250w-280w PSU, and yours isn't far behind.

Having said that, I'm interested in what others have to say about it.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Rennn

[Werne]

Erm...Just had a look around and according to PC World this 7750 card requires minimum of 400w supply when I only have 220w - http://www.pcworld.com/product/pg/1036120662/detail check under compatibility.

That info is crap, the box of my 7770 claims the recommended PSU is 750W. And that's acceptable for a GTX Titan SLI, but not for an 80W card. Maximum power the PCI-E 2.0 can give is some 75W, the 7750 does not have any external 6-pin power connectors so the absolute maximum it can draw is 75W. My 7770 has a 6-pin connector but it draws little over it's 80W TDP.

 

Here are the results from Guru3D on 7750 power draw:

 

Measured power consumption R7750

 

System in IDLE = 155W

System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 188W

Difference (GPU load) = 33W

Add average IDLE wattage ~10W

Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 43 Watts

 

I've seen same results on other sites as well and the 86W for 7770 on the same site matches my own measurements, so it seems this information is correct. To provide further information, graphics cards can be in the following power configurations:

 

- 75W max (1x75W) - no power cables needed

- 150W max (2x75W) - one 6-pin power cable needed

- 225W max (1x75W + 1x150W) - one 8-pin cable or two 6-pin cables needed

- 300W max (2x75W + 1x150W) - one 6-pin cable and one 8-pin cable needed

- 375W max (1x75W + 2x150W) - two 8-pin cables needed

 

The Sapphire 7750 doesn't have any connectors for 6/8-pin cables, meaning that it's limited to drawing a maximum of 75W over the PCI-E x16 slot. 12V rail should have 14A (on a 220W Delta PSU for Acer Aspire X1300), that should give a maximum of about 168W. If the card draws 43W, your system should draw about 163-165W max over the 12V cable (which is called cutting it close). But taking into consideration that not everything gets powered from the 12V cable, I'd say you're looking at power consumption below 160W on the 12V rail and below 168W draw with 55W card consumption.

 

As for PSU requirements, no, you don't need a 400W PSU, unless your CPU doesn't miraculously start drawing 300W all of a sudden. And, as I said a few times before, the power supply IS iffy, and that power-hungry Athlon gives it a hard time, but it should hold. If you do experience problems, though I doubt you will, you can always undervolt the CPU (if the mobo supports voltage modifications) or underclock the card (would still be hell of a lot faster than your other card options) to reduce power consumption.

 

Bottom line is - that 400W PSU requirement is crap. :smile:

Edited October 19, 2013 by Werne

[Woggsy]

 

Bottom line is - that 400W PSU requirement is crap. :smile:

 

Right. GPU manufacturer's usually place much higher specifications for the power draw of a whole system. If I had to guess, it's so people don't buy power-hungry components without a new PSU and complain when it doesn't work. You don't always need 400W to use a 7750.

 

In any case Ironman, the 7750's a huge improvement. It might not fit in your case if it really is that small of a form factor, but it's got an awesome price/performance ratio. Maybe an Nvidia GT 640 would work as well.

 

Alternatively, you could also try AMD's APUs. The 8670D should be miles ahead of the 6450HD, but unless you're also looking for a CPU upgrade, it's probably not worth it. You wouldn't have to worry about it fitting in your case though, if you'd consider it.

[Werne]

Alternatively, you could also try AMD's APUs. The 8670D should be miles ahead of the 6450HD, but unless you're also looking for a CPU upgrade, it's probably not worth it. You wouldn't have to worry about it fitting in your case though, if you'd consider it.

The Sapphire 7750 will physically fit, I'm more than 100% sure. AMD's Trinity APU has about the same performance as 7750, but then he would need a new mobo (FM2) and faster RAM since APU performance depends heavily on the RAM speed, it doesn't have it's own VRAM so it uses system RAM which is slower, CPU performs about the same as his Athlon, maybe a tad faster.

 

 

 

Also, to expand upon the 7750's PSU requirement, I tested my own PC's power draw with slight modifications to my BIOS settings in order to bring things down closer to Ironman's level. I simultaneously ran Prime95 and MSI Kombustor GPU burn-in test to stress everything I can, and I measured the current draw with a clamp ammeter. System:

 

AMD FX 8320 @3.5GHz, 1.244V (undervolted, runs much cooler that way and brings it closer to Ironman's 95W TDP)

Gigabyte 970A-UD3 motherboard

2xDDR3-1333 Transcend RAM modules, 1.5V

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5670 (61W TDP card, overclocked to 850/850 from 775/667, forgot to return it to stock :pinch:)

1TB Hitachi Deskstar HDS72101

 

Result: 0.81A on 226V, wattage is 0.81*226=183W, give or take a few watts as a margin of error.

 

For comparison, same kind of load on an overclocked FX 8320 (4.6GHz, stock 1.32V VCore) and AMD Radeon HD 7770 is 228W. If this thing can run under 190W with more power-hungry components than his, I'm pretty sure Ironman has nothing to worry about at all. :smile:

 

EDIT: Damn it, 20 minutes later and I'm still fixing typos. :facepalm: I just hope I got them all.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Werne

[Ironman5000]

OK thanks for the confirmation guys i'll get this then, just need to find somewhere I won't get charged a load of fees to deliver now. Checked out amazon and they seem to want about an extra $40 on top which i'm not paying and that newegg link you posted werne doesn't do international "at the moment".