heinz57

Hey guys, I am looking to stick a new video card in my system which is currently:

AMD AthlonXP 2800+
ATX 400W PS
Asus 87N8X-X (only has AGP 8X)
1.5 Gb PC3200 DDR RAM

but I am concerned that maybe the power requirements may be too high for that PS. I don`t want to go get another one since this one is fairly new.

Is there a decent card that would work on a 400W PS?
For me seems like Ati is having issues with their drivers being slower than normal but that could just be rumors.

heinz57

I was looking at this one:
GPU GeForce 7900GS
Interface AGP 4X/8X
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA
Core clock 450MHz
PixelPipelines 20
Memory
Memory Clock 1320MHz
Memory Size 256MB
Memory Interface 256-bit
Memory Type GDDR3
3D API
DirectX DirectX 9
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0

You think that would be pretty decent? Does GS indicate that it is slower than a regular 7900?

RZA

the 7900GS is a better card than the 7900.

I have the 7900GS for PCI-E and it is an absolutely amazing card for the price. I have not yet come across a game that I cannot play at highest settings. So far I have played BF2142, Command and Conquer Tiberium wars, need for speed underground and I can't rmbr the other..company of heroes to name a few.

LambdaLynx

I have the GeForce 7900 GT, and you are saying that the GS is a really good card? Hmm, maybe I should consider getting it...because my 7900 GT has started to poop out on me within the last couple months, with graphical corruption and freezing occurring in every game. I've had it for about a year, and can't stand it anymore. I was thinking of buying a $300 8800 GTS, but if I don't have to, I'm not going to. I really don't care if my computer can run Crysis well at all; I'm more interested in games like Company of Heroes and Call of Duty 4 (which I downloaded the demo for and ran on pretty high settings...that is, until it started having graphical corruption issues, and froze, like pretty much all of my other games).

1 g0t 0wn3d

well i would expect that the card will be slower... and it is probaly your power supply or the temps that are causing it to be slow and the corruption

heinz57

Well, I ended up going with a Saphire ATi X1960PRO which seems to be pretty good. I installed it and tried need for speed most wanted...would not run it on the best quality...ore close to it.

Could the bad performance be related to the fact that the PS is only 400W when it should be at least 450?

:| Maybe I should go exchange it for a Geforce 7900GS.

1 g0t 0wn3d

for a 1950 i would go with a quality 650 watt you will still need a new psu for the 7900 though

heinz57

Well I saw on their site that the minimum power supply for the 7900GS is 350W and I have a 400W.

1 g0t 0wn3d

thats with a very weak motherboard and cpuand the psu wont put out the powe ron the label

heinz57

So that's why it isn`t running as well as I thought it should?

1 g0t 0wn3d

most likley

heinz57

I just don`t know if it is worth it blowing another $80 on a Power Supply.

1 g0t 0wn3d

it very much is a dieing psu can kill proformance and eventually your computer