Sorry for making a crappy thread, first and foremost, but I'm only a member of two forums and you guys are by far the more intelligent lot . I've been looking for a new video card to upgrade from my GeForce FX 5200. I'm looking in the GeForce 6600/6600GT area, because I can't spend that much money on it. The problem is, I'm not sure what wattage my power supply is. I'll figure that one out, but I need some recommendations on cards. Brand and features are big issues to me - how well it handles anisotropic filtering and antialiasing are not important, neither are bundle deals (which I'm not expecting at this price, anyway). It must be an AGP card, because that's what I have . I don't plan on overclocking it, but I'd like it to have decent cooling just in case. I'm going to be ordering from Newegg, if anyone is curious. I've never dealt with them before, but I've heard good things. Thanks for any help, guys.
6600GT will do you good. It comes in agp and I think a standard 300 watt supply will do fine for it. I am running my 6800 Ultra on a 650watt supply but I have a ton of lights a shit in there that suck power. As far as brand goes I stick with eVGA. I had a problem with my 5950 Ultra and I sent it in to get a new one and they sent me my brand new 6800 Ultra for free. That was awsome. That was about march of this year so it wasent to long ago. Also if you register your card with them right after you buy it you get a extra year tacked on to your warrenty, making it 2 years. ^^
I'd have a look at getting an "old" card - something like a radeon 9800pro - shit hot a year or so ago, and still pretty good now. Plus it'll be quite cheap, and AGP
If you're not worried about AA/AF, the 6600GT (or Radeon 9800 Pro) would be a fine choice in AGP. You can get aftermarket coolers for either easily, or cards which come with upgraded coolers from the factory. A power supply of 300 watts is recommended with either card. The rating comes from ATI and nVidia. This of course depends on the rest of the hardware in there and really cheap power supplies are often overrated on wattage, so take a look at the amperage ratings too (I'd think it'd have to be at least 16A or more on the 12+ volt line). Either of these cards will require an auxiliary molex connector for power, so keep that in mind too.
Do you know the manufacturer of your power supply - is it just a standard cheap oone which came with the case, or one like a enermax, antec etc. Generally the latter will be the same power rating as others, but can provide more current down the higher voltage lines ( as mentioned above) which is far more useful than 50A on a 3.3V line...
We have a Dell, so I have no idea what the power supply is (likely generic). I'm going to be checking it when I go home - I'm at work now. I think it's at least a 300W, but we're also running two optical drives and about to put in a faster hard drive. I don't know how much that has to do with anything, though.
You could run into trouble on the PSU then. Its probably quite cheap, but Dell PSU's are often non-standard, making them hard to replace.
That's what I was afraid of. What should be the "safe zone" for a crappy PSU? I can't buy a new computer, and I'd like a newer GeForce. I guess if all else fails I can get the Asus GeForce 6600, which doesn't have a power requirement.
Well it will likely require more power than your current card, They're just not telling you how much ;-) Basically we can't tell you how decent your PSU is until we know the specs - if you open the computer there should be a sticker on it. We'll need to know the current on the 12V and 5V line. Ideally there will be 15A or more on each. The 3V line isn't too important.
I'll just take some pictures tonight. The Asus card I was talking about doesn't even have a molex connector on it. I know because I had to install one at work for the very same reason I'm discussing here, only my dipshit supervisor ordered a 6600GT without thinking of the power demands.
Yeah, I've got a radeon 9800 pro, it's a very good card and still holds up under newer games quite well.
iam running a x850 xt pe agp version on a 200W psu and it goes fine (with 2hdd and a dvd burner in company) i wouldnt be worry too much about the psu altough the card runs just fine i would switch next time back to a nvidia card since i dont like this whole ati catalyst drivers thing
Dell PSUs are usually decent and they seem to have serious power ratings on them - a 250W Dell PSU will be about as good as a 300W+ generic one.
One of these (forget which one) said I would need at least a 294 watt power supply to run what's in my computer right now. I'm pretty sure I got most of my hardware correct. 2.4 Ghz Pentium IV 768 RAM (not sure what type, one 512 and one 256) 60 gigabyte Seagate (I'm putting in a 200 gigabyte Maxtor on Thursday, so I hope this doesn't effect anything too much) DVD-ROM which currently is fucked up CD-RW GeForce FX 5200 I think that covers it. I think I'll just be going for a 6600GT, since I figure it will downclock if the power supply can't keep up. The newer GeForces still do this, right? Edit: Here is the card I was looking at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814133137 Edit again: I forgot to mention that I didn't see any power ratings on the power supply. I can take pictures of it, but I'm not sure how much good that will do.
The Club3D 6600GTs are pretty cheap (dunno about the US but they're cheapest here), and I know a good few people who've bought them without any problems - including a guy running an internet cafe thing who bought about 20 of them. My friend gets about 70-75fps on the video test on Half-Life 2 (default graphics settings @ 1024x768) on his AthlonXP 2400 with half a gig of RAM.
The 6600GT is a great mid range card, and can be found cheap. As mentioned make sure you have atleast a 300w PSU. ^_^_^
Here's the story: I ordered this one before I even posted this thread because I figured it didn't have a power supply requirement. I was wrong - it's 300W, it just wasn't posted. NewEgg gave me an email saying they were having problems and that my order would be cancelled if I didn't call in and fix things. I never did, so I assumed the order was dead. That's when I started to reconsider my card choices and posted this. I never ordered anything else. Heh, well, it arrived today. It surprised the hell out of me and my dad. Here's the card in question: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121197 My brother told me he looked up the power supply included with my particular Dell model. It's supposedly a 250W, but the above test I ran said I would need at least 294 watts to be running what I am right now. I plugged the card in, and I haven't had any problems since. Am I risking the life of my computer/video card? I don't want to kill any of my hardware. Sorry for bumping a fairly old topic.
