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Cheap budget graphics card on a 300W PSU?

KraniX

KraniX

KraniX

Soldato
Joined
23 Mar 2004
Posts
3,911
Location
Yorkshire
Hi guys,

My mum has a decent little Dell PC which we bought her about 6 months ago, CPU and RAM etc is fine and I was surprised to find it actually had a PCI-E slot but unfortunately was bundled with a rather rubbish 300W PSU.

She wants to do some gaming and my first thought was to swap out the PSU for a ~600W and give her my 8800GT (which will fit) but as an alternative are there any graphics cards out there you think we could get away with running on such a low PSU?

Thanks.
 
4670

Pretty good performance and it doesnt need any power cables from your psu so it shouldn't strain it too much. There is also a passively cooled version
 
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think i'll give the 4670 a go, cheers guys.

will be okay for her purposes and could always drop in a new psu if need be.
 
most dell psu's are a good conservative 305w,

it probbaly will not have a pci-e 6 pin but you can rejig the interior to use a molex to pcie adapter or sata to molex to pcie if you have to

is it a low profile case?

is it a BTX format? Dell E520 and older use BTX which imposes some width restrictions (usually cards using double slots should be avoided though big fans can be ok if the back panel is only single slot)

I last uses an x1950 pro using about 65W on a dell e520 with 275w power, seemed perfectly happy but the cpu was a modest E6300 1.86 core 2 duo

an 8800gt should be about 80-85w which is stretching things a bit,

It would be worth googling the model number to see what cards were avilablek when it was new
 
I put a 9500GT in my parents computer, which had a 300W PSU with no PCIE power connectors. Not a great gaming card, although it ran Left 4 Dead pretty well.
 
I am running a 3850 Pro in a clocked E5200 rig with only a 385w psu. The whole rig only pulls a max of 205w at the wall while running Orthos and Fur Stability test at the same time. Normal use is 81w idle/156w while gaming.
 
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I'm running a 3850 512 which is about the same performance of a 4670 and, although I'm only on a 17" monitor, it runs everything I want it to at decent settings. The 4670 is a great card because it requires no PCI-E connector and uses very little power, yet still packs a reasonable punch.
 
For the money may as well go for the 4770 with 9600GTs costing about £60-70, the power draw is approximately the same (Ie a bit over what can be supplied from a PCI-E slot [75w]). The 4770 draws 80-87w under load, so should be fine, the 9600 I believe sucks up to 95W and is slower :)
 
Sapphire do a passive cooling 4670 for about £60, think that's gonna be the best card for this situation but thanks for the alternative ideas. Now if only OCUK would get some stock...
 
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