Low power GFX card - what options?

[Klytus]

A friend of mine has a shop bought PC with the following spec:-

Intel C2D E2140 1.6GHz
160GB SATA Hard Disk Drive
RAM 1GB DDR2
SiS Mirage 3 on-board Graphics
Onboard Audio
DVD-Writer - DVD±R/±RW
Vista Home Premium

He also has a 19" widescreen monitor with a native res of 1440x900
He is wanting to upgrade to a dedicated GFX (PCI Express).

He doesn't do much in the way of gaming and will be watching films. The problem is he tells me that his PSU is only 250W.

He has £100 to spend in total but ~£30 of that is going to go on 2x1gb of RAM. Before he told me of his PSU Wattage I was looking at something like this as it is bang on budget, wil be able to handle the 1440x900 res, will handle high-def playback and also has the added bonus of 5.1 Audio :-
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-081-PC&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=416&name=PowerColor%20ATI%20Radeon%20HD%203850%20Pro%20Extreme%20512MB%20GDDR3%20TV-Out/Dual%20DVI/HDMI%20(PCI-Express)%20-%20Retail

However it states "450Watt or greater power supply with 75 Watt 6-pin PCI Express power connector recommended."

So can you reccomend a good alternative that is <£70, will run on his current PSU and have no probs with films/light gaming at a res of 1440x900?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Meronem]

are you sure its a 250w psu ?

 

[Klytus]

No, i'm not sure its only 250w,it does sound awfully low, but thats what he reckons. I will check it when i next go round to see him.

 

[DarkMatter]

maybe look at some second hand stuff.

 

[brendy]

3450 or 8500/8600gt is about as good as itll get, the 260w is probably right if the pc is sff. Im in the same predicament at the moment but am thinking of buying a new m/board and case to give me more options as Im running low profile as well as a psu approx 260w.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Id look at a 3650 series card. Pretty low power usage.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Yeah the Radeon HD3650 is probably your best bet, doesn't need any extra power apart what comes from the PCI-E slot. There are two versions:

Sapphire RADEON HD3650 512MB DDR2 PCI-E
11127-00-20R

Sapphire RADEON HD 3650 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E
11127-06-20R

The DDR2 one is obviously cheaper and does a nice job considering its low price, the GDDR3 card costs about £15 more and is a bit faster. They both do a good job of playing any video or HD content and are fairly low powered.

I've played some Team Fortress 2 with the lesser 256MB HD3450 card at 1440x900 and it was alright, no full quality but good enough to get some frags in etc.

 

[Klytus]

Looking at the ATI website, it recommends a 400w PSU for the 3600 series, it even recommends a 300w PSU for the 3400 series. Might have to find him a PSU then!

 

[psychas]

8800gt takes not a lot of power but you would need more then 250 w psu were did u get one anyway

 

[Corasik]

Depends on the PSU really. NV/ATI overspec the PSU requirements to take into consideration 2 main problems.

1) Overspecced budget PSUs. EG £20 600W psu, which in reality is only able to supply 300w "continuous" load before it overheats and pops.

2) Older designed PSU's which have great 5V rails, but rather poor 12v rails.

NV/ATi dont want a lot of unhappy customers ringing up complaining their PSU's exploded.

Ask a shuttle owner, how much they can power by their small, but high quality PSU's. (They are 250W, but pretty good quality ones). Many of the recent graphics card reviews include overall power consumption tables. Toms Hardwares test system for example consumed 270W at the wall when running the Nvidia GTX260. (Thats 270W at the wall, thats only about 218W load on the PSU once you factor in an 80W psu efficiency.)

Not that I would recommend a GTX260 and a 250W PSU , but theoretically its actually possible.

The Geforce 9600, and ATI 3850 (512Meg) are both fairly quick cards with reasonably lower power draw. They both need slightly over 75W at full load, hence the extra power connector is needed, but even so, a full system with a single 3Ghz dualcore processor will easily run in less than 200W (at the wall!)

Even if his PSU doesnt have a PCIe power cable you might still get away with an 3850 or 9600 by using molex -> pcie power adaptors.

More "low end" graphics cards use considerably less power, and will actually run from a 250W PSU without any trouble (if its a good PSU in the first place). Any graphics card that can only draw power from the PCIe slot, and has no additional power headers, will have an absolute limit of around 75W, and should be no problem at all for a 250w supply. But they will still be way better than most onboard solutions.

Most important really is to carefully check the PSU, it's rating plate should list its capacity in amps/rail. Pay attention to the 12V rail, and look very closely to see if there are any clues to if this rating is "peak" or continuous. Also if you can spot who the OEM for the PSU is, you might be able to guess if its a good 250, or a budget 250... Budget 250 is just asking for KABOOM! even in a low end system.

 

[HangTime]

Out of interest does he actually need a new gfx card? I would have thought modern onboard gfx should be OK for watching films when backed by a C2D.

 

[Klytus]

Out of interest does he actually need a new gfx card? I would have thought modern onboard gfx should be OK for watching films when backed by a C2D.

I think the problem is the resolution of the monitor. When he opens Media player in full screen and uses the visualisation it stutters and jerks all over the place. When he reduces the size of the window down to around 3/4's it runs smooth. IIRC his GFX scores in vista index are 2.9 or something.

 

[Klytus]

snip

Thanks for that, I'm off up to see him today so I'll check out his PSU. I have a feeling its going to be a budget one and it definately doesn't have a 6-pin PCI express connector. He only bought the PC a couple of weeks ago after he had asked me to find him/build him one originally. I found him a couple of really good spec quad core, dedicated GFX etc. PC's in his budget but he decided to buy the one in the OP from a major chainstore instead. Well you can lead a horse and all that.