Low Power = slight texture tearing?

[Mercutio]

Just checking this one, I don't THINK it's heat as there's an intake blowing straight at the card and the CPU is running on a H50 so heat from the CPU is being exhausted straight out of the case.

Setup (listing the bits that would make any sort of significant change to power requirements):

i7 2600k
GTX 480
Perc 5/i raid card + 4x spinpoint F3 1TB's

Would a 500W (decent antec one) be providing enough juice?

I see VERY slight tearing VERY occasionally after long play sessions on new/demanding games (deus ex HR for example).

If it COULD be heat based, what's the "best" 120mm fan for the intake? Would need something fairly quiet, it's some form of Noctua in there at the moment.

Edit: Seems power might be the issue. I'd guess a decent 750W would do the business?

 

[mmj_uk]

What do you mean by tearing? like v-sync tearing? I'd think lack of power would cause a crash or slowdown (throttling) more than anything else.

Although 500W is not a lot tbh especially if efficiently is 80% (400W).

 

[Mercutio]

By tearing - like a black grainy effect overlaying textures in some places. Has sharp edges.

It's this sort of effect:

But just like a "grey mist" muddying some of the textures (and MUCH MUCH MUCH milder). The effects only on a few textures too, not all.

 

[mmj_uk]

If I were you I'd try to borrow a better PSU from someone to test with before buying one, any visual anomalies like that could point to a faulty/overheating graphics card.

Is the AMP! version of GTX 480 a pre-overclocked card btw? if it is you should also try just underclocking it to NVidia reference clockspeeds. With those pre-overclocked cards I think vendors just ship them out without any thorough testing and hope not to get too many thrown back at them.

 

[SheepBeast]

Although 500W is not a lot tbh especially if efficiently is 80% (400W).

AFAIK, that's not how it works. A 500W PSU at 80% efficiency would draw 625W from the wall but only supply 500W to the PC. The grey area is when less scrupulous manufacturers quote wattages that the PSU cannot supply for extended periods of time.

 

[SheepBeast]

Should probably add, I'm not saying that power isn't the issue for OP. An overclocked 480 and a (overclocked i assume?) 2600k consume quite a bit of power. Anything 750W or over would be plenty especially since future cards will almost definitely have lower power requirements than your 480. If you'd ever consider SLI, then you'd probably want 1000W or more which is quite an investment.

EDIT: Also +1 to suggestions of trying a larger PSU before buying, and also underclocking the card to see if either fixes the problem.

 

[mmj_uk]

AFAIK, that's not how it works. A 500W PSU at 80% efficiency would draw 625W from the wall but only supply 500W to the PC. The grey area is when less scrupulous manufacturers quote wattages that the PSU cannot supply for extended periods of time.

Ah I see, that points even more to graphics card for me then.