X1900XT Question

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Hi, my first post, greetings to you all!

I am in the middle of an upgrade dilema - I want a X1900XT and a Sonanta II case, which has a 450W power supply. Does anyone have this combo? Is it stable? I am not planning on having too much else in the box (2 HDDs, 2 DVDs, 2GB RAM and a 3700 Athlon 64). I am paranoid about the wattage issue on the X1900XT!

Tanks for you help.

 

[nands]

Thanks for that, the Extreme PSU calculator gives me 376Watts. The power supply in the Sonata case is a SmartPower 2.0 (from Antec) with 2 rails of 15 and 17 amps of 12V.

 

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This gets confusing! The reason I liked the Sonata/Smartpower combi (apart from it being a 'this week only' deal is that a mate of mine has one, not that he is running a X1900XT through it. To quote the reply I got from Antec when I asked the question 'The power supply should be enough to power your video card'. Useful! Anyone else running a X1900XT - what power supply do you have?

 

[nands]

Good comments, some say yes, some no, some go for Nvidia. About what I expected really! The question is though, who has a X1900XT and what power supply do you use?

Sounds to me like ditching the Sonata II/ smartpower combi though which will add at least £30 to the build cost but better safe than sorry!

 

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I agree MG42Maniac, that list is pretty much what I came up with, except I was also looking at the Tagan U22 or U15.

Your £60 budget is about what I had in mind which was why the Sonata was such an attractive deal - basically a case for free!!

Hiper is currently in top position on my list...

 

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I don't think I am wasting money, the Powercolor X1900XT is currently £239.95 + VAT, but the cheapest 7900GTX is over £300 + VAT. The whole thing is new build so I have not bought the Sonata yet.

 

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Looking at it like that then, the Enermax Noisetaker 485W gives 384W ( 32A ) on 12V (according to the website). The instruction also state it can run "150W performance and 75W mainstream PCI Express x16 graphics cards".

That would make it more than man enough for the job (wouldn't it) and at £44.95 + VAT a real bargain. Or am I talking rubbish?

 

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Interesting that Yorkshirepadd, what are you testing it with, any games pushing the card at all?

 

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Sounds good to me, maybe I am back to where I was at the beginning of this thread! Anyway I would be interested in how FEAR goes. Playing it at 640x480 with most seeting turned down was not fun - I put that game on hold!

 

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Thanks for the info, Yorkshirepadd. I reckon I am going to go for the Hiper 580 for a bit more peace of mind. As pointed out by fornowagain it definitely complies with the 30Amp stipulation on the ATI website.

Bit of a bummer that the Powercolor cards are no sold out. Nevermind, the Connect3D one will do the same job. Does anyone know if you get any free software with it (or any of the other X1900XTs - I know that Sapphire give you a choice of two games but I am not bothered by their selection!).

 

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djjuk, it is good to hear that the combi I have selected is being run, and enjoyed, by someone!! I will get that tomorrow (bit of finance to sort first!)