X1900XT Question

nands · 19 Mar 2006 at 19:55

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.

fornowagain · 19 Mar 2006 at 20:05

Is that a generic supply, what's the current ouputs? A good 450w maybe OK, often they're not.

Plug your devices in this , should give you some idea.

Welcome btw.

AnastieByte · 19 Mar 2006 at 20:11

I just got a x1900xtx and the instructions advise a psu with a 12v rail running at 30a

nands · 19 Mar 2006 at 20:17

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.

fornowagain · 19 Mar 2006 at 20:40

Looking at the spec , that gives about 280W/23.3A on the 12v combined. The XT with an overclock will use approx 135W/11A alone. It doesn't leave much for the cpu or motherboard. Try it you never know, but don't be suprised if it's not up to it.

MG42Maniac · 19 Mar 2006 at 20:45

I'm guessing a Akasa 460w will not cope either?

snow patrol · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:00

hmmn, will my 485w enermax be ok??

nands · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:19

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?

fornowagain · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:20

snow patrol said:
hmmn, will my 485w enermax be ok??

That about 384W/32A 12v combined. Quite good, should be enough, depending on what your pumps and fans are taking.

snow patrol · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:28

well, i have one dd5 pump and a couple of low speed 120 mm fans. I do have 4 hd drives though...

if the PSU isn't enough, will it just be unstable or will it not boot with the 1900 connected...?

fornowagain · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:37

snow patrol said:
well, i have one dd5 pump and a couple of low speed 120 mm fans. I do have 4 hd drives though...

if the PSU isn't enough, will it just be unstable or will it not boot with the 1900 connected...?

Hard to tell, often they just refuse to boot. Sometimes you can run in 2d and then the system falls over in 3d. Sometimes, like a 480W Tagan I had, it runs in 3d but the voltages start to "droop" which I found effected the maximum overclock and generally fubared the whole system.

Gets on my nerves these PSU manufacturers, they can be very misleading with their specs. Wattages are bull, meaningless really. Currents are given on separate rails, when they know the rails often feed from the same rectifying circuit. Off balance loads trip supply circuits in lots of supplies. Read this article on SLI.

Thing is, these ATI cards are pulling so much current its catching the PSU manufacturers on the hop.

fornowagain · 19 Mar 2006 at 21:48

MG42Maniac said:
I'm guessing a Akasa 460w will not cope either?

Can't find any source for the 12v rails combined. Nearest I can find is the badge on the side gives 250w/20.8A (its a bit less looking at it, but its not all specified). A bit on the light side, but it will depends on the rest of your rig tbh.

MG42Maniac · 19 Mar 2006 at 22:10

fornowagain said:
Can't find any source for the 12v rails combined. Nearest I can find is the badge on the side gives 250w/20.8A (its a bit less looking at it, but its not all specified). A bit on the light side, but it will depends on the rest of your rig tbh.

AMD64 3700+ @ 2.4GHz, DFI UT4 Ultra-D, 2GB G.Skill, X-Fi music , 74gb raptor, 120gb SATA, Asus DVD-RW, Thermaltake soprana with 3 fans.

fornowagain · 19 Mar 2006 at 22:35

MG42Maniac said:
AMD64 3700+ @ 2.4GHz, DFI UT4 Ultra-D, 2GB G.Skill, X-Fi music , 74gb raptor, 120gb SATA, Asus DVD-RW, Thermaltake soprana with 3 fans.

Honestly? No. If it was my rig I'd get something less borderline. The ATI spec is 30A on the 12v output, remember that's a combined total. Not the sum of 12v1+12v2 etc.

MG42Maniac · 19 Mar 2006 at 22:56

What sort of PSU would you recommend that would do the job nicely? The Seasonic 430w and OCZ modstream 450w look nice.

fornowagain · 19 Mar 2006 at 23:17

MG42Maniac said:
What sort of PSU would you recommend that would do the job nicely?

That depends on your budget. The best is PCP&C (I use a 510, nothing comes close), but they are very expensive and difficult to find. OCZ powerstream 600. Seasonic S12-600W. FSP Epsilon. Enermax. Tagan. Pretty much in that order. Get more than you need, you never know the upgrade needs. And it won't cost any more to run.

This DFI thread is a good guide.

snow patrol · 20 Mar 2006 at 00:10

thanks for the info. i guess i'll run a few tests on tuesday when the 1900xtx arrives and see whether my psu can handle it. I forgot to mention i also have 3 uv cathodes....So basically, i'll have the following running on my enermax 485:

dual core 165
2 x ide hard drives
2 x sata drives
1 x DVDRW
3 x cathode lights
1 x DD5 Pump
1 x Floppy
1 x fan controller

It's been rock solid with my x850xt in there...does the 1900xtx draw much more power?

Legionaire68 · 20 Mar 2006 at 00:10

The idea with 2 12v rails is one powers gfx card and the other powers the cpu. A good Antec 450w PSU should cope , I was running an overclocked 7800gtx Golden Sample @500mhz/1350mhz and my 3.6 P4 @ 3.96 on my Akasa 460w and that was stable. If I was buying a new one it would deffo be the Seasonic 500w

easyrider · 20 Mar 2006 at 00:36

get a 7900 GTX

the x1900 uses 50% more power than 7900 GTX

after you spend on a more powerful PSU to run the x1900, keep the psu and run faster,quieter and smoother system.Being the 7900GTX

The x1900 is a fine card.But it runs hot and drains your system.The stock cooler is unacceptable (overtime)

Get the 7900 and keep the PSU and enjoy.

speeduk · 20 Mar 2006 at 00:52

easyrider said:
get a 7900 GTX

the x1900 uses 50% more power than 7900 GTX

after you spend on a more powerful PSU to run the x1900, keep the psu and run faster,quieter and smoother system.Being the 7900GTX

The x1900 is a fine card.But it runs hot and drains your system.The stock cooler is unacceptable (overtime)

The stock cooler on the x1900 is unacceptable? How?

I would get a better PSU anyway for a new system - never skimp on the PSU. Then you could just get the x1900.

If the x1900 is what you fancy then don't let anyone put you off mate its a cracking card even if it does need a bit more power.

No problems with my x1900 @ 670/780 and opty 144 @ 2.8ghz on a cheap hiper 580w (I was skint when I bought the hiper lol).

Easy you make the x1900 seem like a totally crap card. Drains the system? My psu is just about the cheapest you can get of the decent branded ones and it runs fine.

Edit: Also the 7900 is not out right faster than the x1900. Its faster in some games and slower in others.

Smoother ? How?

Quieter? I can't even hear my x1900..........