low power video card for 300w PSU?

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naminem

Weaksauce
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Nov 17, 2007
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Are there any medium-range video cards out there for a 300w PSU that performs better than the 8800gts?

:(
 
naminem said:
Are there any medium-range video cards out there for a 300w PSU that performs better than the 8800gts?

:(
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I doubt it. Older cards still need a 6 pin power source so I doubt a 300 power supply would suffice. That is also pushing it if you do find one. I say just get a new graphic card and power supply; there are always combo deals on newegg
 
Yeah I dont know. Probably not. 300 watt(and that is assuming this is a good quality brand and actually has 300 watt) psu is fairly low. The only cards id probably be looking towards is like the GT 440 or maybe ati 5670/6670. I am fairly sure the 6670 performs pretty close to the speed of a 9800GT, how is the 8800gts compared to that? Either way, those 3 video cards do not require an 6-pin power cable because they use such low wattage.
 
Assuming that you are not CPU limited, a Radeon 5670 or 6670 will be around 30-50% faster than the 8800GTS, and doesn't require a PCIe power connector.
A 6750/6770 should also work, if you have two free Molex connectors for a Molex->6-pin PCIe adapter. Verify first that your PSU's 12V rail is sufficient.

Nvidia cards are less energy efficient, so might not be a good upgrade choice in this case.
 
I'm guessing a 6850 would work but don't know of the quality of your 300W psu nor what other kind of load will be on it since you didn't list any other parts.
 
6850 for a 300 watt power supply? Humm.... no?

6850 has a "500 watt or greater power supply recommended."

Personally, as stated already, id say any card that does not require a 6-pin power connector is what you want. In ATI camp this would be any card up to a 6670(this is their fastest card not requiring a 6-pin power connector).

In Nvidia camp, I am not positive what their fastest card is not requiring a 6-pin connector, but maybe a gt 440? gt 450? I dont know.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
You're kidding, right? You think it takes a 500W power suppy to run a 6850?
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No but it takes more than 300w with everything else when you load it up, min I would go on a 6850 is 400w. My x4 955 and 6850 was about 330w full load.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
You're kidding, right? You think it takes a 500W power suppy to run a 6850?
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Well, just seems like a pretty ambitious recommendation. Anything that requires a 6-pin power connector should have a min of 400watt psu imo. Also, that was quoted from AMD's own specification page, not from me. They recommend a 500watt psu but its fine on 200watts less? Seems odd if true.
 
it depends on what I posted above. The 6850 is the most power efficient "mid-range" gaming card. If you used a good quality psu (like the cheapest Seasonic on newegg, 300W and rated for 24A on the 12V and is about $35) and the rest of your computer was efficient (like an i3 2100, one hard drive and one optical) it would work fine with room to spare.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
That's wrong. It depends on what else is on the power supply and the power supply itself. A piece of crap 300W psu may not be able to do it.
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Lol hows that wrong? I put watt meter on it and tested it... Thats what it came out to be, look at the H's review 334w. Your going to need a mobo and cpu and hard drive.... Even a good psu isn't going to cut it running it at 110% every time you game.
 
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I also vote 6670. My wife's computer has a 5670 and I still marvel at what it can do powered only by the PCI-e bus.
 
fattypants said:
I also vote 6670. My wife's computer has a 5670 and I still marvel at what it can do powered only by the PCI-e bus.
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The 5670 may be the best performance per watt vid card on the market today. The thing performs like maybe 15-20 fps below a 9800gt and it runs on 60 watts. No 6-pin connector needed or anything.

The 6670 runs at like 5 watts more I believe and about maybe 5-10 fps more. 6670 is the fastest single slot non-6-pin video card on the market I believe.

I am a huge nvidia fan and I wish they had some cards like that in the same category.
 
I was looking for a video cards for a 350w PSU also
alot of the newer cards need minimum 400w to 500w i have a 8600gt xxx on the 350w .
 
He should be able to run a 6850 on a quality 300w power supply. I am running phenom II x4 820, HD 5850, 8G of ram, 1 ssd, 1 laptop 5400 rpm hard drive, blu ray drive, MCP355, 2 120 x 38 panaflo fans, and 1 scythe s-flex fan.

I can stress the system with intel burn test and furmark and it will stay running.
 
sct2000 said:
i have not seen any good quality 300w power supplys that have the two 6pin to power the 6850 or 8 pin on it.
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6850 is one single 6-pin. You can also use adapters to convert Molex connectors.

A quality 300w could handle a quad core and a 6850, but no more.
 
munkle said:
Lol hows that wrong? I put watt meter on it and tested it...
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Take note at what I quoted. I didn't quote your example of 330W.




munkle said:
Thats what it came out to be, look at the H's review 334w. Your going to need a mobo and cpu and hard drive.... Even a good psu isn't going to cut it running it at 110% every time you game.
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I think most people here know that you are going to need a motherboard, cpu and hard drive. Did you read the example you quoted? Did you notice they used an overclocked i7 920? The suggestion I made isn't going to be running at 110%
 
needmorecarnitine said:
Take note at what I quoted. I didn't quote your example of 330W.
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Huh? You only quoted my post nothing else? :confused: Even if the other was overclocked take 50w off that puts you at ~280w (at the wall if you want to be picky), that means you are pushing that to near 100% every time you game. From the wall and load on the psu isn't going to be all the different. If you get a decent psu with ~85% efficiency at 330w that would be ~285w you are pulling out of the psu, still near the max.

We don't even know what psu he has, why recommend something that is going to push it near max or over if he has a crap psu that wont be able to hand it at all.
 
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munkle said:
Huh? You only quoted my post nothing else? :confused:
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Go back and look. You wrote two sentences, I quoted half a sentence. Do you not see that?



munkle said:
Even if the other was overclocked take 50w off that puts you at 280w, that means you are pushing that to near 100% every time you game. From the wall and load on the psu isn't going to be all the different. If you get a decent psu with ~85% efficiency at 330w that would be ~285w you are pulling out of the psu, still near the max.
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The i3 2100 does not use 280W with a 6850. Look up some reviews on it and notice how it uses a lot less power than an i7 at 3.6GHz. The 6850 is a sub 100 watt videocard. I never said that you should use a 300W power supply with an overclocked i7 920.



munkle said:
We don't even know what psu he has, why recommend something that is going to push it near max if he has a crap psu that wont be able to hand it at all.
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Are you only reading like half the sentences? :p

Look at my first post.
 
needmorecarnitine said:
Go back and look. You wrote two sentences, I quoted half a sentence. Do you not see that?
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Yes I see that but just because you didn't quote it doesn't mean it isn't right... I could see how you could be under 300w with dual core cpu and little extras and it would work with a good psu.

Are you only reading like half the sentences? :p

Look at my first post.
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I'm reading everything you post, the way you post must confuse me then.
 
I was in the same boat as the OP I ended up being a Zotac AMP! 550ti Edition card + a Antec 500W PSU. It's working great and I think I ended up paying 185$ for both?
 
Handcokc said:
I was in the same boat as the OP I ended up being a Zotac AMP! 550ti Edition card + a Antec 500W PSU. It's working great and I think I ended up paying 185$ for both?
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Ya that is plenty for a 550 ti. 550 ti is fairly energy efficient. I think its like 7 or 8 watts over that of a 6770 or gts 450.
 
sublimestuff said:
my 300W PSU runs an i3 with a 5850. max load of 270W running Prime and Furmark.
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that must not be an oem 300 watt psu. those typically have only about 15-19 amps for the 12v. the fact that you would even run Furmark and Prime with that setup on a 300 watt psu shows you are either brave or stupid.
 
munkle said:
Lol hows that wrong? I put watt meter on it and tested it... Thats what it came out to be, look at the H's review 334w. Your going to need a mobo and cpu and hard drive.... Even a good psu isn't going to cut it running it at 110% every time you game.
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1) That is power measured from the wall, with an inefficiency of at least 10%.
2) The test system was an overclocked i7 920, with 6GB of Dominator RAM, a 1200W PSU (which was probably running at like 85% eff, if not less).
3) 6850 has a TDP 127W for the GPU. That's... 150W counting everything else on the board, more or less.

300W is enough for a Sandy system + 6850 + a HDD or two, so long the PSU is a good one and not some junk that can only output 50% of its advertised load.
AMD recommends 500W or more because they have to cover their legal ass when some idiot sticks a 990X overclocked to hell, on a high end board with four NF200 chips, with 50 HDDs, and a 6850, all on a cheap junk crap power supply.
 
cannondale06 said:
that must not be an oem 300 watt psu. those typically have only about 15-19 amps for the 12v. the fact that you would even run Furmark and Prime with that setup on a 300 watt psu shows you are either brave or stupid.
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Ok its not OEM its the Silverstone 300W. and the OP wanted to know which card would run comfortably to with a good 300W PSU. the results i gave were just for reference that's all.
 
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