Video Card for Old Comp

[mb90078]

I'm looking for a video card (AGP or PCI) that needs a 185 or less PSU. I've got a HP Pavilion 8575C, and I don't want to go through the trouble of finding a new PSU as well. Does anyone have recomendations as to what will work?

 

[selfbuilt]

Good that you are considering the PSU power ... but it's hard to know what it will take until you try. Obviously, modern power-hogs like the higher-end Radeons are out. Besides, given the overall system specs, you would be too CPU-limited to see much of the benefit.

Unless you are considering replacing the whole system, I would recommend trying one of the older style cards. As much as people rant about this card, I would seriously consider the GeForce4 MX. It's basically just a souped-up Geforce2, but would give you give pretty decent relative performance at a very reasonable price. (I'm running two older GeForce2s on my kids' machines and they work great, even with modern games). There are also the earlier Radeons, like 7000/7500 series you could consider, but I've never tried them.

Basically, I would go with the cheapest graphics card you could find right now (which would give you quite a performance boost over the built-in vanta), and save up for a new system down the road.

 

[mb90078]

Hehe..actually I recently got a new computer (with a 4 MX even...though I do plan on upgrading that in a year or so). But I'm just looking for something to boost the older computer which is still used (obviously not for the current games).

But you think that the GeFoce 2/4 and the Radeon 7000 could have a good chance of working with my PSU?

 

[mb90078]

Also, does anyone know of a place where I can buy it where I might be able to return it without too much difficulty if it doesn't work out?

 

[majewski9]

Id say any lower end Radeon will do the trick. You proably want see any performance difference between any of the cards. Id say the best card you could get would be a Radeon 7000 to 7500. Newegg! is the place for you!

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: mb90078
Also, does anyone know of a place where I can buy it where I might be able to return it without too much difficulty if it doesn't work out?

Be sure to check out any place you find online before you order. Newegg is a good choice in my humble opinion (I've always been satisfied with their service).

Yea, and a low end Radeon like the 7000 or 7500, or a GF2 or 4 MX (I'd prefer the Radeon to the GF?MX because of the better 2D image quality of the former) should do the trick for you.

 

[DClark]

I would think that the 64mb Radeon 9000 should use very little power, and with a decently powerful processor it would still be okay even for today's games(albeit at a lower resolution). Many versions opt for a passive heatsink, and it's essentially the same core as the Mobility Radeon 9000 (only clocked a bit higher), so I can't see it drawing an exessive amount of power.

 

[mb90078]

Sounds good! Do you think the AGP version of either would be too power consuming?

 

[DClark]

I doubt it. I don't think the AGP version would be much more power consuming than the PCI version.

I did a search for "HP Pavilion 8575C" and it says it has a 550mhz P3. It's hard to find the actual power output of individual processors, but Tom's Hardware found (here) that an AthlonXP 2100+ consumes a maximum of 89.88 watts of power. I can't see the P3 550 consuming even half the power of an AthlonXP 2100+, so let's guess-timate the P3's power output at 40 watts.

Add 28w for a hard drive, 23.5w for the motherboard, 19.2w for a media drive, 20w for two memory sticks, another 25w for keyboard, mouse, sound, USB, etc. and an extra 10w for "fudge factor", and you have 165.7w of maximum power consumption (excluding graphics). AMD suggests that the power supply needs to be able to handle 100% of the processor power consumption, plus 80% of everything else. That would mean the above list (which still doesn't include a graphics card) would need a minimum of a (165.7 - 40w processor= 125.7; x0.80= 100.56; + 40w processor=) 140.56w power supply, leaving you with 45w to play with (though you wouldn't want to go right up to around the 185w mark). For perspective, Tom's Hardware has a GeForce4 Ti4600 listed as consuming around 30w at max power, and supposedly the Radeon 9700 Pro's max power tops out at around 54w.

A Radeon 9000 should be fine, and the whole setup shouldn't stress a 185w power supply too hard. Since it's a 550mhz processor, any faster graphics card would be bottlenecked by the processor anyways, so I wouldn't bother going to a more powerful card than the 9000 (you'd just be wasting money).

 

[Skibby9]

It is amazing that the big name OEMs include such low-rated PSUs in their machines, but they are generally good quality. My wifes Dell (1.6 GHz P4) came with a ~180W PSU. I expect you could put whatever you want in it and it would run fine. Well, maybe not a GFX card that requires a molex connection to the PSU...