AMD FX-53+ Geforce 6800=600 watt psu?

T

TwoBells

Hey All

I need some advice here, mainly to clear up a probable misunderstanding.

Currently I'm building a system around the AMD FX-53 cpu on a ASUS SK8V
mobo, with 1gb CORSAIR EEC, 80gb UDMA133 hdd, 200gb UDMA133 200GB HDD,
Plextor CDRW, PIONEER A07 DVDR and for my graphics solution I've decided on
the Geforce 6800.

I had ordered a AKASA 460 watt PSU and thought that was that, however, I
have since been told by a friend that the 6800 series will require a 600
watt psu.
Is that right?

Any relevant advice is welcome.

many thanks
 
A

abc

At this rate, it won't be too much longer before we start seeing PSU
capacity advertised in kilowatts.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

TwoBells said:
Hey All

I need some advice here, mainly to clear up a probable
misunderstanding.

Currently I'm building a system around the AMD FX-53 cpu on a ASUS
SK8V mobo, with 1gb CORSAIR EEC, 80gb UDMA133 hdd, 200gb UDMA133
200GB HDD, Plextor CDRW, PIONEER A07 DVDR and for my graphics
solution I've decided on the Geforce 6800.

I had ordered a AKASA 460 watt PSU and thought that was that,
however, I have since been told by a friend that the 6800 series will
require a 600 watt psu.
Is that right?

Any relevant advice is welcome.
Click to expand...

Sounds way too high to me. A 460W PSU should be overkill, as it now stands.
How much power does your friend think a video card requires?

Yousuf Khan
 
A

Allan Parent

TwoBells said:
Hey All

I need some advice here, mainly to clear up a probable misunderstanding.

Currently I'm building a system around the AMD FX-53 cpu on a ASUS SK8V
mobo, with 1gb CORSAIR EEC, 80gb UDMA133 hdd, 200gb UDMA133 200GB HDD,
Plextor CDRW, PIONEER A07 DVDR and for my graphics solution I've decided on
the Geforce 6800.

I had ordered a AKASA 460 watt PSU and thought that was that, however, I
have since been told by a friend that the 6800 series will require a 600
watt psu.
Is that right?

Any relevant advice is welcome.

many thanks
Click to expand...

I am putting together an almost identical machine. I have read that it is
suggested that the GF6800 needs a 480W PSU. 600W is beyond overkill.
 
S

Sean Ridge

Hey All

I need some advice here, mainly to clear up a probable misunderstanding.

Currently I'm building a system around the AMD FX-53 cpu on a ASUS SK8V
mobo, with 1gb CORSAIR EEC, 80gb UDMA133 hdd, 200gb UDMA133 200GB HDD,
Plextor CDRW, PIONEER A07 DVDR and for my graphics solution I've decided on
the Geforce 6800.

I had ordered a AKASA 460 watt PSU and thought that was that, however, I
have since been told by a friend that the 6800 series will require a 600
watt psu.
Is that right?

Any relevant advice is welcome.

many thanks
Click to expand...

No, that is not true. Nvidia recommended a 480w PSU initially but I
have heard that they have since revised this and are now saying a 350w
PSU should be adequate so long as it is a high quality PSU. But you
can never have too much and if I was buying one today I would probably
get something like an Antec TruePower 480w PSU or maybe even 550w.
 
T

Tony Hill

Hey All

I need some advice here, mainly to clear up a probable misunderstanding.

Currently I'm building a system around the AMD FX-53 cpu on a ASUS SK8V
mobo, with 1gb CORSAIR EEC, 80gb UDMA133 hdd, 200gb UDMA133 200GB HDD,
Plextor CDRW, PIONEER A07 DVDR and for my graphics solution I've decided on
the Geforce 6800.

I had ordered a AKASA 460 watt PSU and thought that was that, however, I
have since been told by a friend that the 6800 series will require a 600
watt psu.
Is that right?
Click to expand...

In a word: No.

The nVidia GeForce 6800 IS a power hungry beast, needing over 100W all
on it's own (completely ridiculous if you ask me, but not
surprisingly, nVidia didn't ask me :> ). The processor eats up about
100W and all other components in your system will eat up about another
100W. In total you're looking at somewhere in the 300-350W range.

That being said, power supplies are MUCH more about quality than
quantity. A good quality 350W supply should power this system up
fine, a poor quality 600W supply will fail miserably. I'm not
familiar with Akasa power supplies, however if they're halfway decent
it should work just fine with that 460W supply you've got.
 
G

GSV Three Minds in a Can

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the
wonderful person Tony Hill said:
The nVidia GeForce 6800 IS a power hungry beast, needing over 100W all
on it's own (completely ridiculous if you ask me, but not
surprisingly, nVidia didn't ask me :>
Click to expand...

They didn't ask me either, but I'm with you. That's a ridiculous amount
of power merely so someone can have 100 FPS (which my eyes can't even
detect) with 1600*1200 resolution and full screen AA, and bump mapping
and .... and ... and ... in Doom4, or HL2, or whatever. Mercifully
they won't sell many - the planet can't stand a hundred million of those
in 24/7 use.
 
T

TwoBells

Funnily enough, he (my friend) got his info from ALIENWARE, who have
introduced the 6800 into their new 'AURORA' systems and as soon as you try
to customize or tell the sales assistant you want the 6800 they say it HAS
to have the 600w psu!

TB
 
N

nobody

The nVidia GeForce 6800 IS a power hungry beast, needing over 100W all
on it's own (completely ridiculous if you ask me, but not
surprisingly, nVidia didn't ask me :> ). The processor eats up about
100W and all other components in your system will eat up about another
100W. In total you're looking at somewhere in the 300-350W range.

That being said, power supplies are MUCH more about quality than
quantity. A good quality 350W supply should power this system up
fine, a poor quality 600W supply will fail miserably. I'm not
familiar with Akasa power supplies, however if they're halfway decent
it should work just fine with that 460W supply you've got.
Click to expand...

A real life example: a friend of mine built a dual Opteron246 on Tyan
Thunder K8W with 4GB RAM, 2x 7200rpm HDD, some high end Radeon
(9800XT? - not sure). The PSU he uses is something approved by both
case maker (Thermaltake - he uses one of those fancy Xasers with lots
of fans, lights, etc.) and Tyan (Thunder needs special connectors, not
plain vanilla ATX) 4x0W (probably 460W - not sure). When he tried to
use CD writer, the video would freeze. After long recearch it turned
out it was insufficient power (he turned off some other internal
gadgets, and it all started working). Now he resorted to using as
many devices externally as possible, and waits for approved 550W or
greater PSU to come out.
I have no idea how much power requirements of GF6800IS are different
from those of R9800XT, but just by looking at ATI's heatsink I'd say
it is quite power hungry.
So 600W does not seem too much of overkill. After all, the price
difference is too negligible to warrant skimping on PSU for a high end
system.
 
T

Tony Hill

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the


They didn't ask me either, but I'm with you. That's a ridiculous amount
of power merely so someone can have 100 FPS (which my eyes can't even
detect) with 1600*1200 resolution and full screen AA, and bump mapping
and .... and ... and ... in Doom4, or HL2, or whatever. Mercifully
they won't sell many - the planet can't stand a hundred million of those
in 24/7 use.
Click to expand...

I think the planet will survive just fine with what amounts to the
equivalent of a single light bulb being turned on, though I'm not sure
it's really a good thing. A more important problem IMO is a.) these
chips are very definitely going to *require* a very fast spinning
(read: loud) fan just for themselves and probably also pump out enough
heat to require an extra case fan. Throw in the fact that these fans
are the least reliable parts to any computer and these chips could
well end up frying themselves when those fans fail and you're off to a
bad start for a product design IMO. Add in the difficulties in
getting stable power to the product (no more/less difficult than for a
modern processor) and you're sure to have a negative effect on system
reliability.

On the flip side, at least those few goofballs spending their $500+ on
one of these cards will fund the development of useful video cards so
that people like me can go out and spend $100-$125 on a card that will
play all of today's games at a good frame-rate and resolution with all
the bells and whistles turned on. I might lose out on the pissing
contests, but the $400 I saved, along with a more reliable and quieter
system more than makes up for that IMO.
 
A

Anthony Fremont

Tony Hill said:
On the flip side, at least those few goofballs spending their $500+ on
one of these cards will fund the development of useful video cards so
that people like me can go out and spend $100-$125 on a card that will
play all of today's games at a good frame-rate and resolution with all
the bells and whistles turned on. I might lose out on the pissing
contests, but the $400 I saved, along with a more reliable and quieter
system more than makes up for that IMO.
Click to expand...

You don't play FarCry do you? Takes a $200.00 card for decent results,
but really needs better. My system: P4 2.6G 800FSB, 512MB DDR433 Dual
Channel, 865PE chipset, FX-5700 8x, XP Pro. I had a 5200 it really
sucked at FarCry, the 5700 is MUCH better, but still not enough for full
bells and whistles.
 
A

Anthony Fremont

Anthony Fremont said:
You don't play FarCry do you? Takes a $200.00 card for decent results,
but really needs better. My system: P4 2.6G 800FSB, 512MB DDR433 Dual
Channel, 865PE chipset, FX-5700 8x, XP Pro. I had a 5200 it really
sucked at FarCry, the 5700 is MUCH better, but still not enough for full
bells and whistles.
Click to expand...

Oh and by the way, I use a 300W HEC (Herolchi) supply and it's a rock
solid stable system. Beware of bogus PS power claims. There are a
good many supplies that will smoke if you come any where near their
rating for any length of time. I think they are using the PMPO type
measurement scale. ;-)
 
M

Mattias Johnsson

[email protected] said:
A real life example: a friend of mine built a dual Opteron246 on Tyan
Thunder K8W with 4GB RAM, 2x 7200rpm HDD, some high end Radeon
(9800XT? - not sure). The PSU he uses is something approved by both
case maker (Thermaltake - he uses one of those fancy Xasers with lots
of fans, lights, etc.) and Tyan (Thunder needs special connectors, not
plain vanilla ATX) 4x0W (probably 460W - not sure). When he tried to
use CD writer, the video would freeze. After long recearch it turned
out it was insufficient power (he turned off some other internal
gadgets, and it all started working). Now he resorted to using as
many devices externally as possible, and waits for approved 550W or
greater PSU to come out.
I have no idea how much power requirements of GF6800IS are different
from those of R9800XT, but just by looking at ATI's heatsink I'd say
it is quite power hungry.
So 600W does not seem too much of overkill. After all, the price
difference is too negligible to warrant skimping on PSU for a high end
system.
Click to expand...

As another point of reference, I'm using a dual Opteron 244 on a Tyan
2875 Tiger board, 2GB RAM, 2 x 120 GB SATA HDD, Radeon 9200 graphics,
DVD burner and FDD. The power supply is an Antec 400W one and I have
had no problems whatsoever. I realise the video card is a much lower
end model than yours, but I'm still a bit surprised your friend had
problems. Maybe I'm living life on the edge and just haven't realised
it yet!

Mattias
 
M

Mattias Johnsson

[email protected] said:
A real life example: a friend of mine built a dual Opteron246 on Tyan
Thunder K8W with 4GB RAM, 2x 7200rpm HDD, some high end Radeon
(9800XT? - not sure). The PSU he uses is something approved by both
case maker (Thermaltake - he uses one of those fancy Xasers with lots
of fans, lights, etc.) and Tyan (Thunder needs special connectors, not
plain vanilla ATX) 4x0W (probably 460W - not sure). When he tried to
use CD writer, the video would freeze. After long recearch it turned
out it was insufficient power (he turned off some other internal
gadgets, and it all started working). Now he resorted to using as
many devices externally as possible, and waits for approved 550W or
greater PSU to come out.
I have no idea how much power requirements of GF6800IS are different
from those of R9800XT, but just by looking at ATI's heatsink I'd say
it is quite power hungry.
So 600W does not seem too much of overkill. After all, the price
difference is too negligible to warrant skimping on PSU for a high end
system.
Click to expand...

As another point of reference, I'm using a dual Opteron 244 on a Tyan
2875 Tiger board, 2GB RAM, 2 x 120 GB SATA HDD, Radeon 9200 graphics,
DVD burner and FDD. The power supply is an Antec 400W one and I have
had no problems whatsoever. I realise the video card is a much lower
end model than yours, but I'm still a bit surprised your friend had
problems. Maybe I'm living life on the edge and just haven't realised
it yet!

Mattias
 
T

Tony Hill

You don't play FarCry do you? Takes a $200.00 card for decent results,
but really needs better. My system: P4 2.6G 800FSB, 512MB DDR433 Dual
Channel, 865PE chipset, FX-5700 8x, XP Pro. I had a 5200 it really
sucked at FarCry, the 5700 is MUCH better, but still not enough for full
bells and whistles.
Click to expand...

I was actually thinking of the ATI Radeon 9600, which are currently
selling for $100-$125 (I'm looking to buy a card for $150 CDN, or
about $115 US). By my reading this card seems to offer quite
reasonable performance up to 1024x768 resolution.

As for the GeForceFX 5700, those seem to mostly be going for $150 from
most reasonable stores, maybe a bit less if you get it from the
bargain bin. The Pricewatch bottom-feeders have a few of them on for
under $100, so this is in the same ball-park price range as well.
 
A

Anthony Fremont

Tony Hill said:
:

I was actually thinking of the ATI Radeon 9600, which are currently
selling for $100-$125 (I'm looking to buy a card for $150 CDN, or
about $115 US). By my reading this card seems to offer quite
reasonable performance up to 1024x768 resolution.

As for the GeForceFX 5700, those seem to mostly be going for $150 from
most reasonable stores, maybe a bit less if you get it from the
bargain bin. The Pricewatch bottom-feeders have a few of them on for
under $100, so this is in the same ball-park price range as well.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... I can't seem to touch a decent one for under $175.00 from my
local wholesalers. 8x and 256 meg. Those cheap 5700LE cards are crap,
slow clocks and cheap memory make for only half the performance. Stick
with the regular or ULTRA versions (DDR2 or GDDR3). The ULTRA is
definitely worth the extra dollars. I don't know what kind of
sacrifices are being made on the real cheap Radeon cards, but I suspect
you get what you pay for.

I have an MSI card and it can withstand some serious overclocking, but
it still is quite a bit slower than an ULTRA. In summary, don't pinch
pennies on your video, it will show.
 
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