What Power Supply should I buy?

[joy83]

I am planning to buy a new video card, but I am not so sure if my 305W power supply in my dell e521 will be enough for it. I am not a huge gamer but I occasionally play high end games like company of heroes and planning to play comm and conquer 3 once it comes out.
I will probably go for a 256 MB geforce 7900GT or 7800GT but I am concerned if my power supply is ready for those or do I have to upgrade to a 500W supply. I have found a cheap power supply at circuit city, can anybody tell me if it is any good

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Ante...28549/catOid/-13011/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

here are my comp specs

AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core 3800+
2GB RAM ( 512 x 4)
160 GB hard drive
305 W power supply

Please help
Also do I really need a high end graphic card because I usually play my PS2, I just chill out with my pc and sometimes play some games. Should I then go for a 7600?

 

[Sora]

What is your budget? Becuase for the same price as a 7900GT you could get a cheap PSU that will work and a 7900GS to hold you over (around 200 bucks)

Yes!!! That PSU will work wonderfully! 480w is perfect for a 7900GT and a 480w Antec is even better. At 20 bucks thats incredible!

Get that PSU and whatever card you were going to get...what is your budget? Im curious.



EDIT: If you don't has much of a Budget then a 7900GS might be a better bet since after overclocking it can be almost as fast as a 7900GTX.

They also are 30 bucks cheaper than 7900GT. The 7600GT would work depending on your resolution, they are powerful for the money but if you play on 1200x1000 resolution then your going to want something a little more powerful for future games, a 7900GS would be perfect for this for the money.

If you only play at 1024x768 then the 7600GT would be fine for future games.

Still the 7900GS is an incredible card and it overclocks so well. I should know as I have one.

 

[joy83]

Thanks for the quick reply, my budget is around $100-150. I know its not that much for a high end card but I also dont play that much all the time. I am a weird kind of gamer, I dont like to play fps but I am mad about rts and driving games.

 

[Sora]

if you can spring for this I HIGHLY recommend it as stated it will overclock way past stock speeds and destroy most new games out as lower res like 1200x1000 for a while.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130056

if not then a better card in your budget would be this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16814102034

Strock both of those are similar in performance but the thing is after overclocking...the 7900GS will destroy that card. Overclocking a Graphics card is completely safe by the way as long as you don't physically mod the card with conductive ink or such.

Still either of those card should suffice your needs and will play games great....I still recommend springing for the 7900GS though if possible heh as it's just overall a better card for not much more.

 

[joy83]

How about this card

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/EVGA...60908/catOid/-13043/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

I have $40 off circuit city coupon for $199 and above, so I can buy that card for $159.99 and there is a $30 rebate on that so the final price will be $129.99 which I think is the lowest price I have seen for this card and also within my budget, what do you think?

 

[Sora]

That's the exact same card I recommended...even the same brand eVGA.

You will be able to overclock that thing to 600/800 and destroy games for months to come heh, I still do now.

 

[joy83]

so this 7900 GS card and the power supply that I showed above. Will that be enough to play some kick *** games.

 

[Sora]

I have the exact same card running at 600/800 running on a Rosewill 450w PSU.

I Play on a 19 inch wide screen at 1440x900 with 2GB of ram and I play everything I want on high no lag so far. Even oblivion has a hard time slowing this card down, but I do have an E6300 at 3.22ghz as well. regardless no mater what your cpu buy it overclock and you should kick ***.

I'm curious though what resolution is your monitors native? Mines a 19 inch wide so its 1440x900 now. I used to play on a 15inch with 1024x768 and a gig of ram and it still would play oblivion on high and everything else I messed with.

 

[joy83]

i have a proview 19 inch widescreen lcd monitor, Its standard resolution is 1440x900 which is what I use all the time.
It has 5ms response time.

http://www.proview.net/Product/Product_Feat.aspx?sn=429&pi=2011&ii=2719

 

[Sora]

Well buddy then you'll be getting around the same frames as me since CPU doesn't make a huge performance difference in games.


Here's another way to show you what you will be able to lol. Right now I am playing Oblivion on high settings no lag with Guild Wars running on my bar as well lol.

The 7900GS in my opinion is one of the best cards for the money there are, it is a good bit more powerful than the 7600GT and a 7600gt would have a hard time playing newer games on your 1440x900 resolution. This 7900GS however will handle it like a champ.

Order it up man and enjoy!