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GFX Card Upgrade


Lancs

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Hi guys,

I'm looking to purchase a new GFX card with possibly new PSU and just need some info regarding power consumption and the amount of space etc the card will occupy. I've had my eye on the XFX Core Edition Radeon HD 7770 - 1GB, just short of

Edited by Lancs

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20W to spare, phew! I guess it can't hurt to replace my PSU sometime in the near future with one with a little more headroom, plus it's always nice to have a spare knocking around.

 

Thanks for the info, Spike ;]

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The recommendation is 450W but I'm sure they take into account that some users have low end generic power supplies. The HD7770 needs no more than 100W so your Thermaltake TR2 470W will be more than enough and I can't honestly see you pulling no more than 250~300W so you've more like 170W to spare.

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What the others said but the maximum board power draw for the HD 7770 is 100w. An HD 4850 however has a maximum board power draw of 110w meaning your HD 7770, while being leagues faster will draw less power :)

 

I know XFX says the HD 7770 has a 150w draw but again, they are covering their butt making sure you have sufficient power for it and your system, in reality it only draws a maximum of 100w @ stock reference clocks and that is what AMD says.

 

 Enjoy your massive boost in GPU performance :) Also see if that Q6600 is a G0 stepping, if so, crank that bad boy up to 3ghz already, it's all antsy in it's pantsy  :)

 

As far as slot occupancy, as far as I can tell all XFX HD 7770's are dual slot. XFX has the single slot HD 7750 Ghost edition but that's it.

 

Yeah HD7770's are dual-slot cards (although I don't think it is really necessary, but it does keep temps extremely cool - or at least with my Sapphire HD7770 it does. 

 

As far as power consumption goes, most HD7770s have an 80W TDP, but my card generally uses about 60W at stock.

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TDP is not the same as power draw. TDP is how much heat the GPU can output and how much the heatsink must be designed to dissipate at a minimum. Board power draw is how much power the card as a whole is designed to pull at full load. The 2 are way to often confused for one another but they are very different.

 

Lengthy interruptions aside. Your new HD 7770 when you get it will use less power than your HD 4850 ( 100 vs 110 ) and run cooler ( 80w of heat versus 114w on the HD 4850 ).

 

There are 2 numbers for every video card that use watts to measure them, Board power ( How much power the card as a whole will actually draw from the system at minimum, average and maximum ) and Thermal Design Power ( How much heat is created by the GPU at maximum and how many thermal watts a heatsink needs to be able to dissipate to keep the GPU at a safe temperature under full load ).

Idk, I'd say they're very related. I mean, heat is pure energy and in this case it's likely the bi-product/inefficiency of the conversion from electric power to calculating work. I'd bet if he ran something like Furmark that REEEALLY stressed his 7770, he'd get close or match that 80W TDP in raw power consumption.

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Thanks for the input guys, you've been a great help. However I may have jumped the gun on the "will the card fit in this space" section of the purchase. Armed with a ruler, I popped the case and had a quick peek. Depth wise, 1.5 looks pretty tight. Up to a point there is plenty of room, but then towards the back end of the card, where the CPU heatsink resides, well it looks to me like it intrudes into the double slot space by maybe a centimeter or so, it's hard to say for sure without actually offering up the card itself. Did Dell make these XPS 430s with double depth cards in mind... this I need to know. I should head over there now and put it to them.

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