tabasco Posted June 8, 2005 Posted June 8, 2005 Ok first off here is my system: 2.6 Ghz HT 768 MB RAM Audigy 2ZS Radeon 9800 pro (not for sure...you will see farther down the post) To start off the discussion, I have been thinking about upgrading for battlefield 2. I have heard that this thing is going to eat up a lot of RAM, so I thought I could get some for my birthday or something. I am a big graphics person and I love to have everything set to high. Unfortionately, I can't do this on CSS HL2, and mostly likely any other upcoming game. I mentioned on another forum that I was thinking about upgrading to a 6800 GT. Through out the thread, I also talked about power supplies. On this site here: http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/ , it shows approx. what wattage power supply you need for a system. With my current setup it tells me my recommended is 347 watts. I have the standard PSU in a deminsion 8300. If I wanted to upgrade to a nvidia 6800 GT, the recommended for that is a total of 358 watts. Now here is the question, what is the standard wattage on this PSU? Through further discussion I found out something really strange about my 9800 pro. Here you can see the standard clock rates: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/2..._charts-02.html . Now for some reason my defualt clock rate on my 9800 pro is at 324/290. On that chart it show I should have 380/680. Now what is with that?! When I do overclock my graphics card, I dont get anywhere near that amount! I get around 400/290. As you can see here, this is what I am looking at: http://img198.echo.cx/my.php?image=why9vi.jpg Now a question about a power supply: Correct me if I am wrong A better PSU wont make a performance increase correct? The only reason to Upgrade your PSU is becuase your hardware needs to draw more power. The hard-ware WILL draw all the power it needs, its just if you have a less powerful PSU, it could burn it out. Other than that, you will get the same performace if you had a very powerful one. Only the powerful one would not burn out. I have heard from many people that it increases performance. Is this true? Thanks for your help! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fastvfr Posted June 9, 2005 Posted June 9, 2005 Sure, it will increase performance. The cheap, lightweight power supply, baking as it tries to provide adequate power will also be giving noisy power and probably emitting a lot more heat than a decent model. Worse still is the fact that the noise and questionable voltage output delivered to the system will reduce the amount of juice the RAM and CPU get and also limits the number of cooling fans you can safely run. Which means your PC will seem haunted until you get a better PSU in there. Crashes and corrupted data will be the norm until the system's power needs are properly met. NEVER skimp on the power supply. It is the cheapest, eaasiest way to ensure the safety of and the maximum performance from your expensive components. And always run with a UPS. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vampire Posted June 9, 2005 Posted June 9, 2005 The reason your 9800 pro is underclocked MAY be due to the PSU. I heard that if a video card does not recieve the power it needs to run at full speed, the drivers will actually underclock the card to compensate for the lack of power, thus your card will not be running at its full potential. Thats my guess. Also, I dont think you should upgrade just yet, 9800 pros are still hanging in there, if I were you and on a tight budget (like me, Im broke ) I would just keep the 9800 pro, save a bit more and wait till the next gen cards come out, then you'll notice a significant performance difference. Good luck Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oralpain Posted June 9, 2005 Posted June 9, 2005 Thats a 9800, not a 9800 pro. BTW, 290MHz is 580DDR. A power supply can definatly have and effect stability and longevity of components, but it will lamost never have an effect on performance. For battlefield 2 you are going to want more ram, and a video card in the X800XL/6800GT range to have it run at all well on resonably good settings. If you want to max it out you will pobably need alot more. At this point I would take an X800XL over a 6800GT, esp in your situation. Speed is nearly identical, it should be cheaper, and it will draw a bit less power. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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