quality vs price!

[wiscountryboy]

hey guys i need ur help again, i am on a roughly $200 spending budget and i need the best card i can get i have looked at the geforce 6600 and the 6600gt and like both of them but are there other cards that i can look at?

i have an 8x agp and ur win xp home sp2 i have a 350watt psu and a soyo mobo anything that you guys can show me would be terrific

i have a geforce fx5200 and i am highly disappointed with it, it can even play halo! and that game @ least a year old now, i plan on buying this card at the end of the summer(gotta have money, ya know?) thanks again

 

[isatippy]

If your going to get something like geforce 6600 you are going to have to upgrade your psu.

 

[wiscountryboy]

alright, how much wattage should i get and what will happen if i dont have the proper psu size or however we measure its horse power

 

[isatippy]

You should have 450w atleast see what the card recomends. If you don't have the w's then the card will not run properly and might not run at all.

 

[isatippy]

IF your going to buy a psu quality is way more importent the price.

 

[wiscountryboy]

alright so then a powmax 480 psu would do the job then??

 

[isatippy]

I wouldn't recomend powmax but it is your choise. I would say a thermaltake 450w or a 400 thermaltake might do fine. quality will always out do price and a 400 thermaltake might do better than a powmax 480w.

 

[olefarte]

From what I've seen on most brands a 6600 GT's minimum power requirement is listed as 350 watts. But I agree I would always go for more than just the minimum. I've got a 6800 GT and I use a Antec True Power 430, and it runs my system quit easily.

Look here at the Antec, also look at a lot of other choices.

 

[isatippy]

Ya I just look it up and 350 is the minimum but I would go atleast with a 450w if I were you.

 

[vnf4ultra]

What brand psu do you currently have? A 350 is fine if you have a good brand(Antec, ppc&c, enermax, tagan, zippy/emacs, seasonic, fortron, sparkle).
I'm running a 6600gt with an antec 350w. I'm having problems with my card though(missing textures), that might be power related though, or it could be a defective card or a software issue.

 

[wiscountryboy]

alright i have a maxpower psu and just to throw a wrench in the works, i figured i would take out my mobo maunal and make sure that this new card would work, the answer is the 6600gt will not work. heres the reason, my motherboard only accecpts 1.5volt cards, not 3.3volt and all the 6600gt's that i have seen are 3.3volt! any help on this would be terrific

 

[vnf4ultra]

I think agp 8x uses 0.8v and 4x uses 1.5v. I think most agp 8x cards support 0.8v and 1.5v.

Example: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-127-150&depa=1
Go down the page and read in the specifications "Bus AGP 8X/4X"

Edit: Read these.
http://www.ertyu.org/~steven_nikkel/agpcompatibility.html
http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/10,63.html

 

[wiscountryboy]

i think i spoke 2 soon on this one, i just got off the nvidia site and they said that the card would operate at 1.5volts....maybe i read wrong so what do you guys think? would a 6600gt operate in a slot that ONLY accecpts 1.5volt cards

 

[wiscountryboy]

i hate eatin my words but it needs to be done again...i just re-re-re read my mobo manual and it specified that it only accecpts 1.5v cards and then it said that usually 4x and 8x cards are 1.5v or .8v and would support both of them......in other words i didnt read correctly and neway thanks guys :grinthumb