HD 3850 power consumption?

[Duvan]

It's PSU requirements are 450w according to some page... but I'm not sure what to think... This one indicates it takes quite little power, no?

techreport.com/articles.x/13603/9

Could my 400 watt Antec smartpower 2.0 maybe power it?

I'm replacing my 6600 gt card and have a hard time finding something that is noticeably better but still can be run without buying a new PSU.

I looked at the XLX 9600 gso (XXX version or not) which according to the XLX offical site has 400 watt as a requirement.

But in tests that one takes more power than the hd3850:

guru3d.com/article/geforce-9600-gso-386-mb-review-point-of-view/3

So I'm pulling my hair out here, trying to decide whether to buy a card that needs 450 watt officially, but that in real seems to need less, or one that needs more but has 400 watt as a req.

Also, the hd3850 version I'm looking at is a 256 mb MSI OC-factory version, which maybe has higher power demands than a normal one... huh.

[Rastalovich]

I would have thought a 6600GT would use more power than a 3850 purely on the basis the components are older ? meh.

[MeltedDuron]

Take a look at my rig in my sig. thats all running off of a 450w OCZ ModStream, which is OLD and well used, probably only puts out around 400w now. Unless you're running a quadcore or clocking the nads off of a dual core you'll be fine.

The reason they reccomend a 450w psu is because a lot of noobs would run a crappy OEM "400w" PSU, which would actually only put out say 300w with little stability and wonder why their new card wont work. Any quality power supply (like your Antec) should do just fine!

Hope I helped

Alex

[Duvan]

6600 gt:

xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd3870-hd3850_13.html

Power: 18 idle 48 peak

HD3850:

xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd3870-hd3850_13.html

Power 14 idle 63 peak

so it's 15 watt difference. Since I'm buying a OC version it's probably even more. I'm ready to give it a try if you don't think it's a crazy idea.

I run two HDDs, but otherwise just the normal (and an old am64 3200+ CPU)

[Rastalovich]

Meh. I'm running a Q9400 oc'd w/4g 3 drives, dvd, and a 8800GT oc'd on a temporary 400w atm.

[Duvan]

For your information... Bought the card and it seems to be running just fine so far (just tried a couple of games).

Only bad thing is that my processor really is holding me back and getting my low performance. But that was too be expected I guess.

Thanks for the help!