A fair trade?

[Cancer12]

Here's the deal. I recently put together a system for my gf to play age of conan on. Her old system couldn't cut it at all, though it was a fine WOW system lol. Anyway, for the system I gave her an old Enermax 465w ps to power it all, 4 years old (it was in my old system). Her new components are
E8400
8800GT
4gb
1hd
1dvd drive

Although it is mostly stable, she has encountered a random crash here or there. Nothing serious like a reboot, rather her game locks up and she has to close it. I'm worried that the power supply is responsible. Instead of buying her a new PS or something like that, I'm considering proposing a trade.

I'll trade her my Corsair 520w for her PS which should help the stability. Then I'd ask for her 8800GT for my 8800gts 320MB. She games at 1280 and I game at 1680. I figured it would be a good upgrade for me and she wouldn't notice a difference at her resolution. Then she would have a power supply that would last a lot longer than a 4 year old PS that I had used quite frequently. What do you guys think, is this a fair trade? Would she notice a difference? She is very happy with her performance atm and I wouldn't want to downgrade her, but I figured at that resolution there would be no difference for her.

 

[BassBomb]

I would say the 8800GT might be causing the issues if the PSU is waining because of it.

Your proposed trade would continue that problem. Isolate whether the problem IS the PSU and then I'd replace it and call it a day.

An Antec Earthwatts would work fine if you are really on a budget.

Have you checked the temps of the video card as 8800GT's can get quite hot?

 

[Cancer12]

Well I'd take her 8800GT then get a new PS for myself. Maybe a Corsair 650 or 750.

You mentioned another reason I'd like to do this trade. My 8800gts 320 would have less heat issues and has a robust fan to help regulate her system temps.

 

[DSF]

So why are you taking her PSU at all then? (But again, are you sure the PSU is the problem?)

A 650W or 750W PSU is serious overkill for a single-card 8800GT system.

 

[AzN]

It could be a lot of things not just related to power supply.

 

[jkresh]

it makes sense to try to figure out what is causing the problem before making the trade (as if you make the trade and the problems continue I doubt she will be happy). As for the performance difference between the 8800gt and your 8800gts 320 at 1280 it is unlikely to make much of a difference (maybe 5-10% so if she is currently averaging 30fps it might be noticeable but if she is getting 40 or 50 then the small change will not likely impact gameplay at all). As an upgrade for you the gt will have some impact at 1680 but its not likely to be dramatic (at 1900x1200 it would be more but it still might not be playable for some games).

to test if it is a heat or power issue run prime 95 (or orthos) in a loop along with 3dmark, check temperatures if you can, if not just run it for 1-2 hours, if neither crashes and a reboot does not occur then it might be a software issue with the game (it might need to be patched or she might need a driver update) if either program crashes or the system reboots then try swapping power supplies and testing again (if it does not crash then it was likley the power supply if it still does it is likely heat related).