Graphics card for system with 300W PSU?

[me_vernon]

My 13yo son has a Dell Inspiron 570 mini-tower w/on-board ATI HD4200** Trouble is, the PSU is only 300W and I don't live close enough to replace it** Can someone re***mend a PCI-E 16x grfx card that won't kill his PSU? He's got a 3GHz Athlon II x2, 4GB of DDR3, 500GB SATA HD, and a CD/DVD drive** No pre-determined budget or preferred brand/chipset, just hoping to get something faster for him** He plays Minecraft if that helps** Thanks in advance!

 

[Jimzz]

A 6570 with DDR5 uses little power (60watt), same with the 7750 (70ish watt)@#@#

The 7750 might be overkill for that system@#@#
Here is a 6570 that is DDR5 and cheap@#@#@#@#@#@#

http://www@#@#newegg@#@#@#@#@#/Product/Product@#@#aspx?Item=N82E16814127586

Its out of stock right now but great price worth waiting for@#@#

 

[lehtv]

why do i see all periods as @ and # signs? apparently a forum problem cos that link doesn't work

 

[Greenlepricon]

In my opinion I would go with a 7750 just to stay up to date a little longer@#@# A 6570 or something close to it will also work as well as Jimzz said, but if you have the money and don't plan on upgrading anytime soon you might as well go for the best of the low power cards@#@#

 

[me_vernon]

Thanks so much for this assistance on this, Jimzz and Greenlepricon. I spent the better part of 20 years in the Wintel hardware industry, including 3 years at Tyan. But after being away from that industry for multiple years, I had to lean on some Anandtech help, which you both provided kindly and quickly. GREATLY appreciated.

 

[notty22]

You are going to need a half height or low profile card and bracket for a slim case** And also since the psu and computer specs are on the low end** Something like this is still a good upgrade**
A 6450, with a free game download**
http://www**newegg**com/Product/Produc******82E16814150567

This one would be faster** A 6570
http://www**newegg**com/Product/Product**aspx?Item=N82E16814127611

You lose the VGA port with the low profile bracket in these which may lead to monitor hook up issues**

edit: the MSI card does offer the extra bracket for the vga port , on the next slot down** The better option **

 

[toyota]

that is a regular tower so he does not need to get a half height card.

but yeah that is not really a 300 watt psu. its a cheap oem psu with only 18 amps aka 216 watts on the 12v. its only rated at 25 C and is made with very cheap parts and will stand no chance of making more than about 14 amps at best on the 12v in real world conditions. after some years of use, it will not even be able to make that.

 

[frozentundra123456]

that is a regular tower so he does not need to get a half height card.

but yeah that is not really a 300 watt psu. its a cheap oem psu with only 18 amps aka 216 watts on the 12v. its only rated at 25 C and is made with very cheap parts and will stand no chance of making more than about 14 amps at best on the 12v in real world conditions. after some years of use, it will not even be able to make that.

You are correct of course, but I ran a low power 9800GT for 2 years on an OEM "300 watt" power supply that only had 20 amps on the 12 volt rail. With only a dual core CPU, chances are he would be OK with the 7750. I think the rating for the low power 9800GT was 65 watts, I believe more than the rating for the 7750. Actually I just retired the card a couple of months ago, and it was still running on that PSU that was almost 6 years old. The fan was starting to stop intermittently on the PSU and everytime it did, it would overheat and shut down. Since the entire system was getting old and slow, I just got a new system altogether.