Low power AGP Suggestion?

[Kartajan]

Have a friend who has an older Mini Tower (Asus T2-p Barebone) with a 200W PSU (Micro ATX, maybe SFX?). His onboard video does not do S-Video out, but he needs it for what he wants to see (TV Out).

Several current AGP cards exists, but his POWER budget is basically tapped out with the rest of the components in the system.. (500G HDD, DVD Burner, 2.8G P4, 2G RAM, Vista Home Premium)

Any suggestions ? Thinking about doing a FX5200. Normal screen resolution of 1024x768, trying to mirror on the TV.. (Even though I think he will top out at 800x600 there)

I know nothing is cheaper, but how about more efficient for the video sources? (IE- not playing games, but watching DVD's, Video, etc..)

 

[Dazed and Confused]

MSI Passively cooled 6200

Newer features, less heat and less power consumption I believe And no fan that could ever die

 

[mindless1]

The 6200 D&C mentioned is a good choice, as is any card with the S-Video out, and a small, non-fancy (no heatpipes/etc) passive heatsink. Small passive heatsink is a clear indication it can't use much power.

Keep in mind that whatever card you choose, if it has good overclocking support (ATI & nVidia mostly) it also tends to have underclocking ability, in other words if you take a card running at (picking random numbers out of thin air) 500 GPU and 700 memory, you will have roughly half the power consumption at 250 and 350. Even with a low end card this is true you can cut back power a lot and it won't be a significant impact on 2D uses nor S-Video out, cards were fast enough for 2D about 10 years ago.

Most of the cards on the following link would be ok, keep in mind what I wrote about small passive heatsink typically meaning lower heat, meaning lower power.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...tyCodeValue=696%3A9639

 

[superstition]

I had a Mad Dog GeForce 5200 64MB card in a Shuttle with a 200 watt power supply (2 GHz AMD socket A processor, one 7200 rpm hard drive) and it couldn't handle it. A 6200 has a higher clock speed so it would be a bigger strain unless the chip has been shrunk.

 

[superstition]

The Radeon 2400 Pro should be less than 25 watts. I wonder if there's a way to downclock it?

 

[mindless1]

Originally posted by: superstition
The Radeon 2400 Pro should be less than 25 watts. I wonder if there's a way to downclock it?

Possibly, but since it starts out using more power it would seem a step in the wrong direction.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

The 6200 uses less actyual power than the FX series due to the die shrink, and I believe it'd use less power than an HD2400 as well.

 

[Kartajan]

the 6200 sounds like the winner; thanks for all the input..