- Aug 3, 2010
- 53
- 0
- 0
Long-time Lurker, First post.
Ipod comments aside, I've been motivated to ask for a little guidance in a slightly complex card selection matter.
I have a semi-portable system that I use to truck around when I'm going to be working away from home for a while, that I put together a while back for moderate duty gaming. I will occasionally do other work on this machine, generally one off projects. The video card recently started artifacting aggressively, even in 2d. Replacement of card seems to be the best bet, due to speed and convenience at the moment.
The system is a P35 Shuttle machine with only a 400W PSU, and though I've heard that their PSU's are 'very good' - that's hard to quantify. I need a recommendation as to a replacement for the 8800 GTS 512 (G92) that's in there now. I know that works with the PSU in residence, so I wanted a power/heat/space equivalent (or slightly more demanding) card
The rest of the system is an E8500, 4GB RAM, onboard sound, etc. I game primarily at 19x12, and have no huge desire to try and push this thing for anything higher. Currently, I'm running XP, but there's a partition and copy of W7 just waiting to be installed when necessary.
Trying to parse TDP, actual power usage, and performance indicates that the best bets are likely one of the 460 variants or a 5850. As best as I can tell, the charts here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3810/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-part-2-the-vendor-cards/6
seem to indicate that, for real world use scenarios (Crysis, not Furmark) there are a few 'best case' replacements. I've been comparing to the 8800GT on that list, which references a TDP 30W lower than my 8800GTS 512. I've been mentally adding the 30W to the 8800 GT numbers for the sake of comparison, though I know that's not 100% accurate.
1GB 460 is coming in around 40-45W higher than an 8800 GT, which is 30W TDP lower rated than my 8800 GTS. The 5850 and the 768 460 variant seem to be virtually identical, cracking in around 30W higher. Judging just by TDP, the 5850 is rated at 150W, and the 460 either 150 or 160W, depending on RAM.
Net - 460 768 ~ equivalent W, 5850 ~equivalent W, 460 1GB +10-15W.
Because this is a portable system, I'm not interested in long term, bang for buck, future proofing scenarios. I'm hoping to build a nice, beefy system that would make this one cry in the next few months. Because I'm replacing a card in a system that I like to have available quickly, I'd like to get something ordered and in before the weekend, so waiting for a one-off deal or slick rebate combo is right out. I also should say that some of the work I occasionally do has CUDA applications, and that active 3D is a potential use for this machine, with a spare high refresh projector I have. These are leaning me towards a 460, but not so much that I'd like to cause long term stability issues.
So, Should I go with the frame buffer equivalent 768MB 460, risk the extra 10-15 W TDP for the 1GB to squeeze out a little more performance, or squeeze out some more performance still, and pay a small premium for the lower heat/power and get a 5850? Or, do you think I'm crazy trying to squeeze any of the above in there, and go for a 240 or 5770 and call it a day?
tl;dr summary -
8800 GTS 512 crapped out in Shuttle SFF machine. With heat/power/price concerns, what is best replacement?
Thanks in advance for the help
Ipod comments aside, I've been motivated to ask for a little guidance in a slightly complex card selection matter.
I have a semi-portable system that I use to truck around when I'm going to be working away from home for a while, that I put together a while back for moderate duty gaming. I will occasionally do other work on this machine, generally one off projects. The video card recently started artifacting aggressively, even in 2d. Replacement of card seems to be the best bet, due to speed and convenience at the moment.
The system is a P35 Shuttle machine with only a 400W PSU, and though I've heard that their PSU's are 'very good' - that's hard to quantify. I need a recommendation as to a replacement for the 8800 GTS 512 (G92) that's in there now. I know that works with the PSU in residence, so I wanted a power/heat/space equivalent (or slightly more demanding) card
The rest of the system is an E8500, 4GB RAM, onboard sound, etc. I game primarily at 19x12, and have no huge desire to try and push this thing for anything higher. Currently, I'm running XP, but there's a partition and copy of W7 just waiting to be installed when necessary.
Trying to parse TDP, actual power usage, and performance indicates that the best bets are likely one of the 460 variants or a 5850. As best as I can tell, the charts here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3810/nvidias-geforce-gtx-460-part-2-the-vendor-cards/6
seem to indicate that, for real world use scenarios (Crysis, not Furmark) there are a few 'best case' replacements. I've been comparing to the 8800GT on that list, which references a TDP 30W lower than my 8800GTS 512. I've been mentally adding the 30W to the 8800 GT numbers for the sake of comparison, though I know that's not 100% accurate.
1GB 460 is coming in around 40-45W higher than an 8800 GT, which is 30W TDP lower rated than my 8800 GTS. The 5850 and the 768 460 variant seem to be virtually identical, cracking in around 30W higher. Judging just by TDP, the 5850 is rated at 150W, and the 460 either 150 or 160W, depending on RAM.
Net - 460 768 ~ equivalent W, 5850 ~equivalent W, 460 1GB +10-15W.
Because this is a portable system, I'm not interested in long term, bang for buck, future proofing scenarios. I'm hoping to build a nice, beefy system that would make this one cry in the next few months. Because I'm replacing a card in a system that I like to have available quickly, I'd like to get something ordered and in before the weekend, so waiting for a one-off deal or slick rebate combo is right out. I also should say that some of the work I occasionally do has CUDA applications, and that active 3D is a potential use for this machine, with a spare high refresh projector I have. These are leaning me towards a 460, but not so much that I'd like to cause long term stability issues.
So, Should I go with the frame buffer equivalent 768MB 460, risk the extra 10-15 W TDP for the 1GB to squeeze out a little more performance, or squeeze out some more performance still, and pay a small premium for the lower heat/power and get a 5850? Or, do you think I'm crazy trying to squeeze any of the above in there, and go for a 240 or 5770 and call it a day?
tl;dr summary -
8800 GTS 512 crapped out in Shuttle SFF machine. With heat/power/price concerns, what is best replacement?
Thanks in advance for the help