Video Card Thread (Mostly Gecube x1950xt)

Ok, we finally had the big matchup, and omega is about the same as ati drivers. Is that what we just proved?

Hey I was overestimating my fan wattage usage by a factor of 10 - I had remembered a more powerful 80mm fan using 2.5 amps, but I looked again, and it's .25 amps, whoops! 3 watts, not 30. I re-edited that earlier post. So now I think I have only added 10 watts of fans to my whole system - no big deal.

Sam, I have been looking up power supplies for the last 2 hours - and I will be looking up the two that you just recommended. I have to say that the Allied 500 has worked okay for the last two years, but I have not thrown the gecube into the equation yet. I trust Mo to a point - he builds computers and doesn't go super cheap on anything - consequently he has taken over many business accounts here in SoCal from Dell who were experiencing 10% failures with Dell equipment, and virtually 1% or less failures with Mo - he builds 75 to 100 PCs at a time for some of these guys. He always buys retail box items rather than oem, both for the warranty, and I believe I remember him saying also for more factory testing. He does get the case and power supply as a unit from his distributor.

Ray, back when I was playing around with the ATT graphs, before I found out that they were crashing my computer, I found that you can adjust the vertical size to bring the values up off the floor, a little more like how Travis did it on his cool fps graph.

 

Yeah, plenty of PSU brands are fine up to a point (perhaps 250W), put push closer to the max rating (for example 350W of a 500W supply) and that separates the cream from the muck.

 

Sam, I hear you. The newegg reviews on the allied 500 watt were quite divided. Some love it, some say it routinely fails after a year. I went googling to find power requirements on the stock gecube, and one guy said, "add 100 watts just for the tec" and 125 for the gpu. So if that's 225 watts added, and take away one x850xtpe, which is probably only about 75 watts, then it looks like I might be adding 150 watts by upgrading to the gecube. I added up all my wattage, and that would put me at about 450. That extra stress on the allied might be what causes it to crap out on me.

It does appear, however, that it has over-voltage safety shut off circuitry, because several reviews talked about sudden power shutoffs. (Shut off circuitry is what you mentioned as being good, versus just simply frying everything.) Also one review took the whole thing apart, and it appears to weigh about 5 pounds (good, right?) with pretty hefty capacitors, and decent sinks. So....... I guess it gets down to insurance - spend an extra hundred bucks, on an antiquated agp system, and an hour or two, and save lots of potential grief down the road, or don't ... and throw the dice. Do I feel lucky?

Btw, I pulled up those two PSUs you recommended. They look nice. One is $75, the Corsair about $120. I believe that once I put in the gecube, I won't be taking this computer apart in the future. I'll save it for somebody, and completely build a new state of the art system in a year or two - probably water cooled. So the psu I get doesn't need to be able to be taken to my future system - in which case if I do the psu change I'll go for the cheaper unit.

 

Sam,

I just thought of one more thing. I have only 20 amps on the single 12 volt rail. If the gecube pulls 225 watts, gpu plus tec, that is about 18 amps right there. The 12 volts fans I have everywhere pull about 1-2 more amps I guess - total of 6 fans including the two in the psu itself. The mobo cpu, supposedly 75 watts or so, is on the 6 volt rail, right?

I mean, besides the gecube, what else would be pulling on the 12 volt rail - well, the two hard drives and the dvd reader - but the floppy pulls on the 6 volt rail, right?

So I guess I mean, maybe just that one thing - if I only get 20 amps on the 12 volt rail, or 240 watts worth of 12 volts, how do they justify calling it a 500 watt power supply?

 

There's your answer. Look closely at the labels, sometimes they don't even add up to 500W! A telltale sign of bs advertising. That's your formal notice that the PSU will fail long before 500W.
20A in total for the 12V rail is never going to be enough to run the Gecube card and any powerful CPU. I'd reccommend having at least 16A on the 12V rail just for the card, and most CPUs require at least 8A, since mine is overclocked so far, it probably requires around 15A.

Shut-off circuitry is a mixed bag. There are two types, Short-circuit protection, and overload protection. If you mess around with cables when your PC is on and accidentally make a short, the PSU usually turns off straight away (my cheap Qtec 450W did). However, Overload protection usually only works once you've exceeded the official rating of the PSU. Since cheap-ass units will combust before they've even got that far, the overload protection will never kick in to stop it, unless you step way over the mark.

 

Sam - really helpful information. So let me ask you one last question about this:

Correct me if I am wrong, but what I hear you saying then is that the cpu also pulls from the 12 volt rail. I didn't know that but I guess that makes sense because I remember you cautioning Ray not to increase the juice to the cpu above 7 volts, for the overclocking headroom. Then I guess the cpu has has to be working off the 12 volt rail because the only other voltages are 3.3 and 5, right?

 

Indeed, the CPU runs off its own voltage regulators (which are situated near the CPU itself) which are in turn connected to the +12V rail.

 

Very interesting.

Sam, I looked up the specs on the allied 500 watt once more. It's putting out 20amps on the 12 volt rail, for 240 watts. Then it's putting out 52 amps on the 5 volt rail for 260 watts. What does the 5 volt rail drive - ram?? floppy?? why the hell have so much wattage for 5 volts when nothin uses 5 volts - am I missing something??????

 

Sam,

The OCZ you told me about looks great, at a good price, around $75. I notice that it has four 12 volt rails.

I was curious about multi-rail versus single rail PSUs because I noticed that all the PC Power and Cooling PSUs are single rail, and they are highly rated on every recommended list of PUSs (do you also like them?) Here is what they say about multiple rails:

By the way, I see now that PC Power and Cooling is a part of OCZ:

 

In a July 2007 review,

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad CF-Edition Anandtech expresses concern about the single rail design (which does not comply with the Power Supply Design Guide guidelines.)

Hmmmm. Still, 12 volts, with basically unlimited amperage such as off a powerful car battery, will not do much more than cause one's tongue to jump, as I have experienced many times testing for live circuits on various automobiles.

So on a personal level, I would have to downplay the risk to human safety.

On the other hand, the risk of fire is always present, as you found out Sam. But here is where I would hope that a well-designed psu would have that handled in most cases. And at the same time, I won't be carelessly damaging or half-cutting any of my power supply wires.

 

I'd personally take the 'it has to be a single rail' with a pinch of a salt. A lot of multi-rail PSUs such as my Toughpower are actually 4 rails soldered together, so I effectively have a 64A rail.
The 5V rail goes to the motherboard's chipsets, PCI cards, RAM and the data part of disk drives (drives require 1A each, memory sticks may require 1-1.5A, the chipset may require up to 5A)

 

Yeah I have heard about where the 4 rails are actually combined - so not too much different from one rail, right?

The 5 volt wattage figures out to be about 30 watts from your amp figures - so how ludicrous is it for my allied to offer 52 amps, or 260 watts, on the 5 volt rail, when about 6 or 7 amps, and 30 watts is about all you'll use. Pretty cheesy advertising!

The OCZ you recommended has 4 rails, which I don't believe are combined, however, I guess that will work out fine for me. There is a 470watt PC P&C with 26 amps on the single 12 volt rail for about the same price. Would you still have me get the OCZ?

(wow - I'm reading a great anandtech review - is water cooling better than top of the line air cooling: here)

 

And for the shocking conclusion of the Anandtech review:

 

Looks like I'm joining the ATI club. I really hope it turns out well and I don't have to start a 500 page thread on it like you guys lol.

 

Harvard if you loose the pelt and put an aftermarket cooler on instead (that would cost you less than a new psu) then you're old power unit will be fine and your card will run cooler too.
I bought a 700w Jeantech psu when I got the Gecube that cost me £65. It has a little watt meter on the back and since taking the pelt off and HR-03 on I save roughly 70-80 watts. That means if I'd just changed the gpu cooler in the first place, my TT TR-500 would have been fine and I'd be £65 better off!

 

At the end of the line Rich, any power supply could put out enough energy to cause a fire if something went wrong, the average CPU puts out 10 times as much heat energy per surface area than an electric iron.
I can see why the 5A rail is important, if you run six hard disk drives, and have four sticks of memory, you could potentially be using up to 18A on it.
On the OCZ, I believe they are genuinely separate rails. Although PCP&C make good units, that one I think is a little on the low-end side, 26A on the 12V rail might be cutting it fine with such an enormously power hungry graphics card.

Abuzar: Don't worry, you'll be fine, you bought a PCI express card, and without a peltier cooler as well.

maccerM: You know your cooling. How awesome is the HR-03 on your card?

 

Maccerm - that is exactly the thought I had yesterday.

If I were to take that course, the main thing then would be to make sure the card is not DOA before I take off the pelt, right? Because technically I couldn't RMA it back to newegg if I have taken off the pelt.

If I install the card and get to bootup, what light testing would you guys suggest I could do that wouldn't stress the card enough to turn on the pelt cooler, but still let me verify that the card works?

Obviously I wouldn't want to run 3dmark - or probably any 3d application. Could I run some Media Player videos?

Sam, would you be inclined to agree with Maccerm that my 20 amps on the 12 volt rail would probably power the p4 3.2 ghz and the gecube x1950agp if I removed the pelt?

Lastly, then, what is the investment required for the cooler you mentioned, Maccerm, the HR-03? Is that what you would recommend also, Sam?

 

Well I did a little bit of googling, and I read some great reviews about the HR-03. Thermalright is also the company that makes the cpu air cooler that was the very top product on the Anandtech review I mentioned a couple posts back.

I am taking the approach that I am going to replace the PSU, or replace the TEC cooler, but not both.

1. Replace the Tec:

Costwise, the HR-03 is about $43 or so, probably $55 with shipping, without a fan. You need a fan for the x1950xt card or Tom's Hardware showed that it hit 92 C in passive mode, versus 67 with a fan. They recommend a 92mm fan, so that's another $30 with shipping. Total cost for cooler and fan therefore I'm at about $85.

2. Replace the PSU.

The OCZ Psu is about $75, or about $85 with shipping.

The initial investments therefore are identical.

Factor in operating cost savings:

With the HR-03 I would save the extra 80 watts that MaccerM measured with the pelt cooler. As best as I can recall, 1KwHr is costing about 30 cents, these days, I think. So for every 12 hours of gaming, that's 30 cents I would save. If I were to game one full day each week, that would be about $1.30 per month.

I don't have time to game as much as I'd like, so maybe only $1 per month extra electricity (I assume the pelt won't kick in for 2d applications.)

It looks like for me, the investments are the same, and the cost savings per month would be about $1. Going the psu route I would have a fail-safe power supply that will probably never die. Doing the HR-03 mod I might be stressing the allied a little, but maybe still within its limits, although I know that you, Sam, are not comfortable with this psu, especially after the fire you had.

Change the PSU
So now that all the data is in - and taking into consideration the potential cost of components that a failed power supply would take out, plus if I lost my hard drive like Sam did I would have to take hours to reload all that software, it might be better for me to go with the new psu, and just consider the extra $1 per month operating cost a form of insurance.

What do you guys think about this?

 

While 20A may well be enough to run the X1950XT without the peltier cooler, I'd still not feel happy about that sort of power supply being in your system.
I also wouldn't recommend testing it at any level without a decent PSU, since the peltier will probably turn on with the PC initially, and turn off if not needed. Consequently it'll be on at startup which is when the hard disk surge occurs. That could well be enough to tip it over the edge.

As for the HR-03, I heartily recommend it. I think it's somewhere around the $50 mark, and you will need to get your own 92mm fan (if needed).

 

Sam, (and everyone else!) a screenshot for you of ATi Tool's 3d test. Bearing in mind that stock speeds for the gpu and ram are 650/700 respectively I think everyone would agree that is pretty impressive thermal performance from the HR-03. (And I'd like to say too that these temps were achieved with 2 case fans, not 50!)



So, Harvard just as a comparison; with the TEC on my card the same test at 675/700 would produce temps over 75c, after I bodge-modded it. Thats 20c hotter at -20mhz.
I'd just like to say to you that I think, although it may be interesting to see the results (i.e can you actually use a card with a TEC cooler!?), I think you'd be foolish to try and run your system with that thing in there.

Staying with the graphics card, another interesting point was that the PCB temp (the temp of the card itself) went down by around 15c after taking that abomonation off. The VRMs near the power connector on this card get incredibly hot, and IMO they need passiv-acti-cooling. The pelt comes with a huge backplate with a couple of randomly placed thermal patches (that barely cover half the VRMs) so half are being cooled by convection alone and they're stuck underneath a backplate with no airflow! I have done a blue peter style airflow mod with my case and employed some VRM sinks too for the hottest ones - I'll post some pics later)

Moving on to the rest of your system - the pelt is always on, and the evil little bugger always trying to ignite your other components with the extra heat it produces - not good for them or you. And the power drain...

I don't know about the specs of your psu (It may be the case as Sam suggests, no-matter what you'll need a new one) but my sys, specs in sig, runs FULL load at 205w. Just to clarify one Core 2 10% overclocked + hsf, m/b, two hdds, two dvds, a soundcard, two case fans and the gecube with the HR-03 and fan on - 205w. (with pelt you'd be looking at nearly 300) Bear in mind that a C2D is an efficient chip so add maybe 25w or so for a p4 or the like, you're still not at the 250w mark yet, so don't blow up your pc but consider the spec of your psu because IMO you'd have a good chance.

Testing your new card with old psu: My Thermaltake TR2-500w would boot my sys with the card in (pelt on) run fine in 2d, then when it ramped-up the clocks to go into 3d it would over-amp and cut-out. I would suggest that if you could run the card in 2d with the pelt on, it would run in 3d with the pelt off and say the HR-03 on, with the same psu but please check yours out on the net, see if it has a cut out built in, don't blame me if you break it and wait for Sam's inevitable comments!!

I just think it would be silly in light of everything that's been said on this post to leave a sub-standard cooling (or should we say heating) solution on there when there are much better options and you have the testimony of many to back this up. But hey, if you are dead set on it and you want to keep the pelt at least you won't have to have the central heating on when your computer is!