Graphics card for 250w power supply

[shafe88]

What is a good graphics card for a 250w power supply with 16A on the +12V. I was thinking the maybe the low profile version of the radeon HD 6670, according to ATi 400 Watt power supply minimum, but according to AnandaTceh total system power consumption under load was around 199 on a i7-920 which is 130w compared to 65w for my athlon 64 x2 4400 Brisbane . http://www.anandtech.com/show/4278/amds-radeon-hd-6670-radeon-hd-6570/15

 

[Supernova1138]

You probably won't be able to run a 6670 on that PSU. 16A on the +12V gives you 192 Watts to work with. Keep in mind that +12V also powers hard drives, optical drives, and fans, as well as the CPU and GPU. Best case scenario, the card would run but you would be pushing your PSU to its absolute limit, which is not good for system stability, or the lifespan of the PSU. More likely, your computer will shutdown if you put a heavy load on the 6670. The most powerful card I would recommend for that PSU would be a Radeon HD 5570, or possibly 6570, everything above that draws too much power. If you do want a 6670, a 300 Watt PSU would be the minimum for that.

 

[rolli59]

^+1 Agree on the max cards being HD5570, HD6570.

 

[shafe88]

which of the two is better and will either of them play the Sims 2 smoothly like the HD 3450 on my old computer.

 

[Supernova1138]

The 6570 is slightly faster than the 5570. Either card will run the Sims 2 just fine, it is a very old game, even a really low end card like a 5450 could run it fine at any setting.

 

[rolli59]

The 6570 is newer but performance wise they are the same, They will have no problems with Sims2

 

[shafe88]

One more thing, How would gaming performance of a 6670 paired with a celery d 356 compare to a 6570 paired with a Athlon 64x2 +4400 Brisbane overclocked to 2.5 ghz.