Low power and low noise graphic cards

[dede27]

I am building my first computer and since I am a newbie, I would like recommendations for top brand parts.

Please recommend some low power consumption and low noise graphic cards (maximum of $ 250) , for a mid- level home built computer.

I certainly would appreciate recommendations on a 24" monitor, as well as a combination scanner/printer to go with my new build.

In addition, a highly efficient and quiet modular power supply in the 650 to 750 watt range. ( Modular, if you folks think that's the best way to go.)

If I had all my PC parts selected, I'd put them down.

Thanks in advance,
Dede 27

 

[omnisome]

Will you be gaming? How long before you, if you do intend, to upgrade?

Here are a couple of graphics cards that are quite efficient and give a good all-round performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127476&cm_re=5770-_-14-127-476-_-Product - MSI Radeon HD5770 (1GB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161348&cm_re=hd6850-_-14-161-348-_-Product - HIS Radeon HD6850 (1GB); This is a higher-end card. (Awesome HTPC board)


So what do you have already? (e.g; OS, monitor, keyboard, mouse, case etc.).

 

[dede27]

Will you be gaming? How long before you, if you do intend, to upgrade?

Here are a couple of graphics cards that are quite efficient and give a good all-round performance:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127476&cm_re=5770-_-14-127-476-_-Product - MSI Radeon HD5770 (1GB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161348&cm_re=hd6850-_-14-161-348-_-Product - HIS Radeon HD6850 (1GB); This is a higher-end card. (Awesome HTPC board)


So what do you have already? (e.g; OS, monitor, keyboard, mouse, case etc.).

Hi,
Thanks for your reply!

Sorry it took so long to reply to you. I had problems with my PC and had a hard time finding this post.

I want a PC for general use such as surfing the web, email, picture repairs and enlarging.

I also want to do video editing. I am not a gamer but may try some gaming but not big time.

Please make recommendations on all of my selections!

This is what I have selected for my build and subject to changes:

1. A couple of F3 1TB Spinpoint hard drives. I had read that the ssd's do not erase all the info and also that they are not reliable as hdd. So I may use a F4 Spinpoint as my boot drive. I had chosen an Intel X-25M 120 GB ssd.

I had read about a guy who used his primary drive with a partition for W7 and apps. Then use the rest of the drive for documents, pictures, music, etc.

He had an secondary drive in which he had exactly copied the primary dive.

If the primary drive had a bad virus or other trouble, he'd switch to the secondary drive.

Then he'd reformat the primary drive and copy the secondary drive to it.

In this way he'd alway have a working drive. It folks tell me it will work ok, I will do it.

2.Intel i7-875k cpu

3.12 GB of ram- I have not selected the manufacture of type-recommendations, please.

4. Hauppauge Win TV-HVR-2250 dual tuner

4. Cooler Master RC-942-KKN1 case. I chose it because of all the drives, USB3, Sata, drive dock, number of slots and fans.

5.Winodows 7 Home Premium- 64 bit

6.M.Soft comfort curve keyboard 2000

7.Logitech MX 518 Mouse

8.I had chosen a Gigabyte GA-P55A UD4P mobo but will wait to see what develops in the new mobos after the Intel problem with the new cpu. I understand it will be fast. Is it the Sandbridge?

I would certainly appreciate any recommendations on the cpu ,mobo and and anything else, please.

9.In regards to a gpu, I would like one with low power consumption, low noise and temperature.

I can not make up my mind about using a HD 5850, XF's Radeon HD 6870
Black Edition or GT 430 cards

Since most of my use will be video editing rather than gaming, perhaps I should select the GT 430. What do you folks think. Any better ones for video editing?

Again, thanks for your help!
Best regards,
dede 27

 

[UniqueName]

Wow all over the place.

1. A couple of F3 1TB Spinpoint hard drives. I had read that the ssd's do not erase all the info and also that they are not reliable as hdd. So I may use a F4 Spinpoint as my boot drive. I had chosen an Intel X-25M 120 GB ssd.

I had read about a guy who used his primary drive with a partition for W7 and apps. Then use the rest of the drive for documents, pictures, music, etc.

He had an secondary drive in which he had exactly copied the primary dive.

If the primary drive had a bad virus or other trouble, he'd switch to the secondary drive.

Then he'd reformat the primary drive and copy the secondary drive to it.

In this way he'd alway have a working drive. It folks tell me it will work ok, I will do it.

Are you planning to sell your drive? If not you don't have to worry. When it fails, unscrew everything and smash the circuit boards with a hammer. You can't erase a drive after it fails anyway. Also it's not true about erasing SSD. You just can't erase them with programs designed for magnetic hard drives. You should make backups. Multiple hard drives is probably easiest but there are other ways. Unless you need 24x7 reliability, there's no need for hot imaging or RAID-1.

2.Intel i7-875k cpu

8.I had chosen a Gigabyte GA-P55A UD4P mobo but will wait to see what develops in the new mobos after the Intel problem with the new cpu. I understand it will be fast. Is it the Sandbridge?

None of the components you selected are affected by Intel's Cougar Point SATA2 3Gbps reliability issue. They're also not Sandy Bridge so it will be old tech soon.

I would certainly appreciate any recommendations on the cpu ,mobo and and anything else, please.

9.In regards to a gpu, I would like one with low power consumption, low noise and temperature.

I can not make up my mind about using a HD 5850, XF's Radeon HD 6870
Black Edition or GT 430 cards

Since most of my use will be video editing rather than gaming, perhaps I should select the GT 430. What do you folks think. Any better ones for video editing?

Again, thanks for your help!
Best regards,
dede 27

Crossfire 6870 is most definitely not low power, low noise. Low power and high performance are opposites. nVidia might be the better choice since CUDA can accelerate a lot more programs than ATI Stream but it still depends a lot on the application you are using. Faster cards will also perform better if the application supports it.

 

[RB120]

9.In regards to a gpu, I would like one with low power consumption, low noise and temperature.

I can not make up my mind about using a HD 5850, XF's Radeon HD 6870
Black Edition or GT 430 cards

Since most of my use will be video editing rather than gaming, perhaps I should select the GT 430. What do you folks think. Any better ones for video editing?

An HD 5850, and HD 6870 are not exactly low power, low noise, and low temperature (quite the contrary on all three fronts). Actually, they are better for gaming (mid-to-high-end gaming) than video editing. They may be more than what you need, but if your interested in gaming in the future, and have the money to spend, then they are fantastic cards indeed.

A GT430 is better suited for your purposes, in my opinion, especially if your mostly using it for video editing as opposed to gaming (less power draw, less heat, dead quiet). I'd probably choose an HD 5570 over the GT 430 though, for value and performance. You probably won't be able to play games coming out in the next couple years at higher resolutions, however. Question is, do you want to?

 

[jaguarskx]

I would just get a HD 5570 which has pretty low power consumption and is very good for video playback.

A more powerful video card is not necessary for video editing unless the program you use supports CUDA (nVidia cards) or AVIVO (AMD/ATI cards).

 

[dede27]

Wow all over the place.

Are you planning to sell your drive? If not you don't have to worry. When it fails, unscrew everything and smash the circuit boards with a hammer. You can't erase a drive after it fails anyway. Also it's not true about erasing SSD. You just can't erase them with programs designed for magnetic hard drives. You should make backups. Multiple hard drives is probably easiest but there are other ways. Unless you need 24x7 reliability, there's no need for hot imaging or RAID-1.

None of the components you selected are affected by Intel's Cougar Point SATA2 3Gbps reliability issue. They're also not Sandy Bridge so it will be old tech soon.

Crossfire 6870 is most definitely not low power, low noise. Low power and high performance are opposites. nVidia might be the better choice since CUDA can accelerate a lot more programs than ATI Stream but it still depends a lot on the application you are using. Faster cards will also perform better if the application supports it.

Unique Name: you said " You should make backups. Multiple hard drives is probably easiest but there are other ways. Unless you need 24x7 reliability, there's no need for hot imaging or RAID-1."

How would you setup backups for "Multiple hard drives"? Would you please tell me how to do the "other ways" or where to find the information?

Quote: None of the components you selected are affected by Intel's Cougar Point SATA2 3Gbps reliability issue. They're also not Sandy Bridge so it will be old tech soon. End quote

Is Sandy Bridge that much better than what is available now? If it is, perhaps I should wait until the end of March to get one. What do you think?

Quote: Crossfire 6870 is most definitely not low power, low noise. Low power and high performance are opposites. nVidia might be the better choice ... End quote

I think what you said is good concerning the nVidia. Would you,please, recommend a lower to mid-level card for my video editing, as well as the the application?

Thank you for your help!

Dede 27

 

[dede27]

A very hearty "Thank You" to all for your much appreciated help! I have some more questions for you, all, or anyone else regarding this quote below. I would put it in my new PC if it worked.

No one addressed the question, so I'm asking again:

1. Quote: I had read about a guy who used his primary drive with a partition for W7 and apps. Then use the rest of the drive for documents, pictures, music, etc.

He had a secondary drive in which he had exactly copied the primary drive.

If the primary drive had a bad virus or other trouble, he'd switch to the secondary drive.

Then he'd reformat the primary drive and copy the secondary drive to it.

In this way he'd alway have a working drive. End quote



2. Regard a cpu for my PC, which would be better for video editing and general PC use: a core i7-875k or a core i7- 2600k?

3. I am leaning toward a HD 5570 for video editing as a couple of you suggested. I may want to play some games. Would the HD 5850 and a HD 6870 play games and how well?

Thanks again!
Dede27

 

[benski]

1. That's not a question.

2. The 2600k is better but either would be great.

3. the 5850 and 6870 are both pretty high end gaming cards and would play games great. The 6870 is a better choice if the price of the 2 is similar.

 

[UniqueName]

How would you setup backups for "Multiple hard drives"? Would you please tell me how to do the "other ways" or where to find the information?

Use imaging software like Acronis or Ghost. Images are stored on the second hard drive. After the first full backup only incremental backups are made so you can restore to any point almost. You can still lose everything if say lightning hits your computer or a virus does a secure erase. An external hard drive would mitigate that as a second backup of select images from the primary backup. It can also backup other machines. You could still lose everything in a house fire say and the only option is offsite backup or cloud.

The system you mention isn't complete. It's nice to have an OS backup but what about data? If it's a mirror of the primary drive including data why wouldn't it mirror a virus? Primary concern should be data integrity. Easy swap for minimum downtime seems better accomplished in other ways like RAID-1 with backup.

 

[benski]

Doesn't the windows 7 backup utility do it for you now?

 

[dede27]

Thanks for the help, guys!

benski, Regarding Your comment : "1. That's not a question."

What I meant was, would that procedure work? I put the procedure below:

1. Quote: I had read about a guy who used his primary drive with a partition for W7 and apps. Then use the rest of the drive for documents

He had a secondary drive in which he had exactly copied the primary drive.

If the primary drive had a bad virus or other trouble, he'd switch to the secondary drive.

Then he'd reformat the primary drive and copy the secondary drive to it.

In this way he'd alway have a working drive. End quote

Thank you for your helpful information.


Unique Name: Again, I appreciate you answering me ! Would you please recommend a lower to med- range graphic card for video editing as well as the application name you had written about?

Regards,
Dede27, pictures, music, etc.

 

[benski]

Sure it would work, you just make an image of your drive and copy it to another one using something like acronis. But it's much simpler just to use the backup utility inluded in windows 7 and let it do all that for you, and it is preferable to use an external drive.

I recommend a HD 5670, it uses very little power but will still be decent if you decide to play some games in the future.

 

[dede27]

Hello benski ! Thank you for answering my question about coping the two drives. You gave this novice an excellent answer on using W7 backup and making it simpler. I don't have W7 yet so I now know where to go for my backup instead of the Two drive use.

No one but you answered it! You saved me a lot of work and grief.

Why is it "... preferable to use an external drive" when making a backup? My PC case has a hot swap drive bay and I though I could use that for my backup drive.

Many thanks,
dede27

 

[benski]

The idea is that if lightning strikes, the roof leaks, or your PSU blows up or something and takes your whole PC out that your data will be safe in a different location. Hot swap drive bay will do the trick as long as you don't just permanently leave the drive in the bay.

 

[dede27]

Hi benski !

Again I am indebted to you for your last reply! I never gave it a though, yes lightning could strike or some other bad thing could happen and destroy my info on the hot swap drive, if I left it in the hot swap bay.

I am glad to hear I can use it as the backup drive also.

I really appreciate your good advice!

Best regards,
dede27

 

[dede27]

Best answer selected by dede27.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey