i need to learn how to edit my posts sometime.
according to the egg, both the power color and the xfx have 2yrs parts and labor.
it seems to me that the cooler on the xfx stifles the air blown from the fan over the
gpu from escaping the heatsink shroud, but the power color does not appear to have
this problem(fair amount of clearance by display outputs). people seem to regard
xfx more highly than they do powercolor. not sure if it truly makes a difference. if you
don't include the rebate for the power color, then the xfx costs only 2.50 more.
after reading user reviews for both cards on the egg, amazon, and ncix, i found that
the xfx is identical to the power color in regard to pcie 6pin power connectors(none).
they will definitely run on a 250w psu(with a 65w core i5 3450s).if your x3 425 is the
45w c3 stepping e version, you're in the clear. if it's the normal 95w c2 stepping, see
if your mobo allows you to drop your voltage, then try torture testing your cpu at the
default clock speeds but lower voltage w/prime 95(free download) to see if you get
errors. if not, you can save some power burden on your psu from the cpu. you may
also be able to undervolt the 7750 and get stable performance. test with furmark.
they're about 50% faster than 5670(i can totally see that, even over a 6670 as well).
faster than hd 4850(20-25% faster in most games, prob. due to GCN architecture).
many professional reviews around the web show these cards perform about the same
as the likes of 3870x2/9800gtx(+),hd4850/gts250, 5750/gts450 and 6750 in some
games, while in others they perform just under the likes of hd4870/gtx260, 5770 and
6770. again I would expect them to perform near the lower spec cards, but the gcn
architecture seems to raise performance a notch, esp. in dx11 titles. of course newer
drivers designed to further exploit the new architecture help boost performance too.
fairly quiet when running in a closed case.
decent temps( 70c vs. custom cooled 5670 @55c, much lower than gtx480 @95c).
half life 2 smooth at 3x1920x1200 on high with 2xaa and 4xaf(handles even more
pixels than that due to bezel correction).
i suggest you read these user reviews, too(not many, won't take you very long).
(just added more lower cost/power/perf. cards to list at bottom)
some had issues with drivers on the power color, but probably because it has a
reference design and came out at launch while xfx may be newer. newer drivers
direct from amd should solve any issues. maybe download 12.6, 12.7 and 12.8
and see which works best for you in the games you play. of course you'll need
to remove the old geforce drivers before installing radeon drivers, and if you
switch between driver versions you need to remove and add as well. do some
google-ing for best practices for undervolt testing and driver swaps. peace out, yo.
(see top of this paragraph, didn't mean anything wrong with reference pcb/cooler
on the power color, just that the drivers shipping with/available for the hd7750 when
it launched were not yet optimized. newer ones in the months since are lots better.)
P.S. after googling the xfx single slot looking for visual evidence of the need for more
power, came up empty handed. I reread a few user reviews and discovered it doesn't
need any more juice than the slot provides. added that info in above list. also, if you
have never upgraded a graphics card before, you will definitely want to remove every
trace of an old driver before installing a newer one, whether it's from the same gpu
maker on not. i've personally not had to do this much, but others have with variable
success. google about updating graphics drivers(nvidia to amd, amd to amd) if you
have any concerns about that sort of thing.
one last thing about gpu power requirements, PSUs and typical system load. GPU
makers list suggested psu wattages and # of amps on the 12v rail that are stupid
high given the average consumer desktop to help mitigate their liability. most people
only run the mobo, cpu, 2 dimms of ram, an hdd, a few fans, some low power usb
peripherals and maybe one discrete gpu. the requirements listed for graphics cards
take in to account a ton of extra fans, hard drives, expansion cards and several more
power hungry usb devices that dont have power of their own. even then, when a
system is running full bore it never uses anywhere near the maximum theoretical
wattage of all the components combined. that said, not all power supplies are created
equal. the better ones on the market use often heavier, high quality components inside
and can deliver even more than their rated total wattage with greater than 80%
efficiency, while others are light weight sub par builds that cant even deliver 1/2-2/3 of
the rated wattage at much better than 50% efficiency w/o catching fire. i think many
oem type power supplies may be alright and you see more fireworks with literally over-
rated supplies available for sale separately. again, if you have stability issues with the
new card or even want to try and save some power now with your cpu, you might want
to attempt undervolting them both a bit and still get the same level of performance.
P.S.S. thanks dudewitbow! now i have learnt how to edit my own posts! of course, in-
stead of more shorter posts, this may lead to fewer but longer posts. oh boy....
i should really try to condense my thoughts and reduce any redundancy.
anyhoo.. a few more thoughts, then finish very late supper and hit the hay(i think/hope).
i hope i can remember everything so i don't have to do this again in like 2 seconds.
to the original poster..... what is your monitor's resolution? (if you're not sure, right
click an open spot on your desktop, click properties, then settings). if this level of
detail or whatnot is offensive to you, please know it is not intentional. some people ask
questions on these forums that have built many PCs, and some know next to
nothing about them.
also, do you live in the united states? California? don't know about amazon or ncix,
but i hear tell purchases shipped to California from the egg add tax to the total since
that is where they are located. Am i wrong?
perhaps you don't plan on spending 100 dollars or more on a new gpu.
when walterm suggested the hd5670/6670 as alternatives, he was certainly right that
they are less expensive than hd7750. , however, they do have even higher power
consumption at about 65w vs. 55 for the hd 7750. here is an xfx model at the egg that
is 64.99 after a 10.00 rebate. has gddr3 so bandwidth is less than half a gddr5 model.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150576
guessing if you are upgrading you want at least a direct x 11 gpu. a quick peek at the
egg shows all dx11 geforce cards at least around 100 and drawing far more power for
similar performance to hd7750. all older dx11 GPUs are built on a 40nm process but the
latest hd7000 series radeons and gtx600 series geforce cards are built using 28nm,
allowing more transistors(shaders mostly. one of the main aspects of a cards
performance is based on # of shaders times clock speed in mhz/ghz.), lower voltage/
power use, higher clockspeed and built on a similar sized or smaller piece of silicon so
can be sold for same/more(same size but w/more performance) or less(smaller size,
same performance). this limits us to radeons (at least at the egg) below 100 and
hd5670/6670 use more power than 7750 @65 but have lower performance. we can
stay there if you think your PSU can handle it or go lower price/perf./power. anything
below an hd6450 is probably not going to seem like much of an upgrade for you. 27w.
actually, the lower end market for nvidia cards is a bit of a mess. if you or someone
else here want to sort it out, by all means go for it . I will be sticking to suggesting
amd cards as i am more familiar with their specs and performance.
compare geforce cards to each other here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units
compare radeons to each other here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units
hd6450 27w
HIS 34.99 free shipping
http://www.amazon.com/HIS-Radeon-64bit-Video-H645H1G/dp/B004YE8G6I/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1346059100&sr=1-5&keywords=hd+6450
hd5550 39w
vision tek 1GB 55.65 free shipping
http://www.amazon.com/VisionTek-Radeon-Express-Graphics-900331/dp/B004DCA8W6/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1346059935&sr=1-6&keywords=hd+6570
hd6570s, 44w
msi 54.99 - 10.00 rebate + 6.98 shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127611
asus 61.98 - 10.00 rebate free shipping
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=64362&vpn=EAH6570%2FDI%2F1GD3%28LP%29&manufacture=ASUS
msi 54.98 free shipping
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=70039&vpn=R6570-MD1G%2FLP&manufacture=MSI%2FMicroStar
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