So I have my old rig I got back in '10...haven't done much with it except slap in a bit more ram when Cosair sticks were on sale.
Here it is:
Windows 7 64 bit
Intel i5 760 @ 2.80GHz
8GB DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
Suprisingly I'm able to play Skyrim at slightly above Ultra settings with an FPS of 25-60 (25 cities/60 interiors/30 wilderness)...but that was only due to some tweaking (using mods that increased performance and allowed the user to run at ultra with little performance loss)...
So, other than the fact I don't have a fancy i7 and half of what I could have in RAM, I am looking to upgrade my video card with the intent of running GW2 at max-ish. I know the really top end recently came out but I'm not looking to lay down $600 bucks for the newest GTX 6XX series. I do however have my eye on the moderatly priced EVGA GTX 550 2GB edition...I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or other advice on what my new video card should be.
It has to be under $200...It has to have a good chance of running max (or close to) settings in GW2. I all about nVidia so it may take some persuading for me to consider ATI. I'm really looking for that bang for my buck that my current rig was back in 2010. Thank you in advance.
Well to be frank, you really do not need more ram then what you have, since i5 and i7 sandy bridge only use dual channel, and that is more than enough.
As far as video card goes, since there is no real word on when SLI will be avail for GW2, you might as well go with Dual GPU card like GTX 560 Ti or the new one 670Ti, this will give you the power of sli but just one card and you should be good for another 2 years or even more.
Also you did not mention your PSU, but make sure its atleast 800watts or more.
Hope that helps
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.
Just a small adjustment here: For the HD7850 she wouldn't need to change the power supply, as the HD7850 actually uses less power than the GTS250 (and the HD6870, gtx560, even gtx550ti, etc), especially while idle where the difference is enormous.
It would probably be hard to find a clean comparison of cards four generations apart. From memory, I think Nvidia officially gave the GeForce GTS 250 a TDP of 150 W, but that was a huge overestimate. The card used about the same power as a Radeon HD 4850 with an honest TDP of 110 W.
There's no harm in listing a TDP that is too high, of course. It would be kind of like Nvidia claiming that their new GeForce GTX 680 is faster than a Radeon HD 7950, while not mentioning that it's typically also faster than a 7970.
What I don't like to see is going the other way around, as Nvidia did with Fermi cards. The TDP there was basically wishful thinking on their part. But at 55 nm, AMD and Nvidia were pretty competitive on performance per watt, so Nvidia didn't feel any great need to lie about power consumption.
You're right that newer cards will use less power at idle than a GeForce GTS 250. That saves you money on your electricity bills, but doesn't affect how strong of a power supply you need. If you have a power supply that is safe up to 250 W and unsafe above that, then a system that pulls 240 W at load and 100 W at idle is safe, while one that pulls 270 W at load and 50 W at idle is not.
Does a Radeon HD 7850 really pull less power under heavy loads than a GeForce GTS 250? I'm skeptical. My mental ballpark approximations chained together across generations are that a 7850 should give about 2 1/2 times the performance of a GTS 250, while offering only about double the performance per watt. That would come to 25% more power consumption. There is a fair bit of rounding there, so if it were actually 20%, I'd say, aha, my numbers are right. But I'm skeptical that it's enough rounding errors all in the same direction to make it go below 0%.
Regardless, one should still check the power supply. The original poster might well be running something that is unsafe with a GTS 250 and be lucky that nothing has fried yet. Or it might be plenty of power to handle any single GPU card on the market, but it's still nice to know that rather than just buying something and hoping it works.
The HD7850 has a 130W TDP, and in games uses less than 100 at peak typically . It uses about the same load power as the HD5770, while idle is much lower. It only has a single 6pin connector (like the GTS250 and HD5770), while the 7870 has 2x6pin (with a 175W tdp).
At any rate, I agree, one should always check the PSU, that's why I asked for it. It's not uncommon to see people with crappy PSUs running decent configs, and those tend to have those annoying BSOD and other failure problems more frequently.
I have a 700w PSU and I am now leaning between HD6870 and GTX 560 as they are both within the budget range and according to the chart fiontar posted, comes within Ultra capabilities (though on the lowend). Unless I see a pricing trend decrease within the next 2 weeks this is what I'm siding on...though my husbnad is the one buying and he doesn't mind paying more for nVidia so it'll likely be the 560. Thanks guys!!
I have a 700w PSU and I am now leaning between HD6870 and GTX 560 as they are both within the budget range and according to the chart fiontar posted, comes within Ultra capabilities (though on the lowend). Unless I see a pricing trend decrease within the next 2 weeks this is what I'm siding on...though my husbnad is the one buying and he doesn't mind paying more for nVidia so it'll likely be the 560. Thanks guys!!
Just a reminder, you'll get worse performance on the gtx560 than the HD6870 (and power consumption, though that probably doesn't matter that much for you).
If that's ok with you, happy shopping and I hope you feel the upgrade justified when using it
Just a reminder, you'll get worse performance on the gtx560 than the HD6870 (and power consumption, though that probably doesn't matter that much for you).
If that's ok with you, happy shopping and I hope you feel the upgrade justified when using it
Glad we could help.
Generally, yes. But in GW2 it can be the other way around, Nvidia performs better in some games, ATI in others.
I would personally wait until I heard how the cards performs in the beta before deciding, besides, the 660 should be on it's way and OP can actually play the game with his old card and get a new one when he knows which card that performs best in the game.
I have a 700w PSU and I am now leaning between HD6870 and GTX 560 as they are both within the budget range and according to the chart fiontar posted, comes within Ultra capabilities (though on the lowend). Unless I see a pricing trend decrease within the next 2 weeks this is what I'm siding on...though my husbnad is the one buying and he doesn't mind paying more for nVidia so it'll likely be the 560. Thanks guys!!
The question isn't what sticker the marketing department decided to put on the side. The question is what power supply you have. You need to give the exact brand name and model for it to be meaningful information, not just the nominal wattage. If you don't know, then open up the case and read the label.
Speaking of which, what case do you have?
If you're looking to get a card under $200, then do be sure to tell your husband that he can get something better for cheaper from AMD. Not everyone shops on a price/performance basis, so if that's not your primarily concern, that's all right. It's your money, not mine. But it's at least worth mentioning.
i wouldnt buy a new gpu yet. Its way to early and there is not even a release date.
If you got a beta invite and it lags abit, doesnt really matter, since when it releases u can plugin a power gpu and ejoy it to the fullest. And maybe spare some money.
Just a reminder, you'll get worse performance on the gtx560 than the HD6870 (and power consumption, though that probably doesn't matter that much for you).
If that's ok with you, happy shopping and I hope you feel the upgrade justified when using it
Glad we could help.
Generally, yes. But in GW2 it can be the other way around, Nvidia performs better in some games, ATI in others.
I would personally wait until I heard how the cards performs in the beta before deciding, besides, the 660 should be on it's way and OP can actually play the game with his old card and get a new one when he knows which card that performs best in the game.
My advice is to wait a few weeks...
I don't think the gtx660 will come even near the 200$ price-point, and by then it's possible that the "old" card stocks have been depleted, as they're now priced lower to clear inventory (this is more on AMD side since they got a full range of new cards launched, and probably haven't been producing 68XX 69XX cards for a while now).
I wouldn't personally buy a more expensive card that generaly performs worse and consumes more power just to have a label on the box. Those games that perform better worse on different brands are rare, and seldomly the difference is noticeable in gameplay (read: very few games go from unplayable to playable, and again from sloppy to fluid).
It's not my money, so I just give the facts around the cards and my opinion. I'm not gonna buy the card for her so
Originally posted by makii
i wouldnt buy a new gpu yet. Its way to early and there is not even a release date.
If you got a beta invite and it lags abit, doesnt really matter, since when it releases u can plugin a power gpu and ejoy it to the fullest. And maybe spare some money.
It's unlikely for prices to drop on that range of cards any soon, and unless the game launches November or later she might as well enjoy the new card ASAP.
I know that as an early HD6950 adopter, I paid around 190€ for my DCUII which is actually more expensive nowadays and have had a blast with it since I got it. The early 58XX adopters laughed hard at people that waited because the cards also raised in price, and nothing competed decently for the money for like an year at least.
It's reasonable to wait when a price-drop is coming soon, or when the current generation of cards blows. None of the conditions currently applies though.
Originally posted by Quizzical
Originally posted by Lucrecia
I have a 700w PSU and I am now leaning between HD6870 and GTX 560 as they are both within the budget range and according to the chart fiontar posted, comes within Ultra capabilities (though on the lowend). Unless I see a pricing trend decrease within the next 2 weeks this is what I'm siding on...though my husbnad is the one buying and he doesn't mind paying more for nVidia so it'll likely be the 560. Thanks guys!!
The question isn't what sticker the marketing department decided to put on the side. The question is what power supply you have. You need to give the exact brand name and model for it to be meaningful information, not just the nominal wattage. If you don't know, then open up the case and read the label.
Speaking of which, what case do you have?
If you're looking to get a card under $200, then do be sure to tell your husband that he can get something better for cheaper from AMD. Not everyone shops on a price/performance basis, so if that's not your primarily concern, that's all right. It's your money, not mine. But it's at least worth mentioning.
I'll reinforce Quizzical's post, there are enough crappy "700W" PSU's around. The most important stat is the amperage on the 12V rail(or rails).
If you can provide full brand model we'll probably be able to analyze that, but on the PSU there should be some sort of chart saying the total wattage amperage on each rail.
You need a new power supply, whether you get a new video card or not. That's exactly the sort of piece of junk that I had in mind when I said I wanted to see the exact brand name and model.
Also, Cyber Power PC can't do arithmetic. 38 A * 12 V = 456 W, not 480 W on the +12 V rails. Furthermore, 200 W + 480 W + 10 W + 7.2 W = 697.2 W, so if you pull 700 W from it, no matter what combination of rails you use, you're running it out of spec. Now, the specs on that power supply are mostly lies anyway, so even if they could do arithmetic, that wouldn't really help the matter. But it's still amusing.
If you want something cheap that is more or less adequate for the system you have but wouldn't be able to handle most of the upgrades you might want, then this will do:
the graphics card is closer to 4 years old and even then wasnt a high end card. more of a hybrid between a budget and mid range card at the time if i remember correctly.
the power supply should be fine for a single card setup i wouldnt try to sli it tho, or get a dual gpu card.
Hm, the PSU doesn't say for which temperature the rating was made, but that "700W" PSU is just as good as a Corsair GS500 (only on the wattage level though (480W on the 12V rail), because I'm sure the GS500 is more efficient and rated and tested for higher temps), so yea it's kinda crappy. It should handle your system without problems in any case (probably doesn't pull even 400W combined), but should you start to see weird random reboots or BSODs it's probably PSU fault.
I don't think you'll need to replace it right away, but consider it some time in the "near" future since PSUs lose gradually their power, and especially cheap PSUs after 2-3 years start showing aging signs.
Also, the PSU is the most important component in the computer, and the most underrated undervalued one, unfortunately.
The tower is decent enough for that system, not great but should do the job without problems especially if clean and with the 3 fans working nicely.
Just a heads up, the price on the GTX 570 at Amazon already went back up by ~$30. That just shows that deals may come and go, so looking at prices daily until you find a deal you want to pull the trigger on could save you some $$$.
@srps ; That's what I thought. I know the PSU will need to be changed soon but I figured it was not prerequisite to upgrading to a GTX 560 (especially since I am hearing my current GTS 250 pulls more power than the 550)...
just curious, just what all do you use your build for? i mean primarily really, like internet browsing, gaming or even just plain everything. do you use it more than all other electronics like home entertainment systems? if so, you may end up better bitting the bullet every 5 years or so instead of piecing together bits and pieces every year or two.
just curious, just what all do you use your build for? i mean primarily really, like internet browsing, gaming or even just plain everything. do you use it more than all other electronics like home entertainment systems? if so, you may end up better bitting the bullet every 5 years or so instead of piecing together bits and pieces every year or two.
Of course that has been considered. I do everything on my computer and my tv mostly collects dust until my shows are in season. However, as it has been considered and rejected, I just tend to piece computers together and buy a new computer from Cyberpower PC once every 5 years or as needed due to gaming specs as long as it is a good upgrade at a reasonable price. Thanks for the suggestion though.
Hm, the PSU doesn't say for which temperature the rating was made, but that "700W" PSU is just as good as a Corsair GS500 (only on the wattage level though (480W on the 12V rail), because I'm sure the GS500 is more efficient and rated and tested for higher temps), so yea it's kinda crappy. It should handle your system without problems in any case (probably doesn't pull even 400W combined), but should you start to see weird random reboots or BSODs it's probably PSU fault.
First of all, the Corsair GS500 isn't very good, either. It's not that bad, but I'm not really sure why it exists. Corsair already has their CX V2 line for people looking for a decent power supply on a severe budget, and their GS line tends to be overpriced for what you get. Which, come to think of it, might be the whole point of it.
But second, no, the XtremeGear 700 W isn't anywhere near as good as the Corsair GS500. If you had the right equipment to test power supplies, it would probably be a pretty trivial matter to push the XtremeGear 700 W out of the ATX specifications, while keeping the load within both what the Corsair GS500 and the XtremeGear 700 W are rated as supposedly being able to happen. That's not true of the Corsair GS500.
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Lucrecia, there's something very important here that you're not realizing. The specs on the sticker on the power supply don't have any physical meaning.
If you had the appropriate equipment (which might not exist for some things, but it could theoretically be done) to test a computer that was running, you could physically measure the clock speed of the processor, memory, GPU chip, PCI Express bus, and a variety of other things. You could physically measure the number of processor cores, and the number of shaders, TMUs, and so forth in a GPU chip. You could physically measure the amount of system memory and video memory. You could physically measure the number of USB ports and SATA ports. You give identical equipment to two different experts with suitable machinery to do the testing, and they'll agree exactly on all of those specs.
That's not the case for power supplies. The specs on a power supply are basically the company's promise that if you keep the power draw below the amounts listed, the power supply will not merely work, but also stay within ATX 12V specifications. If it's a reputable power supply vendor, then that promise will nearly always be true for a reasonable length of time after purchasing the power supply.
But some companies simply lie, and very flagrantly. Here, go read this:
No really. Read the whole thing. That has two +12 V rails rated at 23 A each, which comes to 46 A on the +12 V rails if they can both deliver their rated load at the same time. That's 552 W right there, which is more than yours is rated for. So read how it performs in the real world. And then ask, is that what you want to use to power your computer?
Again, do you want that to happen inside of your computer? Would you use that power supply to power your computer? How about the Diablotek one? If yours is of any better quality than those (which it might be), it's not much better.
Additionally, you should realize that just because your "700 W" power supply might not explode until you pull, say, 500 W from it, doesn't mean that everything works flawlessly right up until it explodes. Loose voltage regulation and high ripple can damage other components even if the power supply survives. Furthermore, the amount of power that a power supply can deliver tends to decrease as time passes and components age. If your power supply could go up to 500 W without exploding when it was new, that might only be 400 W or 450 W today.
So how much power can your power supply deliver safely? If you buy a 500 W power supply from a reputable vendor, you know that the answer is at least 500 W, at least when it's new. But it's pretty much guaranteed that your "700 W" can't handle 700 W. So how much can it really handle safely? Can it do 500 W? 400 W? 300 W? We don't know. How much risk do you want to take that your power supply will die and take everything else in your computer with it?
Or perhaps worse, how much risk do you want to take that the power supply will slowly damage various hardware. Maybe it makes your computer start shutting down at random times. Maybe it starts giving you random blue screens of death. Maybe it only does it under heavy gaming loads at first. Maybe the timing is completely random. Even if you find the component that is directly causing the problems and replace it, the bad power supply can damage the new hardware the same way it did the old. And then it gets worse and worse as time passes until you either go crazy or give up and replace the entire machine.
And don't think that you can just replace your power supply later. If your power supply fries your video card, replacing the power supply won't resurrect the video card.
That's not to say that the power supply is guaranteed to fry anything, even if you replace your video card with something with a much higher power draw. If you routinely run your car with far less oil than the manufacturer recommends, it won't necessarily make the engine die on the first day. Or in the first year. Or ever. But it might, and it's a very dumb risk to take. Just like running a computer off of that power supply.
If you keep that power supply and continue running a computer off of it, and then things go wrong as a result of the power supply (which you probably won't be able to directly trace to the power supply, even though it's likely to be the real culprit), it's 100% your fault. Not Cyber Power PC's fault; you're the one that picked the cheap junk part that exists only so they can quote a lower base price on a model, and not because anyone is actually supposed to buy it. It's definitely not the fault of Nvidia, Intel, EVGA, or Corsair; if you can't feed their components the stable voltages that they need, it's not their fault of their hardware doesn't work.
Comments
Well to be frank, you really do not need more ram then what you have, since i5 and i7 sandy bridge only use dual channel, and that is more than enough.
As far as video card goes, since there is no real word on when SLI will be avail for GW2, you might as well go with Dual GPU card like GTX 560 Ti or the new one 670Ti, this will give you the power of sli but just one card and you should be good for another 2 years or even more.
Also you did not mention your PSU, but make sure its atleast 800watts or more.
Hope that helps
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.
Carl Sagan-
The HD7850 has a 130W TDP, and in games uses less than 100 at peak typically
. It uses about the same load power as the HD5770, while idle is much lower. It only has a single 6pin connector (like the GTS250 and HD5770), while the 7870 has 2x6pin (with a 175W tdp).
At any rate, I agree, one should always check the PSU, that's why I asked for it. It's not uncommon to see people with crappy PSUs running decent configs, and those tend to have those annoying BSOD and other failure problems more frequently.
I have a 700w PSU and I am now leaning between HD6870 and GTX 560 as they are both within the budget range and according to the chart fiontar posted, comes within Ultra capabilities (though on the lowend). Unless I see a pricing trend decrease within the next 2 weeks this is what I'm siding on...though my husbnad is the one buying and he doesn't mind paying more for nVidia so it'll likely be the 560. Thanks guys!!
2 years is old now?
sigh.
Just a reminder, you'll get worse performance on the gtx560 than the HD6870 (and power consumption, though that probably doesn't matter that much for you).
If that's ok with you, happy shopping and I hope you feel the upgrade justified when using it
Glad we could help.
Generally, yes. But in GW2 it can be the other way around, Nvidia performs better in some games, ATI in others.
I would personally wait until I heard how the cards performs in the beta before deciding, besides, the 660 should be on it's way and OP can actually play the game with his old card and get a new one when he knows which card that performs best in the game.
My advice is to wait a few weeks...
The question isn't what sticker the marketing department decided to put on the side. The question is what power supply you have. You need to give the exact brand name and model for it to be meaningful information, not just the nominal wattage. If you don't know, then open up the case and read the label.
Speaking of which, what case do you have?
If you're looking to get a card under $200, then do be sure to tell your husband that he can get something better for cheaper from AMD. Not everyone shops on a price/performance basis, so if that's not your primarily concern, that's all right. It's your money, not mine. But it's at least worth mentioning.
i wouldnt buy a new gpu yet. Its way to early and there is not even a release date.
If you got a beta invite and it lags abit, doesnt really matter, since when it releases u can plugin a power gpu and ejoy it to the fullest. And maybe spare some money.
I don't think the gtx660 will come even near the 200$ price-point, and by then it's possible that the "old" card stocks have been depleted, as they're now priced lower to clear inventory (this is more on AMD side since they got a full range of new cards launched, and probably haven't been producing 68XX 69XX cards for a while now).
I wouldn't personally buy a more expensive card that generaly performs worse and consumes more power just to have a label on the box. Those games that perform better worse on different brands are rare, and seldomly the difference is noticeable in gameplay (read: very few games go from unplayable to playable, and again from sloppy to fluid).
It's not my money, so I just give the facts around the cards and my opinion. I'm not gonna buy the card for her so
It's unlikely for prices to drop on that range of cards any soon, and unless the game launches November or later she might as well enjoy the new card ASAP.
I know that as an early HD6950 adopter, I paid around 190€ for my DCUII which is actually more expensive nowadays and have had a blast with it since I got it. The early 58XX adopters laughed hard at people that waited because the cards also raised in price, and nothing competed decently for the money for like an year at least.
It's reasonable to wait when a price-drop is coming soon, or when the current generation of cards blows. None of the conditions currently applies though.
I'll reinforce Quizzical's post, there are enough crappy "700W" PSU's around. The most important stat is the amperage on the 12V rail(or rails).
If you can provide full brand model we'll probably be able to analyze that, but on the PSU there should be some sort of chart saying the total wattage amperage on each rail.
mis-double-post, delete please
Here is my build (I got it from Cyberpower PC 8/17/10)
CD: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive
CASE: Apevia X-Cruiser 2 Mid-Tower Case w/ Side-Panel Window & MultiMeter Display
CPU: Intel(R) Core™ i5-760 2.80 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1156
FAN: Intel LGA1156 Certified CPU Fan & Heatsink
FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer
HDD: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (500GB x 2 (1TB Capacity)
MEMORY: 8GB DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Module (Corsair)
MOTHERBOARD: [CrossFireX/SLI] EVGA P55 TR Intel P55V Chipset DDR3 Socket 1156 mATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, SATA-II RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, & 2 PCIe X1
NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 7 Home Premium (64-bit Edition)
POWERSUPPLY: 700 Watts - XtremeGear SLI/CrossFireX Ready Power Supply
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB 16X PCI Express (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA )
You need a new power supply, whether you get a new video card or not. That's exactly the sort of piece of junk that I had in mind when I said I wanted to see the exact brand name and model.
Also, Cyber Power PC can't do arithmetic. 38 A * 12 V = 456 W, not 480 W on the +12 V rails. Furthermore, 200 W + 480 W + 10 W + 7.2 W = 697.2 W, so if you pull 700 W from it, no matter what combination of rails you use, you're running it out of spec. Now, the specs on that power supply are mostly lies anyway, so even if they could do arithmetic, that wouldn't really help the matter. But it's still amusing.
If you want something cheap that is more or less adequate for the system you have but wouldn't be able to handle most of the upgrades you might want, then this will do:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371034
This one is fairly nice, and very cheap for what you get:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151093
Modular, too. A further step up that could handle any single GPU card that you might ever want would be this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020
Or if you want something that you could reasonably call high end, then here's a fairly good value:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182073
the graphics card is closer to 4 years old and even then wasnt a high end card. more of a hybrid between a budget and mid range card at the time if i remember correctly.
the power supply should be fine for a single card setup i wouldnt try to sli it tho, or get a dual gpu card.
Hm, the PSU doesn't say for which temperature the rating was made, but that "700W" PSU is just as good as a Corsair GS500 (only on the wattage level though (480W on the 12V rail), because I'm sure the GS500 is more efficient and rated and tested for higher temps), so yea it's kinda crappy. It should handle your system without problems in any case (probably doesn't pull even 400W combined), but should you start to see weird random reboots or BSODs it's probably PSU fault.
I don't think you'll need to replace it right away, but consider it some time in the "near" future since PSUs lose gradually their power, and especially cheap PSUs after 2-3 years start showing aging signs.
Also, the PSU is the most important component in the computer, and the most underrated undervalued one, unfortunately.
The tower is decent enough for that system, not great but should do the job without problems especially if clean and with the 3 fans working nicely.
what is the best brand to buy the Nvidia GTX 570 ???
Just a heads up, the price on the GTX 570 at Amazon already went back up by ~$30. That just shows that deals may come and go, so looking at prices daily until you find a deal you want to pull the trigger on could save you some $$$.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
@srps ; That's what I thought. I know the PSU will need to be changed soon but I figured it was not prerequisite to upgrading to a GTX 560 (especially since I am hearing my current GTS 250 pulls more power than the 550)...
just curious, just what all do you use your build for? i mean primarily really, like internet browsing, gaming or even just plain everything. do you use it more than all other electronics like home entertainment systems? if so, you may end up better bitting the bullet every 5 years or so instead of piecing together bits and pieces every year or two.
Of course that has been considered. I do everything on my computer and my tv mostly collects dust until my shows are in season. However, as it has been considered and rejected, I just tend to piece computers together and buy a new computer from Cyberpower PC once every 5 years or as needed due to gaming specs as long as it is a good upgrade at a reasonable price. Thanks for the suggestion though.
First of all, the Corsair GS500 isn't very good, either. It's not that bad, but I'm not really sure why it exists. Corsair already has their CX V2 line for people looking for a decent power supply on a severe budget, and their GS line tends to be overpriced for what you get. Which, come to think of it, might be the whole point of it.
But second, no, the XtremeGear 700 W isn't anywhere near as good as the Corsair GS500. If you had the right equipment to test power supplies, it would probably be a pretty trivial matter to push the XtremeGear 700 W out of the ATX specifications, while keeping the load within both what the Corsair GS500 and the XtremeGear 700 W are rated as supposedly being able to happen. That's not true of the Corsair GS500.
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Lucrecia, there's something very important here that you're not realizing. The specs on the sticker on the power supply don't have any physical meaning.
If you had the appropriate equipment (which might not exist for some things, but it could theoretically be done) to test a computer that was running, you could physically measure the clock speed of the processor, memory, GPU chip, PCI Express bus, and a variety of other things. You could physically measure the number of processor cores, and the number of shaders, TMUs, and so forth in a GPU chip. You could physically measure the amount of system memory and video memory. You could physically measure the number of USB ports and SATA ports. You give identical equipment to two different experts with suitable machinery to do the testing, and they'll agree exactly on all of those specs.
That's not the case for power supplies. The specs on a power supply are basically the company's promise that if you keep the power draw below the amounts listed, the power supply will not merely work, but also stay within ATX 12V specifications. If it's a reputable power supply vendor, then that promise will nearly always be true for a reasonable length of time after purchasing the power supply.
But some companies simply lie, and very flagrantly. Here, go read this:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/12/17/diablotek_phd650_650w_power_supply_review/
No really. Read the whole thing. That has two +12 V rails rated at 23 A each, which comes to 46 A on the +12 V rails if they can both deliver their rated load at the same time. That's 552 W right there, which is more than yours is rated for. So read how it performs in the real world. And then ask, is that what you want to use to power your computer?
Or watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP8nFQYQW34
Again, do you want that to happen inside of your computer? Would you use that power supply to power your computer? How about the Diablotek one? If yours is of any better quality than those (which it might be), it's not much better.
Additionally, you should realize that just because your "700 W" power supply might not explode until you pull, say, 500 W from it, doesn't mean that everything works flawlessly right up until it explodes. Loose voltage regulation and high ripple can damage other components even if the power supply survives. Furthermore, the amount of power that a power supply can deliver tends to decrease as time passes and components age. If your power supply could go up to 500 W without exploding when it was new, that might only be 400 W or 450 W today.
So how much power can your power supply deliver safely? If you buy a 500 W power supply from a reputable vendor, you know that the answer is at least 500 W, at least when it's new. But it's pretty much guaranteed that your "700 W" can't handle 700 W. So how much can it really handle safely? Can it do 500 W? 400 W? 300 W? We don't know. How much risk do you want to take that your power supply will die and take everything else in your computer with it?
Or perhaps worse, how much risk do you want to take that the power supply will slowly damage various hardware. Maybe it makes your computer start shutting down at random times. Maybe it starts giving you random blue screens of death. Maybe it only does it under heavy gaming loads at first. Maybe the timing is completely random. Even if you find the component that is directly causing the problems and replace it, the bad power supply can damage the new hardware the same way it did the old. And then it gets worse and worse as time passes until you either go crazy or give up and replace the entire machine.
And don't think that you can just replace your power supply later. If your power supply fries your video card, replacing the power supply won't resurrect the video card.
That's not to say that the power supply is guaranteed to fry anything, even if you replace your video card with something with a much higher power draw. If you routinely run your car with far less oil than the manufacturer recommends, it won't necessarily make the engine die on the first day. Or in the first year. Or ever. But it might, and it's a very dumb risk to take. Just like running a computer off of that power supply.
If you keep that power supply and continue running a computer off of it, and then things go wrong as a result of the power supply (which you probably won't be able to directly trace to the power supply, even though it's likely to be the real culprit), it's 100% your fault. Not Cyber Power PC's fault; you're the one that picked the cheap junk part that exists only so they can quote a lower base price on a model, and not because anyone is actually supposed to buy it. It's definitely not the fault of Nvidia, Intel, EVGA, or Corsair; if you can't feed their components the stable voltages that they need, it's not their fault of their hardware doesn't work.
The 560 TI will do you just fine.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
No, it wont.
A 560ti will not run GW at max settings during WvW large battles without Major FPS drops.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.