Even if I have to underclock my cpu a little bit, or lower the voltage... Is it possible? I can't afford the card & a new psu together, so I kinda need to know since I'm on a hobo's budget
. My HD4670 required minimum 400w but runs fine on 350w.
The power supply is the most important part of the computer. Buy a nice 750W that will last you a while, or go for a 1000W :p Then buy your graphics card ^^
Like Iceman said, it can crap out during games. It can also all together just burn up. I've had both happen to computers I've fixed (and made
Thought I could get away with it). Now I aim for at least a 700w, just to leave a nice cushion. If you plan on overclocking or doing Crossfire or SLI, make sure you account for that. Overclocking does take more power of course (how much, I dunno :p). Also, if your worrying about power consumption (Which cost money too), it only takes what it needs, does not pull 700w constantly.
amperage on the 12v rail(s) is more important than total wattage. if you have a decent psu with high 12v rail(s) then you might be ok. that is a big might though. if it were me i'd probably just try to undervolt that phenom and get a hd 5750, provided that the psu were strong enough. it would still be a massive step up from that hd 4670 for a slight increase in power consumption, possibly negated entirely if you were to undervolt your cpu a little. iirc a hd 5750 would only use about 20w more on average than a hd 4670 under heavy use. a hd 5770 may be pushing it a bit too much as they tend to have a higher voltage aswell as higher clocks over the hd 5750.
i generally go for silent and low cost builds, using non-standard atx psu's which means i never have a power budget of more than about 350w, so i'm used to squeezing the most performance per watt and performance per £. in the past i've run an overclocked hd 5750 with an overlcocked athlon x3 @ 3.3ghz and 1.425v (probably pushing or even over it's max tdp of 95w) on a decent 350w psu in a previous incarnation of my current (and always changing) htpc build, without any problems whatsoever. i'm currently running a phenom II x3 @ 3.4ghz and a shitty hd4650 in my low profile htpc on a tiny 300w 1u psu, but would have no hesitation putting a hd 5750 in it if they made a low profile one (i can dream!), as atm i'm only using about 160w at full load (cpu and gpu).
He has a enlight psu.....it will not work.
fair enough. i'm not really familiar with enlight psu's, although i should've guessed that it's probably just generic junk. i still reckon that if he undervolts his cpu and gets a hd5750 it WILL work, as he won't be drawing any more power. however, psu failure in the long run may be a strong possibilty, even with his current set-up. you may want to look into getting a decent psu now MetalJody, and upgrade your graphics card in the future. as dudeami states, the psu is the most important component.
Depends on the rest of your hardware. I'm running a HD5770 with a 350W PSU, along with an AMD Phenom II X4 905e, 2 HDDs, 1 SSD and 1 DVD Burner. No Problems so far.
Well..you been lucky so far to be honest. Over time that psu will lose it's efficiency and will fail to provide enough juice. Also, your cpu takes less juice then his.