Updating my graphics card

[matt1314]

Okay, somehow I wanna get the GTX 280 or the GTX 285 for playing lagfree FSX. Many people use one of them and say that they can play on the highest settings plus some textures addons, like Real Environment Extreme 2.0 (REX 2.0), Ultimate Terrain X etc. My question is that if I get the GTX 280 or GTX 285, would I also be able to play Shift, Dirt 2, Crashtime III and other recent games on highest settings without lagging? Concerning the PSU, I need a choice between this one:



Corsair Power Supply 750W (12V ATX)

Dimensions: 16 x 15 x 8,6 cm ; 2 Kg

and



Antec TP-750 TruePower Power Supply 750W 80plus ATX 12V and EPS 12V blue

Dimensions: 15 x 15 x 8,6 cm ; 2,3 Kg

Dimensions of my Bestec ATX-300-12E 300w ATX Power Supply or Bestec ATX-300-12ZCDR - 300 Watt ATX Power Supply, don't know which one mine is: 14 x 15 x 8,6 cm

Which one of these is better? I decided to get a 750W one, because the GTX 280/GTX 285 requires min. 550W to run and I want to get the full power out of it to get max. FPS. So, will the PSU and graphics card fit into my case without problems and can work properly with each other?

[Franch88]

Well, I can tell you to buy an Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 or GTX 285 only if you can pay them a very good price. They're now technologically old GPUs. If you really care so much about FSX more than other games and you're read that with they this game runs very well, buy it only paying it a very good price. I'm sure that with the best buy for your system of the ATI Radeon 5770 it'll run very well too; there's to say that FSX isn't a so new game, and all the recent powerful graphic cards shouldn't have big problems running it with the best graphic settings. Remember that only with some ATI Radeon HD 5XXX graphic cards you can have a free copy of DiRT 2 game.
Sure with these Nvidia graphic cards and with those games you won't have lagging problems playing them with the highest graphic settings (except DiRT 2 because the best settings use the DirectX 11, not supported by those Nvidia graphic cards, and maybe also NFS Shift, pretty heavy with some scenes) and with a decent screen resolution.

Both are very good choices of PSU, and 750 Watts of power is perfect for a system with a good GPU, so with a medium consume; probably the effective consume of the whole system in full load at the end won't be more than 600 Watts (is also hard reach it, you need to put the system in stress on purpose with benchmarks). Both have the 80 Plus certification, that means that they have a very good efficiency for the 80% of the power, no problems about this, that's the normality. As you can see form the sizes, the only thing that's different is the length, instead depth and height are always to same to indeed fit to any case since they're standard sizes values. Both are very good brands that make valid products, so I would suggest to buy the one that costs less.

[matt1314]

Thank you for your cooperation, Franch. Yeah, since some time I'm caring a lot about FSX, I want to have some knowledge of how to fly a plane and for that I need a good GPU to get at least 20 FPS on some heavy scenery where you can see many buildings and objects with their details. Plus the lights at night. They require again more power.

Example with GTX280 and Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (2,83 GHz)

Second example

Third example: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2,4 GHz) overclocked to 3,2 GHz, 8 GB RAM, GTX 280 and max. settings with DX10 and GEX, REX and UTX

In the last example the guy is getting min. 25 FPS on heavy scenery, like in the San Francisco airport while I'm getting around 5-7 FPS. I hope to get his result. And as you told me I can't overclock because of my motherboard. Maybe my Q8200 with 2,33 GHz will be enough with the GTX 280 or GTX 285 to get at least 20 FPS. I just think that my CPU is good, but my GPU is that weak that FSX can't run smooth, although it's really mostly dependent on the CPU power.

Edit: Is the GTX 280 or the GTX285 going to fit into the space in my case of the PC? I mean because of the dimensions and these two are really long cards (26,7 cm long).

[matt1314]

Double Post.

I took some pictures with a ruler showing the length the GTX 280/GTX 285 needs (26,7 cm). The cables must be placed somewhere else so that the GPU can use that space. Here four pictures:






No chance getting it into my PC?

[Franch88]

As I said before, seems that longer GPUs can be installed into your system case, at least until 27 centimeters, there's enough space. You've even measured more than 29 centimeters, and in the contary direction too. The cables in the back of your actual GPU can be moved above it, and the HDD (it's placed in an unusual vertical position, usually it's placed horizontally) shouldn't give problems since the height of 3.5" HDD isn't too much.
The photos have a bit confused me at first sight... has your PC case an opening on the right side, seeing it frontally? Sure yes, and I've noticed this thing only now. Most of the cases have it on the left side. Isn't a problem however.

[matt1314]

Well, actually it opens from the left side if you look from behind of it. But nevermind, I asked today on another expert forum of Gaming hardware and they told me that a HD 5770 would be perfect for my system, like you did. They told me also, that the GTX 280/GTX 285 are way too expensive for their age and aren't really recommendable. I finally decided to get the HD 5770 Vapor-X at the end of May and there's no return from that choice now.

[Franch88]

Perfect choice, I'm glad that you've decided to but the ATI Radeon HD 5770, it's a very good mainstream range graphic card, very good for most of the uses with games.
That's right, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 2XX series has still a pretty high cost for what they are now, and they're really old looking what ATI now offers, a complete series of new generation of graphic cards with DirectX 11 support and more overall power. If you really wanted to but the GeForce GTX 280 or 285 you had to pay them a low price. Only some weeks ago came out the new generation of Nvidia graphic card (only two so far, GeForce GTX 470 and 480, probably the next month will come out the GTX 460, and within September the low range ones), and for their cost and performances they aren't so competitive with the actual ATI graphic cards, so for most of the uses the GTX 2XX series is still the Nvidia best buy (since lot of months, and it's also completed in all ranges unlike the new generation), and for this their cost is still pretty high.

[matt1314]

Okay, I'm ready to order it now and I got the money. But there are two problems now:

1. I somehow can't remove the PSU, because it doesn't move even when I unscrewed the four screws. I also don't know how to remove the big bundle of the cables which go into the PSU.

2. There's a little cable which connects my graphics card with the motherboard. I'm not sure if it's soldered or not and if it's removable. You can see that white/black cable in this pic:



Any suggestions for these two problems?

[Riva]

Remove each connectors (Molex, SATA, PCI Express, HD, etc) then remove the AT power connector (connected to the motherboard). Now the big bundle is disconnected (but you can't detach it, it remains to the PSU). Check if you don't missed another screw. Then, you need to move from the left to the right the PSU to remove it then.

The black and white cable isn't soldered, from your graphic card, pull to the front the connector by maintaining the graphic card.

[matt1314]

So does that mean that I'll get a new cable bundle when I order my new PSU? Is it really impossible to remove the big cable bundle from the PSU itself and then connect it to the new PSU? And even if I'll get a new cable bundle with the new PSU, how can I make sure that the connectors will be the same as the ones I have on my current PSU?

And BTW the propeller of the new Antec PSU is on the top, which means that it'll be directly under the roof of my PC. So what does it have to cool then? Because my current Bestec ATX 300 doesn't have any propeller on the top.



I'll try that with the graphic card, thanks.

[Riva]

Everytime you bought a PSU, a bundle is already connected. If you want to remove it, maybe you need to open the PSU but not sure (long time I tried that). I've already recover a fan from a PSU but I don't remember have seen a bundle automatically separated.

Most of the time you get the same connectors (four IDE/SATA, HD, Floppy, CD-Rom, PCI/AGP, ATX and so on). It's possible to buy a domino to get more connectors (depending the PSU power). Anyway, these details are mentionned, check them before bought it (then compare with your current PSU).

There's two or three fans, the main one (called by you propeller) is directed to the bottom whereas the second one is the air vent, finally a third one can be directed to the top if your case have an aperture too.

[Triple_X]

why don't you send the PC to a PC service with the graphic card and ask them to add it to your system it is way easier than doing it by yourself

[Zac4084]

why don't you send the PC to a PC service with the graphic card and ask them to add it to your system it is way easier than doing it by yourself

I kinda agree. But, I can see he likes doing things by himself. I always like changing PC items. HP's are really hard to edit technically. Sometimes I don't recommend it. Since all the items in HP's are made exactly for the PSU, CPU, GPU, etc, it's sometimes dangerous to change one or two items. The HD wears a lot after a few years BTW. Anyway, good luck.

[matt1314]

Oops, right, it's called "fan", I totally forgot that. So if the main one is directed to the bottom, then wouldn't the two air streams conflict with each other, so the main fan of the PSU and the fan of the graphic card?

I don't want to send it to a service, because I need some knowledge of the hardware and I kinda like changing components of my PC as Zac already said.

[Riva]

I've a GTX 280 and I can play every recent games with max. settings. But the graphic card isn't the only point to be considered. You should have a good CPU, an adequate motherboard and an enough fresh system (a big fan from the left panel, a fan for the HDD, another one behind and so on).

Here's a good video about the Antec TruePower 750W :

Like the majority of PSU, there's only two fans, the main one, directed to the motherboard and the second one, behind.

No problem with the aircooling if your case is recent. The GTX 280 have his own passive heatsink/heatpipe cooler (kind of radiator).

Here's the most common passive aircooling (noisy, dusty but cheap and easy).