Dell 5150 Dual Core 2.8GHz inc 19" LCD Monitor & Free Printer £429 (merged)

biglugs

I have a 6600GT and I play games like Day of Defeat Source and Half-Life 2 and have no problems, except in a 32 player frag-fest on DOD:S when it sometimes stutters a little.
I'm currently thinking of upgrading to a 7600GT 256MB card because:
a. I like buying new stuff
b. It is much faster than the 6600GT
c. It doesn't (usually) require an extra power connector.
I say usually because the PNY card sold at PC World states that it needs TWO hard disk dongles and a y-connector, but I wouldn't be surprised if that is a mistake on the box, since the reference design for a 7600GT shouldn't need any extra power.
6600GT will set you back about £90-£100, 7600Gt about £130. Personally if I was buying from new I would definitely opt for the 7600 (see the latest card reviews in the June edition of Custom PC magazine for more details).

wildeep

great advice, thank you

biglugs

BTW - I just had an email from PNY Europe confirming that the 7600GT card on sale at PC World does NOT need any additional power, and that the information on the box is wrong. I know £150 instore is steep compared to the web, but at least if you have any problems you can take it back and refund/replace with no problems whatsoever.

wildeep

does this mean that any 7600gt doesn't need additional power or just this pny one?

biglugs

I think you'll find all 7600GTs don't need extra power. Even the overclocked ones I've looked at don't need this and the latest graphics card reviews in CustomPC magazine showed this card to have one of the lowest power consumptions around. That was what made me question this with PNY because it seemed so odd.
Which makes the 7600GT a great mid-range card being nearly twice as fast as a 6600GT with no extra power requirement and only about £30-£40 more.

borgs

Just plugged the PC into my "watt meter". Some people may be interested in this:

Standard 5150 - I did have a external 2.5" drive plugged in as well so would probably add a few watts to the stock machine.

1. PC in standby (STR sleep i.e. practically fully off) = < 1W (which I find hard to believe to be honest)
2. PC in idle mode (fully on but doing nothing) = 75W
3. PC pretty busy (encoding video, whilst playing video, whilst virus scanning the hard disk, both cores running at about 60% average) = 140-160W

I find point 1 very strange as I thought all PSUs used about 8W even when switched off.

19" TFT

1. Turned off = 10W
2. Standby = 10W
3. Fully on with a moderately bright picture = 75W Edit: Oops, that is meant to say 37W.


I find point 1 here even stranger than point 1 on the PC!

wildeep

is this any good?: http://www.pcupgrade.co.uk/productdetails.asp?productid=1817&categoryid=112

wildeep

or this: http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/product.aspx?code=GC-XN76GT256&af=50

gdh82

borgs wrote:

Just plugged the PC into my "watt meter". Some people may be interested in this:

19" TFT

1. Turned off = 10W
2. Standby = 10W
3. Fully on with a moderately bright picture = 75W Edit: Oops, that is meant to say 37W.

I find point 1 here even stranger !

Thanks for these figures, borgs.

Having recently bought the 5150 myself I had noticed with pc shutdown and the monitor turned off, the TFT nevertheless made a very slight hight pitched sound (i.e drawing power) which only stops if the monitor is unplugged! I thought this was strange but it at least ties in with your watt reading.