PC Hardware → [Info] Video Card Question

Hi Group, Thought I would post this here first to get your trusted feedback. Looking to upgrade my video card for my HP Pavilion p6230y Desktop PC. Rig Specs link below:

»h20565.www2.hp.com/porta ··· chetoken

My two monitors are ViewSonic VX2770Smh-LED

»www.viewsonic.com/us/vx2 ··· led.html

Possible: EVGA GeForce GT 640 2048MB GDDR3 Dual DVI, mHDMI Graphics Cards 02G-P4-2643-KR

»www.amazon.com/EVGA-GeFo ··· 3&sr=1-5

I do not use my rig for gaming. Business & typical personal use. I am looking for suggestions for a 2 port DVI video card to use for my rig. I am not a video card expert thus my post

Thank you for your thoughts and time.

Brad

Moved in from New England.

Well that desktop has a pathetic 300w psu, and even the 640 recommends at least a 350w psu, but still doesn't require the extra power connector.

Are you up for buying a new power supply too?

Pretty much any low-end video card will work. You can go even lower than a GT 640, and 2 GB VRAM is definitely not needed.

Something like this should work fine. Those monitors have HDMI ports as well, so dual DVI isn't needed (low-end dual DVI cards are more expensive). If you don't have an extra HDMI cable, grab one from Monoprice for a few dollars.

For reference, that one is recommending a 400w psu.

That recommendation is BS. The card uses under 30 watts of power. A 300w power supply can easily handle that, even if it was driving a 3.8 GHz P4 as well.

I realize it's not the 7xxx series which scales down it's power as needed, but even looking up the 640 it says it will use upwards of 50 to 65w depending on the model. Combine that with the already guesstimated 125w processor, 50w board, two drives at 10w, you're possibly 80% already, however their recommendation changes from 300 to 350 with roughly only 15w more depending on the model. While they may not be a gamer, other software will take advantage of the gpu to make rendering things faster like the browser, and youtube videos at a minimum.

The 640 is also a far more powerful card too by reference, however the 640 isn't exactly a gaming card either, and onboard graphics being offered these days tend to be as or more powerful than a 6450. I haven't done the comparison to the latest intel igpu recently. So maybe they just need a middle ground without going too legacy.

Those TDP figures are at full load, which the OP is not going to hit. You'd have to run Linpack on the CPU and FurMark on the GPU to hit that. Not even video encoding will push the CPU that high. I really doubt the motherboard uses 50 watts as well.

The 125w TDP listed on the HP page is just the cap on what the motherboard can reliably supply. It's possible that the OP's computer has a 95w model installed.

While the HD 6000 series doesn't have ZeroCore, all 5000 series and up do idle at low power levels. 4000 series and older use substantially more power at idle than newer GPUs.

I know of a Dell Optiplex that has a HD 4850 installed in it on the stock 250w PSU, using a mess of power adapters (dual SATA -> dual Molex -> 6-pin PCIe). It's been running fine for 3 years, and I've tested it with some graphical loads. A 6450 is not going to kill the power supply, period.

The recommended power supply amounts that manufacturers list are just there for CYA for any sort of oddball configuration that someone may have (8 hard drives, 4 DVD drives, TV tuner, extra NICs, etc). They're often wildly different than if you were to calculate it yourself with actual power draw from individual components.

Thank you both for your time and thoughts. Appreciate you insight dual dvi ports versus not. I do realize the a power supply upgrade is wise and cheap to do. Again, appreciate your insights!

I don't know what you're going to do, but since you're buying ips monitors I either consider you an enthusiast, otherwise do professional work. Most people just buy the cheaper lcd monitors, but ips are superior in many ways. So I at least suggest something more powerful than a 6450, the 640 isn't bad at all, and you might just be fine with your current psu. I'd rather overestimate than underestimate when it comes to things like the psu, and stay below a 90% load on the psu at least, imho around 80% is a good max which the 640 should put you near.

Maybe one notch down from the 640 to be safe, and no new psu? Your call.
»www.geforce.com/hardware ··· ications
»www.newegg.com/Product/P ··· 14130821

I don't care if you buy amd, or nvidia personally. Maybe you have a preference, but I linked the 630 just to give you an idea. Even the newer onboard gpus can do some gaming too, just not the high end stuff. All current gpus are capable of gaming, just more so than others.

I bought the IPS because of a great sale price and my other monitors were 9 years old. I do a lot of work on the computer and spend much time, the 27" IPS seemed like a good choice both visually and for screen real estate

I do miss my dual crt monitors as they finally started dying, but ips monitors as close as you can get to their quality these days. I find my 23" 1080 widescreen monitor on the large side personally, and push it back so I can see all of it at once. I can imagine a 27" dual setup would be worse, at least viewing angle won't be an issue for you.