Computer Upgrade Help!

[trawler69]

Erm, I'm confused. In the Mac world, video cards have their own memory. How is your card taking 200-300MB from your system? What am I missing?

The other question I have, is if you have a 300 watt PS now and put in a 600, where does the additional heat go, and if you say into your room, isn't the temperature of the air going back into the box going to increase?

Inquiring minds need to know.

I assume from your past posts that you are joking here particularly in the bit about power supplies. I shall therefore award you a quick laugh . Hope I am not out of order in doing that.

 

[me12121]

Erm, I'm confused. In the Mac world, video cards have their own memory. How is your card taking 200-300MB from your system? What am I missing?

Integrated video takes memory from your system, both in the Mac and PC worlds. For example, the Macbook and Mac Mini both use integrated video. With the newer integrated video chips, you don't notice that they are using memory since they can dynamically use the amount of memory they need on the fly. But for older integrated video chips, you had to select the amount of memory you wanted them to use, and that amount would be subtracted from the system memory you had.

 

[tatu101]

Integrated video takes memory from your system, both in the Mac and PC worlds. For example, the Macbook and Mac Mini both use integrated video. With the newer integrated video chips, you don't notice that they are using memory since they can dynamically use the amount of memory they need on the fly. But for older integrated video chips, you had to select the amount of memory you wanted them to use, and that amount would be subtracted from the system memory you had.

thats why i never put videos on my computer i save them to dvds

 

[sheep]

Integrated video takes memory from your system, both in the Mac and PC worlds. For example, the Macbook and Mac Mini both use integrated video. With the newer integrated video chips, you don't notice that they are using memory since they can dynamically use the amount of memory they need on the fly. But for older integrated video chips, you had to select the amount of memory you wanted them to use, and that amount would be subtracted from the system memory you had.

Is this something new with Intel Macs? It is showing on my G4 under graphics as NVIDIA GeForce4 MX total VRAM 32 megs.

 

[sheep]

I assume from your past posts that you are joking here particularly in the bit about power supplies. I shall therefore award you a quick laugh . Hope I am not out of order in doing that.

Trawler, I wasn't looking for a quick laugh. I think if you look back you will find I have tried to be helpful to Brandon whom I've known for close to 3 years. Perhaps I should have just used the simple answer that steams *you people* up every time. Get a Mac, but no, I tried to be helpful.
I don't mean to hole your boat but I didn't use a smiley. That 300 watts equates to 1000 BTU. In a bedroom with a typical 6000 BTU a/c, that equates to 15 to 20% of the cooling capacity. In IM's i've had with Brandon, he complains of the heat meaning his air conditioning is too small already to cool his room. If this is the case, the temperature in his room would rise and the air intake to the computer would rise. Heat is the big enemy of electronics.

 

[me12121]

Is this something new with Intel Macs? It is showing on my G4 under graphics as NVIDIA GeForce4 MX total VRAM 32 megs.

Yeah, some but not all of the intel macs.

 

[_AJ_]

Trawler, I wasn't looking for a quick laugh. I think if you look back you will find I have tried to be helpful to Brandon whom I've known for close to 3 years. Perhaps I should have just used the simple answer that steams *you people* up every time. Get a Mac, but no, I tried to be helpful.
I don't mean to hole your boat but I didn't use a smiley. That 300 watts equates to 1000 BTU. In a bedroom with a typical 6000 BTU a/c, that equates to 15 to 20% of the cooling capacity. In IM's i've had with Brandon, he complains of the heat meaning his air conditioning is too small already to cool his room. If this is the case, the temperature in his room would rise and the air intake to the computer would rise. Heat is the big enemy of electronics.

Trawler uses a MAC lol

i dont think the heat differance would be that much and going fowards he will probably need the extra power better to be safe if he just keeps upgrading the cpu ect
the larger psu may run cooler at higher power because it isn't under as much strain whereas a smaller one may struggle and run hotter because its running at its limits

 

[provenlogic]

Erm, I'm confused. In the Mac world, video cards have their own memory. How is your card taking 200-300MB from your system? What am I missing?

There are 3 types of video adapters, dedicated video boards (commonly known as a video card), integrated video (commonly known as... well... integrated video), and video boards that use shared memory (commonly known as shitty video cards).

Dedicated video cards have their own memory, or VRAM (Video RAM). That ram is only accessed by the video card, and never anything else, such as your system. integraded video has no dedicated VRAM, and "takes over" a portion of your system's main memory. This is what brandon is describing when he says his current video adapter takes up 200-300MB of his system's memory. This shared memory is used by both the main system and the video adapter.

And finally, video cards that use shared memory are just bad news, don't ever get one.

And all of this is the same for Fruit (MACs) and PCs. Either can have one of those types of video adapters.

The other question I have, is if you have a 300 watt PS now and put in a 600, where does the additional heat go, and if you say into your room, isn't the temperature of the air going back into the box going to increase?

Wattage here, doesn't coallate to heat. Wattage is power usage. If you swap a 300watt PSU for a 600watt PSU, you have a maximum capacity of 600watts. That doesn't mean that it will always be pumping out 600watts either. But the amount of heat generated from a PSU has 99% more to do with the construction of the unit, type of heat dissipation system, and amount of heat dissipation.

thats why i never put videos on my computer i save them to dvds

You're video memory (VRAM) has absolutely nothing to do with videos on your computer (for all intents and purposes). You're confusing two very different things. Memory is NOT the same as Hard Drive space. You store videos (as with any other file) on your Hard Drive. This takes up space on your Hard Drive, and does absolutely nothing to your system memory, or video memory. As long as you have ample Hard Drive space, you can store as many movies or files on your Hard Drive(s) as you wish. Your video memory ONLY comes into play when it buffers images for display on your screen, but that memory is always available again as soon as the contents is dumped to your screen. You can't "use up" any memory on your computer, be it system or video memory; but of course, you can run out of Hard Drive space.

Is this something new with Intel Macs? It is showing on my G4 under graphics as NVIDIA GeForce4 MX total VRAM 32 megs.

That's because you have a dedicated video card, and not integrated video, or a video card that uses shared memory.

Trawler, I wasn't looking for a quick laugh. I think if you look back you will find I have tried to be helpful to Brandon whom I've known for close to 3 years. Perhaps I should have just used the simple answer that steams *you people* up every time. Get a Mac, but no, I tried to be helpful.
I don't mean to hole your boat but I didn't use a smiley. That 300 watts equates to 1000 BTU. In a bedroom with a typical 6000 BTU a/c, that equates to 15 to 20% of the cooling capacity. In IM's i've had with Brandon, he complains of the heat meaning his air conditioning is too small already to cool his room. If this is the case, the temperature in his room would rise and the air intake to the computer would rise. Heat is the big enemy of electronics.

Ahhh, see you're confusing electrical watts and thermal watts, the two are not the same. One is a measurement of electrical output, the other is the measure of thermal output. In the case of a PSU, we're talking about electrical watts as power output, not thermal output. And you also have to remember that PSU's are designed to disipate heat, not spread it out in equilibrium across the space it occupies. Every PSU has a heat sink mechanism of some sort. The more heat disipation your PSU has, the less heat it puts out. Plus you have to remember that your system isn't drawing power at a constant rate either, most of the time it will be drawing far less than it's rated MAXIMUM output. The important thing to know here is that there is no direct correlation between the electrical output of a PSU in watts, and the thermal output of the PSU.

 

[BrandonSBCA]

I think you'd be pretty happy with it. That's a lot of card for $200. And with eVGA's step up program, assuming you want something even better within 90 days, you only pay the difference in the price. But i think it's probably a great card for you. It can CERTAINLY handle Vista Aero, and pretty much any game. It's not uber top of the line, but unless you are going to play first person shooters at 60fps for hours on end, i don't think you need an uber card. And this one is pretty uber for the price.

Noelie, any opinions?

As for the PSU, i don't know if you had your heart set on one particular brand, but i'd check out what newegg has, they ofter have deals, and they have a ton of selection. And i've never had a single problem with newegg, their reputation is impeccable with me. I've spent literally thousands of dollars with them over the years. Anyways, let us know what you decide!

Are you saying that the power supply Noelie suggested won't work with the third card you provided me with?

 

[provenlogic]

Are you saying that the power supply Noelie suggested won't work with the third card you provided me with?

Nope, no not at all, it should work just fine. I just thought you might save money getting it all from one online retailer. But by all means, get the hardware YOU want, everything else is par for the corse.

 

[BrandonSBCA]

I usually like ordering through amazon.com, only time I ordered from a different source is because Noelie told me that the only way to get the best compatible memory was to go with crucial.com, and thankfully my memory is working perfect.

So if I install this video card will it give me back the RAM it was using? So instead of 1.8GB of RAM I should have 2GB?

 

[_AJ_]

well i am lucky in that respect i have some excellent cheap pc places around here

maybe you should get this psu

i know its expensive but it has racing stripes

 

[BrandonSBCA]

well i am lucky in that respect i have some excellent cheap pc places around here

maybe you should get this psu

i know its expensive but it has racing stripes

It wouldn't look good on my computer, it would be out of place to buy something that doesn't match the look of my computer. I still have a damn PC case that I don't even use which lights up.

 

[trawler69]

Ahhh, see you're confusing electrical watts and thermal watts, the two are not the same. One is a measurement of electrical output, the other is the measure of thermal output. In the case of a PSU, we're talking about electrical watts as power output, not thermal output. And you also have to remember that PSU's are designed to disipate heat, not spread it out in equilibrium across the space it occupies. Every PSU has a heat sink mechanism of some sort. The more heat disipation your PSU has, the less heat it puts out. Plus you have to remember that your system isn't drawing power at a constant rate either, most of the time it will be drawing far less than it's rated MAXIMUM output. The important thing to know here is that there is no direct correlation between the electrical output of a PSU in watts, and the thermal output of the PSU.

I don't mean to hole your boat but I didn't use a smiley. That 300 watts equates to 1000 BTU. In a bedroom with a typical 6000 BTU a/c, that equates to 15 to 20% of the cooling capacity. In IM's i've had with Brandon, he complains of the heat meaning his air conditioning is too small already to cool his room. If this is the case, the temperature in his room would rise and the air intake to the computer would rise. Heat is the big enemy of electronics.

[GEEK] Power supplies Have a percentage efficiency, typically in high 85 to 95% range at mid operating powers. If you have no load then the supply will always dissipate a small amount of energy making it 100% inefficient at zero power draw. Assuming 90% efficiency and a power draw of 200 watts 20 watts will be dissipated in the supply as heat whether it be a 400 or 600 watt supply. Typically a 600 watt supply would be more efficient and produce less heat at 400 watts than would a 400 watt supply being maxed out as the efficiency drops as you aproach maximum capacity.

Regarding overall heat, the dissipation will be the total power required by the system plus the inefficiency in the power supply producing this power. So a more powerful supply running at its most efficient will run cooler. Remember all electrical watts consumed end up as heat. A watt is a measure of the rate of energy usage namely One joule per second. [/GEEK]

 

[BrandonSBCA]

Brandon you need to give us all the relevant technical information and that includes whether or not your system has adequate ventilation - it really is unfair of you to discuss other stuff pertaining to this thread in private and then to leave us out of the loop when we're all just trying our best.

I haven't even discussed ventilation with anyone. I think you're probably the only person on here Noelie that has more information about my system than anyone else. Basically let me describe my gaming so provenlogic might be able to help, he might not play the games I play. But I just want the games I couldn't play before like Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, Quake 4, Doom III, The Sims 2. It's not like I'll be playing those huge fucking games like Far Cry at Maxed out settings.

Even though SRL has just told me I can play that game.

 

[BrandonSBCA]

This is the geek equivalent of who can piss farthest

I just want to play my games at a nice Frames Per Second. I lose at the pissing the furthest.

 

[BrandonSBCA]

This is more of the shit I'm talking about that I don't want to play but it would be nice to know my computer can play this game.

 

[sheep]

This is the geek equivalent of who can piss farthest

The only discussion pertaining to this thread was heat and that was a year or 2 ago.

Any Phd's in electrical engineering here?? If so, stand up to the virtual urinal

 

[provenlogic]

This is more of the shit I'm talking about that I don't want to play but it would be nice to know my computer can play this game.

Wow, i agree with noelie, we're starting a semantics war here with the heat dissipation talk. That, and well everyone know's mine is bigger anyways and can piss farthest , .

Aside from that, and back to your video card Brandon, the last of the 3 i showed you, that 512MB version, should play ALL of those games you're interested in without a hitch. You'll go apeshit when you see the difference. Now, as for Bioshock, that's brand-spankin' new. The card i showed you (in fact all three) would DEFINATELY be able to handle the game, but i wouldn't count on maxing out all of the settings on the game and gettin 30fps.

The 3rd card i showed you could probably handle Bioshock on medium settings without a single problem though. But i know for damn sure it can handle the others without incident. And if it couldn't, then you'd damn well have to spend a lot more money on a card, something into the $400 range or higher. For the price and value, i don't think you can beat that 512Mb one i showed you.

Again, as for Bioshock, you'd need something like an 8800GTX 512-768Mb card to play it at max settings, and even then you'd get some choppiness. The only rigs that play games like that at perfect 30FPS, full quality, without problems are going to be your SLi or Crossfire rigs, which are essentially 2 video cards hardwired together to act as one uberduber card. And of course, that costs major bucks.

If i sound like i'm repeating myself, i am, because i think a lot's getting lost in the back and forth here. But i definitely think for the price you want to spend, that 512MB card i showed you is the way to go, and i promise it will play the games you want in a way you'll find more than acceptable. And if it doesn't, then you would really need a more expensive card anyway (and you can always trade-up with eVGA if you wanted to do that).

 

[BrandonSBCA]

Wow, i agree with noelie, we're starting a semantics war here with the heat dissipation talk. That, and well everyone know's mine is bigger anyways and can piss farthest , .

Aside from that, and back to your video card Brandon, the last of the 3 i showed you, that 512MB version, should play ALL of those games you're interested in without a hitch. You'll go apeshit when you see the difference. Now, as for Bioshock, that's brand-spankin' new. The card i showed you (in fact all three) would DEFINATELY be able to handle the game, but i wouldn't count on maxing out all of the settings on the game and gettin 30fps.

The 3rd card i showed you could probably handle Bioshock on medium settings without a single problem though. But i know for damn sure it can handle the others without incident. And if it couldn't, then you'd damn well have to spend a lot more money on a card, something into the $400 range or higher. For the price and value, i don't think you can beat that 512Mb one i showed you.

Again, as for Bioshock, you'd need something like an 8800GTX 512-768Mb card to play it at max settings, and even then you'd get some choppiness. The only rigs that play games like that at perfect 30FPS, full quality, without problems are going to be your SLi or Crossfire rigs, which are essentially 2 video cards hardwired together to act as one uberduber card. And of course, that costs major bucks.

If i sound like i'm repeating myself, i am, because i think a lot's getting lost in the back and forth here. But i definitely think for the price you want to spend, that 512MB card i showed you is the way to go, and i promise it will play the games you want in a way you'll find more than acceptable. And if it doesn't, then you would really need a more expensive card anyway (and you can always trade-up with eVGA if you wanted to do that).

No I was actually just making Bioshock as an example, it's not like I'll be playing that game. I think the third card you showed me would fit perfectly, but I'm still a little scared about you guys talking about the heat. My room usually gets to about 84 degrees in my room at times. It's the hottest room in my house excluding the wash room because that's has no ventilation for the A/C.