Power hunger/heat of ATI Radeon 9200-series? - 9250, 9200se

[midiman]

Hi all - been seeing lots and lots of posts about the latest cards and their power needs (and of course, thus the amount of heat they produce - the more heat the more difficulty to silence!)

But I'm seeing very little on the 9200-series of ATI cards - just a few random posts here and there about heat issues.

These cards are very well priced compared to Nvidia's FX5200 collection, especially the 128-bit versions of the 9250, which are still on shelves everywhere. The stickied VGA card power dissipation post covers a bunch of cards, but I'm seeing literally nothing on the 9200-series.

I just want to set the record straight that alot of us here are not necessarily looking for high-end graphics for gaming AND a silent system. In my case, the PC I'm silencing has NO need for 3D graphics - ever. My #1 priority is good web surfing (i.e. 128-bit is really required), dual monitors, and high-resolution 2D (2048).


Can anyone fill us in? I need to replace my very hot ti4600 this week, and I'd like to save as much money as possible. From newegg, its between an FX5200 for $70 and a 9250 with VIVO for almost $60.

[mazurek]

Look at the pictures of the cards you are interested in buying on newegg. The power use will be proportional to the type of heatsink on the card. If it has a small, fanless heatsink, the power output is not high. As the heatsinks get bigger and have fans, the cards are more power hungry.

[midiman]

Look at the pictures of the cards you are interested in buying on newegg. The power use will be proportional to the type of heatsink on the card. If it has a small, fanless heatsink, the power output is not high. As the heatsinks get bigger and have fans, the cards are more power hungry.

Appreciate the feedback, but unfortunately, you just can't quite live by the fanless vs. fanned rule anymore. You can make extremely power hungry and powerful cards fanless via high-end heatsinks, such as zalman's - sometimes even offered directly as a 1st-party purchase. See the stickied "Fanless VGA Cards" thread.

[Ralf Hutter]

I like the 9250's. They're cheap, have DVI out and run silent and cool. I'd certainly recommend them.

FWIW, I have a (very cool running) fanless 9600Pro and a couple of fanless 9250's. If I swap the 9250 and the 9600 in and out of the same system, the 9250's draw about 3-5W more current than the 9600Pro but don't actually run any hotter. Seems to me that more power use would result in more heat output, but it certainly makes no temp difference in my various systems.

[lm]

How about Matrox G550?

[midiman]

How about Matrox G550?

According to Rokjapot's video card list only the G400's were 128-bit, not to mention that Matrox's cards only support up to DX6 (yikes!).


Thanks for the comments about the 9250. Can anyone provide perhaps a comparison of an FX5200 and a 9250/9600? Since we have raw stats on the 5200 perhaps even a subjective comparison would help.