Will My System Support a GeForce 3?

[egl2004]

I know a lot of higher end graphics cards require high wattage power supplies but im not sure about the requirements for an Nvidia GeForce 3.

My comp's configuration is this:

1.3 GHz P 4

768 MB RAM

60 GB HD

184 Watt Power Supply

Nvidia TNT 2 Pro graphics card

Will my system support a GeForce3?

[TimPoet]

Hi egl2004, welcome to PC Mech.

That would depend on the maker of that power supply unit. Also, what kind of motherboard do you have?

[mike breck]

It can also depend on the AGP slot on the mobo.

[Ikon]

Originally posted by TimPoet That would depend on the maker of that power supply unit.

Let me explain a little bit. PS wattage is not a hard and fast rule. Whther you can trust it depends on the quality of the unit (and the manufacturer). If it were, say, an Antec PS (high quality) you could expect a lot more out of that 184 watts than if it was a cheap POS (like Deer, say).

[Blakhart]

It should do nicely in such an system. Set it to 16 bit colour, use a refresh rate fix, and set the refresh to 85 to 120 and you will enjoy very nice images. Leave aniso, antialiasing, and fast mipmapping off for good image and best performance.
A 300 watt psu will do nicely.

[Charger]

Why not just upgrade to a 300W Sparkle or Enermax? It won't cost but about $50.00. Then you wont have any worries, plus the new PSU are very quiet.

[glc]

184 watts? This sounds like a name brand proprietary computer.

Let's put it this way - I put a GF4 Ti4400 into a Dell Dimension 4100 (1GHz P3) for a customer to replace the stock M64 card. PNY specified that a 300 watt PSU was required, but it's running just fine with the stock 200w (high quality) Dell PSU.

So - depending on your machine, a GF3 may or may not work. Sorry to be vague. I think it depends on the overall quality of the whole machine and components.

[v1r4L fr3nzy]

i would suggest buying a higher wattage psu. the new graphics cardds tend to eat electricity especially when they are running at top speed. i have an antec true480 with a geforce4 ti4600, but i tend to go overkill... ; )

[TimPoet]

Originally posted by v1r4L fr3nzy i would suggest buying a higher wattage psu. the new graphics cardds tend to eat electricity especially when they are running at top speed. i have an antec true480 with a geforce4 ti4600, but i tend to go overkill... ; )

That, is overkill. If the power supply unit is a high quality one, then I would think it would be fine. I was surprised to find that Dell's 200W PSU (Astec brand), in a system I am currently upgrading, was high quality. Wattage is less important than good, clean power. I know how we tend to think, as Tim Allen says, "More Power."
But quality is truly king in this case.