Twistedpixel said: |
As I've already made my position clear on your sources (or lack thereof), I'll respond to the only thing that you linked and repeat my link demonstrating the actual wattage that a full system sporting a Radeon 4850 consumes at full 3D load. Graphics card manufacturers notoriously overinflate the PSU wattages needed to run their cards, mostly because of the aforementioned cheap inefficient PSUs that people who don't know any better buy for their home-built systems. Here's an anecdote: I recently installed a Radeon HD 4350 in my girlfriend's computer and ATI's recommended PSU wattage for that was 350W. Which, as anyone who knows anything about the 4350 knows, is laughably high. I think her PC runs a 250W PSU or something piddly like that.
Otherwise, keep in mind that that 230 watts at full 3D load was for the entire system. You could easily balance your system on a two-rail 350W PSU by dedicating one rail to the GPU and the other to the rest of the system. And that's if it's two rails in the first place - many quality PSUs, including the Corsair that I have in my home system, feature just a single rail.
EDIT: I just checked again, and that 230W figure was actually after they overclocked the card. The actual wattage at stock, for the entire system at full 3D load, was just 202W. Even more proof that a 350W PSU could handle that system.
"'Casual games' are something the 'Game Industry' invented to explain away the Wii success instead of actually listening or looking at what Nintendo did. There is no 'casual strategy' from Nintendo. 'Accessible strategy', yes, but ‘casual gamers’ is just the 'Game Industry''s polite way of saying what they feel: 'retarded gamers'."
-Sean Malstrom