Well, I'm actually considering upgrading my gpu... I currently have a Geforce 7900GS wich is quite old and needs to be updated. My System looks like this:

C2D E6550 @3,5Ghz (500x7)
Zalman CNPS 9500AT
Gigabyte P35-DS3
2x2GB OCZ DDR2-1000
2x1GB OCZ DDR2-1066
HDD Samsung 500GB SATA 7200
HDD Seagate 250GB SATA 7200
HDD Maxtor 60GB IDE
2x Optical Drives
2x 80mm Fan
2x 120mm Fan

the PSU:
beQuiet! Straight Power E5-450W
active PFC
3,3V -> 30A
5V -> 30A
12V1 ->25A
12V2 ->18A
12V combined -> 30A
combined Power rating: 450W

So my question is: would this be enough for a Palit 4870 Sonic? Is there someone using the same PSU with that much load? Or should I better fall back to my first idea a Gainward 4850 Golden Sample? I don't want to buy a new PSU b/c good ones would cost me 80+ €

You have a fairly loaded system and your power supply is also subject to capacitor aging.
In short you should seriously consider upgrading your powersupply regardless of if you go with a 4850 or a 4870. I would say that it should be fine but yuo are pushing it a little bit.

Many people here will suggest that you will need new PSU. Look my system specs everything works fine. The PSU is holding just fine. It is not even heating and the voltages are stable that mean that is not even trying to hard :D

get a 750watt pc power and cooling. it's plenty enough power for anything you may want to get in the next year or so. they can be had for around $120.

Definitely wouldn't try that one, probably work for a little while... But risky.

Get a solid 600+, that 750 PCPC is a great deal right now and a very solid psu.

Well... it would work, but it would be stressing all the time. It's like sending a 10 year old to the gym and try to have him lift weights as much as a high school kid can. Just get a better power supply and have some peace of mind.

hm i have seen others running the StraightPower 450W with an oc'ed Quadcore and the 4850GS (in another forum) so that should work well. I love the beQuiet PSU for beeing quiet, having fan-control for 3 chassis fans and beeing rock stable. You can't compare this one with a cheap 450W psu. So if I'd go for a new one I'd probably go for a beQuiet again. But actually I'd rather take the slower video card (ie 4850GS) than having to buy a new psu aswell. Just thought someone with a similar system could say "I got more load on it and its stable".

4850gs???

Gainward 4850 Golden Sample sry

Another problem of course being that the 4850 doesn't pull much less power than a 4870. They're essentially the same card at different clock rates.

Reffering to these two tests it's a quite big difference (the test system is all the same):
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/160...ard/index.html

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/157...ard/index.html

showing a difference of about 50 watts under load. In other reviews I saw similar results considering the ddr5 not to be as power saving as it should be.

But I guess I should really go for the 4850 to be a bit more on the safe side.

man... a gx2 system with a Q6600 was only pulling 357W at full clip in that review...

I would say "F^&( it" and buy the 4870, and just start saving some money for a new PSU down the road...

It would be really sad to see you get a slower card just because of the PSU, especially when a setup with a clocked Q6600 and a 4870 was only pulling 290 Watts. youre fine...
120MM fan - 20W(too much but we'll use it) x 2 = 40W
80MM fan - 10Wx2 = 20W
lets say you have the tweaktown q6600, 4870, 7200 RPM driver and one optical - 290W
so that leaves you with another 100W for 2 HDD, Optical and 2 sticks of ram... and thats IF you were running an overclocked Q...

The problem people like you and a lot of others fail to realize is most of that is on 12 volt...

He has a total of 30 amps on 12 volt to use before its MAXED.
30 amps @ 12 volts is = 360 watts, and that's with perfect life caps which isn't true unless its new...

So yes it would run, but again like many have said before, your asking for problems....

We are also talking about a pretty heavily overclocked chip with 3 hard drives 4 sticks of ram and some fans...
Not these test systems with 2 sticks and 1 drive, not a big difference but it makes one.

hmm.... I don't know. That review was made with just one hdd, no optical drives and no other not essential hardware. And I guess the peak power drain would also be a bit higher. But you might be right. I just found a review of the e6-450 (the successor of mine) saying that it ran solid up to 546 watts load. It's a german review if someone want's to read: http://www.technic3d.com/article-726...-genration.htm

If my e5 gets close to that it should really work... damn... What shall I do? :cry:

edit:
Yeah right, but for a 450W PSU 30 amps are not to bad, tpu-reviews say "30 amps" should be on the save side for 48xx series (but also mention 500W it should be :()

Buy a nice 750 watt psu, then wait a little longer and buy a video card :P

Try again, it ran "peak" power of 546 watts....

Try to compare it this way, I have a 300 watt amplifier for my car stereo, it peaks at slightly over 900 watts.....

Peak means about as much as burst rate... Worthless in output terms.

If you buy that card, it will run but nobody can say how long your psu will last with that kinda load, kinda depends on how much you game/bench. I mean I ran my 3870 with a e6750 @ 3.2 on a Antec Smart power 2 450 for about 6 months before the power supply blew 2 caps.

i totally agree with the amperage assement youre doing there - and i did realize that... but his first rail can supply up 25 out of the 30amp by itself, which is fine... and while almost everthing runs off the 12V; its not like his system is running absolutely everything off those 30A... the test system also has a quad core in it... there is no way a Q at 3Ghz uses less power than his E6550.

i wasnt saying its the best idea on the planet; but it'll work long enough to hold him over to his next PSU.

speaking of... what kind of warranty you got on that e5?

Well ya, like I said myself it will work, but I would be pretty quick to get a bigger psu for safety..

it's 3 years warranty and 1 year 48h home service. Its a bit over one year old.

I would probably get the card you want and then just plan on upgrading your power supply sometime in the next 6-12 months.

But I don't know if I would stretch for the 4870 over the 4850 considering your processor.

why not the 4870? @ 3,5Ghz the cpu shouldn't be limiting that card. Its faster than almost all stock clocked c2d and quad should not give that much advantage over Mhz since most games stil don't support more than 2 cores.

You won't see much in performance gains with that chip, if you were pushing 4+ it would be a different story.

I posted earlier that will my current setup I can play Crysis Warhead smoothly in enthusiast at 1920x1080 with 2x AA with my video card under clocked 540/900.

You will see even less because you have a small monitor to be honest, now if you plan on buying a at least a 1680x1050 then it starts to become worth it imo.

well with aa it wouldnt make huge difference, but I ran many games in 1600x1200 (at least older games wich my vga was capable of). And even with just 1280x1024 and 8x AA the 4870 should be noticeably faster, isn't it?

Actually there does seem to be a half decent boost in performance even with a e8400 @ 3.6...
So ya you can run for the 4870.