catchaserguns wrote:

Would an AMd R7 240 work in my machine?

It would

According to someone else in another forum this card would probably give me a blue screen of death in the middle of a game. What is your opinion?

catchaserguns wrote:

According to someone else in another forum this card would probably give me a blue screen of death in the middle of a game. What is your opinion?

Based on what in what situations? I mean, theoretically any driver, any hardware, etc can result in a BSoD under "ideal" settings. Nothing is absolutely 100% 24x7x365 bulletproof.

catchaserguns wrote:

According to someone else in another forum this card would probably give me a blue screen of death in the middle of a game. What is your opinion?

Source?

Its from a Retro Uprising Forum. Its from a guy named Kong who is an administrator. Its under the main Help Thread.

Thread was easily enough found for anyone who wants to read it: http://www.retrouprising.com/support/help/nee … eo-card/t16359/

I'm not going to try and imagine what other people are thinking, but without some sort of specific evidence I'm also pretty dismissive of the "R7 240 will cause a BSoD" claim. The power numbers are also wildly high for that card - spec is 30W TDP. And just for grins, it will run Assassin's Creed IV at reasonably low settings: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r7 … 250,3717-8.html

That review might be where they're getting "120W" from too: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r7 … 250,3717-9.html

But it's worth noting - that's GLOBAL power draw, not just the GPU.

The chart below shows total system power. But it begins at 57 W, which is the idle system use with its monitor output shut off.

Note that you can't just subtract 57W from the figures, because there's CPU/system load "hiding" in those values as well. But what you can get from that, is that Tom's test system with the R7 240 is drawing a peak of 122W. It's a very efficient little card, and should do just fine. I'm not sure exactly how high of performance you could expect from it in Oblivion, but given that my 6800GT and 7900GS didn't have many problems with that game when it was new, and you probably have a much better CPU than I did circa 2006, I would expect it to be playable. 😀

My psu is an ISO 400 though.Here is an image of the side: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81MqwPM … VL._SL1500_.jpg. Will an AMD R7 240 even work with this psu?

The 12V rail rating isn't great, but R7 240 is only ~30W, so I don't see why you couldn't get away with it. Any reason you can't upgrade the PSU? I mean, Corsair CX430 (or similar) isn't terribly expensive, and would eliminate a lot of this concern.

Actually i could now you mentioned it. Since my motherboard which is a ms-7529, according to someone else, is an average motherboard. And my case is an average size tower if not a centimeter wider. But would my motherboard be able to handle more wattage and how much can it handle. If it can then I would look for a good and cheap psu thats maybe 600 watts.

catchaserguns wrote:

Actually i could now you mentioned it. Since my motherboard which is a ms-7529, according to someone else, is an average motherboard. And my case is an average size tower if not a centimeter wider. But would my motherboard be able to handle more wattage and how much can it handle. If it can then I would look for a good and cheap psu thats maybe 600 watts.

The motherboard will only draw as much power as it needs - so there's no issue with having a bigger power supply. Something in the 400-600W range would certainly open up a lot of options for upgrades as well.

600W is way overkill for what you have. Just about any 350-500W PSU with atleast 25A on +12 would be plenty

Well, looks like its overkill time. I got me a 600 W PSU. Its a Sentey BXP600. Any comments on this and what type of video card I can get for under $100?

You should be able to pick up a HD7750 or HD7770 for under $100. They are pretty great in my experience. Or Something older/less power efficient used for cheaper.

catchaserguns wrote:

Well, looks like its overkill time. I got me a 600 W PSU. Its a Sentey BXP600. Any comments on this and what type of video card I can get for under $100?

Make "Sentey"?
Typical efficiency 70%?
20A (240W) on 12volt rail?
240+150+10=400W MAX on all rails together, but still the label says 600W?
1 year warranty?
ATX spec version 2.2 compliant? Come on, for 7 years now we are on ATX 2.3 spec!

This PSU screams "LIE" all onto your face.

Seriously, an ultra cheap Corsair CX430 would have been a much better choice, covered with 3years warranty.

It was the only one of that rating the repair shop had. I'm too clumsy to to put in a power supply myself. I'm to computer illiterate to know all this stuff. I will probably get an AMD r7 240 just to be safe. If this power supply conks out then I will get a Corsair CX430. Thanks for your input.

It'll definitely be adequate for a 30W R7 240, but even your old one would have been able to keep up with that vga. 😉

Better to be safe then sorry. I just hope that the R7 240 has xp drivers.

On AMD's site I don't see any xp drivers. 😒

What would you suggest then that will work in my xp machine and still be under $100? I did see some xp 32bit drivers for that card but its not from the official AMD website.

GeorgeMan wrote:

On AMD's site I don't see any xp drivers. 😒

AMD's Drivers + Download Center lists Catalyst 14.4 for Windows XP 32-bit for all Radeon R7 2xx series. XFX (picked an IHV at random) also lists the R7 240 as compatible with Windows XP and above.

If you want an nVidia alternative, the GeForce GT 610 would be fairly similar.