Video card goes "boom"
will this happen to my graphics card because of my power supply? if so, what power supply should i use? 450 watts or 550 watts?nic4games
You should be aware that it is the BRAND that makes the difference in the long run, far more than whatever total wattage output that all of the circuits actually add up to in total, and it's the number of AMPs on the 12 V circuit that affects video graphics card performance. Most of the brand names from around the Asian Rim, where all but a small minority are being produced, are poor. Out of about fifty names in use at any one time, fewer than a dozen are those you should place trust upon.
I will name six off the top of my head, with a current warning even about one of those. Antec has been a great company, having their PSUs supplied to order by Channel Well. But they sought a second source, for some slightly less expensive units, and were bitten in the butt by their supplier. They've replaced many PSUs under warranty, and continue doing so.
The brands I'd have sworn by up to that fiasco has been Antec, Enermax, Fortron, OCZ, PC Power & Cooling (now owned by Seasonic), Seasonic itself, and Sparkle.
Most of the major partners to nVidia will include instructions with their 7600 GS cards asking for a 350 watt PSU. But a 300 from a quality brand is sufficient for that video card. If you have already acquired one of these POS (512 MB version) parts, you are already out of luck, and should've researched the market properly ahead of the purchase. A brand name PSU can be obtained for less cost than a 256 MB 7600 GS that will run on a less powerful power supply.
Last item: do not expect to realize any benefit at all to any game from more than 256 MBs of VRAM matched to only 128 bits worth of memory system. You would just waste money on the 512 MB versions, at least from a game playing perspective. Video cards must have both the good core speed (which the 7600 GS doesn't have), and a 256 bit memory system. It doesn't have that, either.
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