David Haller wrote: > Hello, > > On Sat, 08 Dec 2018, Nikos Chantziaras wrote: >> On 08/12/2018 03:01, Dale wrote: >>> I just noticed the video card that is coming requires a power cable. I >>> never had one that powerful before. O_O >> You've been out of the loop it seems. GPUs have required power cables for >> over a decade now. The GPU I use actually needs *two* power cables and places >> a minimum wattage requirement on the power supply... :-P > *Meh* > > I miss my Matrox Mystique (first model w/170MHz RAMDAC!) with a > whopping 4 MB SGRAM, and not even a heatsink, just the plain naked > chip, much less a fan, and it ran in a PCI slot, at about ~4.5W (or > was it 5W?) theoretical max usage... > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrox_Mystique > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MatroxMystique2MBcard.jpg > > I only replaced that ~10yearish ago because my new screen had a > whopping 1280x1024 on 17", which those 4MB just won't do at decent > bit-depth... *sigh* For 1152x864 on the CRT it was still good, but > that screen just got too dark to see anything at all, so I had to > replace it. Got a nice (expensiveish) PVA-TFT. Still very nice after > ~10 years, even with CCFL it has darkend only minimally[1] :) And yes, > I'm still fine with 1280x1024 on 17", TYVM :) I could even set up the > spare monitor (same size/res) alongside, but I just don't need it. > > Now, I've got (again) a passive GPU for PCIe (max. 75W) w/o extra > power. Main reason: the latest had a fan, which started to scream. As > in almost not running. Cleaning did not help. So... No fan, no sound, > and cleaning a heatsink is easy, as opposed to cleaning a fan + > heatsink combo. And besides, a downward-facing heatsink does not > tend to clog up as one that has a fan blowing onto it... > > -dnh, *darn* Time to clean-out the CPU-heatsink once again too :( > CPU-temp and fan-speed are still ok though. > > [1] I started with IIRC ~30-40% "brightness" as preferred setting, and > am now at ~40-50%... Which is good for a 10yr+ old CCFL, eh? :) >
I have some old cards like that too. One I had given to me and the heat sink fell off of it before I got it. I could see the glue that was left behind and I stuck a new one on there and used it for a long time. Later, I added a fan. It got warm but not hot. Still, I like to run things as cool as possible. The fan ran at a low speed so no noise. I was digging around the other day and found a couple cards that used to be used for adding a mouse. That is a pretty old card. Of course, I don't have any working systems that I can plug any of that into. I'm actually throwing away old systems that no longer even beep on power up, which is a lot. I also found a mid 90's mobo. I think the max ram was 1MBs. Heck, almost all hard drives have more cache than that nowadays. How far we have come computer wise. I've got more memory than I used to have in hard drive space, even when having more than one drive in a rig. Dale :-) :-)
