ASUS Radeon HD 7790 Direct CU II OC, My Experience (Not a review)

I have always wanted a higher performance graphic card for my desktop with the primary reason, the ability to play PC (Personal Computer) games with descent eye candies but have never willing to pay more than RM600 or about USD180 for this reason (yeah, I know I'm stingy but hey, I'm just an occasion gamer). I did have a slower performance graphic card previously which came in the form of Gigabyte Radeon HD5450. It was a good budget card which came at a cost of RM129 (USD40) but will not allow me to play my preferred PC games at higher graphic setting.

Last June 2013, I came across a review regarding ASUS Radeon HD7790 Direct CU II OC from Chip Malaysia Magazine 

Asus Radeon HD 7790 Direct CU II OC

The magazine gave a very good review on this card. At RM540 (USD163), this card has a clock memory of 1,075MHz, 1GB DDR5 and has the ability to run most of the current PC games at graphic setting of medium to high. I tried to search for this card in my local market but failed until beginning of this February, I spotted this card at an IT store in Kuching. This card must be selling like hot cakes as it was the only last unit left at the store. After so much time hunting for this card, without hesitation, I bought the card which retailed at RM489, slightly lower than when it first came out at RM540. 

Upon bringing it home, disaster strike! I realized without upgrading some hardware of my PC, I won't be able to utilize this graphic card. Just a short information about the specification of my PC. I'm still using the Intel Core 2 Duo era of processor and motherboard with 4 GB of DDR2 RAM (Max). 

My PC before upgrading my graphic card

In order to be able to use the graphic card, I would need to first replace my old PSU (Power Supply Unit) as this card consume more power. I purchased Aero Cool PSU @ 600W which gave me another 100W extra from the card's minimum requirement of 500W. The card also required a 6 pin power connector which my old PSU did not supply.

Aero Cool  PSU and Asus HD7790 Graphic Card

Disaster after disaster. I later found out my graphic card was too large that it blocked two of my four SATA ports. I could only use the remaining two SATA ports to run my two harddisc with no more CD-ROM support for my PC.

Notice the two orange colored SATA ports are blocked

I can still do with the two SATA ports as the CD-ROM is seldom being used. Well, just for temporary measure as I may consider upgrading my motherboard, processor and RAM at one go with possible of a new casing for my PC. Am I happy with my purchase? For the time being, YES!, as I achieved my objective of the ability to play PC games with higher graphic setting as well as do some graphic editing on my PC. But I guess I will have to upgrade the rest of my hardware sooner or later. I'm just being lucky that my current motherboard and processor can still barely support my latest hardware addition.

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