What is the 4 pin power connector for a graphics card for?

i asked a cross-question earlier almost getting a card for my comp becouse the pci16x cards requir alot of watts like 450watts my power supply one and only has 250watts.someone said hey find this card becouse it has the 4 pin nouns i looked at the card it didnt say how oodles watts were req to run it.so my press is what does it do and do those types of cards req a certaint wattage for a power supply?

Answer:
any performance pci express x16 graphics card is gonna suck down power. the connector just means that your giving the graphics card its own devoted power hook up straight from the powersupply instead of throught he motherboard. if you wanna get better graphics youll probably purely need to bring a new power supply.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...
the power supply on that page is a VERY reliable, powerful, and stable psu. i own it myself and i love it. 585 watts and dual 12 volt railing. and its really cheap.
the higher extremity cards requir a 6pin pcie power the new 2000 series radeon also require a 8 pin contained by addition to the 6 pin if you buy a modular watchout the pci power is almost transposable to the end that go into the psu and if its backwards smoke and fire will result you should also check any power supply with a meter until that time using to make shure its wired ok
The small four pin jack is the extension past its sell-by date the power cable for your hard drive cable next to two plugs. One which is meant to plug into your 3 and 1/2 inch floppy drive. It is a smaller four pin plug and is usually found as an extension rotten the same power cable as the larger four pin for your thorny drive.

That video card wont work if does not have the small plug, plugged into the jack on that video card. I hold a ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9700 Pro which has to hold that small plug, plugged in or it wont work at adjectives, in the AGP slot.
This one is a bit self-explanatory. The POWER connector is for providing POWER to the graphics card. :)

The problem is that the expansion slots on your motherboard regularly cannot supply the amount of power needed by the graphics card, so the easiest way to business deal with the problem is to of late plug the power supply directly to the card itself.

If you're looking to upgrade your graphics though, I'd look at upgrading your computer's power supply. 250 watts may not be enough to power your system near a new card.

Also, whoever told you that the 16x cards require 450 watts be waaay off. You're probably looking at ~150 watts tops. (At lowest for the current cards...)
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