nitemode on 9/5/2011 at 20:10
Hi, i was recently recommended to visit the ttlg site for some technical help, any solutions or help is much appreciated.
I am looking to purchase the HD radeon 6850 or 6870 graphics card. Both say a 500 Watt power supply is recommended. My power supply is 400 watt, and with either of these graphics cards included along with my machine on a few PSU calculators i have tried said that my 400 w would be suitable.
350 Watt recomended for 6850 with my machine and 376 Watt with the 6870.
Is this the case?
all the calculators i tried where using 90% load.
My machine is a Acer Aspire M3802, intel core 2 Quad Q3800, 6GB DDR2 ram and a dvd and blu ray drive.
Many thanks
Duncan on 10/5/2011 at 03:21
My advice when it comes to a PSU for a decent gaming rig is never to mess around. If you have a spare $100 use it to drop in a nice 800W PSU and cover your arse. I'm not sure about your particular set up, but a 400W sounds like you're heading for trouble.
Al_B on 10/5/2011 at 06:58
The power rating of the PSU is important - but I've found the +12V rail rating in particular to be a bigger factor when dealing with graphics cards. You should have a label on the side of your power supply with a description of the power rails. Looking at (
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6870-radeon-hd-6850-barts,2776-22.html) these charts it would appear that those two cards require between 11.5A and 13.5A above the rest of the system components. As a gut feeling you're probably going to want to budget the same again - so around 25A minimum on your 12V rail.
There are other things to consider too. Over the longer term the capacity of your power supply will drop as components age so having one that's just marginal now may not be wise (particularly if you've already had it for a while). Some power supply manufacturers have also been quite deceptive in the past and produced power supplies that can't actually supply the power listed.
You're probably best off going for a bigger power supply - and you'll do yourself a favour by going for a lower capacity branded one (e.g. 500-600W) rather than a high capacity "no name" PSU even if the prices are similar.
june gloom on 10/5/2011 at 07:28
Nobody wants your sp- oh.
I've said it before and I'll say it again- don't buy Coolmax. At all. Ever. Even/especially if lost_soul tells you Coolmax to.
Briareos H on 10/5/2011 at 08:14
Quote Posted by Duncan
a nice 800W PSU
Wanting to maximize the "on the box" power rating is a well perpetuated myth. I have the most power-consuming graphics card in the world (Radeon 4870X2) and only have a Corsair HX520 to power it.
Al_B is right on the money. What is most important is to buy an efficient, well-built brand (Silverpower, Corsair, Seasonic...). Anything above 600W will be wasted.
Ulukai on 12/5/2011 at 17:09
Quote Posted by Al_B
You're probably best off going for a bigger power supply - and you'll do yourself a favour by going for a lower capacity branded one (e.g. 500-600W) rather than a high capacity "no name" PSU even if the prices are similar.
This. I've been running a 430W CoolerMaster power supply with a GTX560 Ti/Core 2 Duo. It never misses a beat under full load even though a 500W supply is recommended for the card alone (although I think that's a little excessive having seen the typical consumption figures)
