500W PSU - Enough juice?
Community Forums/General Help/500W PSU - Enough juice?
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| I've just ordered a new video card, an nVidia 260 GTX, but it just dawned on me that my current PSU (Enermax Liberty 500W) might have insufficient "juice". My (ageing) desktop currently consists of: 1 x EVGA 680i motherboard 2 x 1GB OCZ RAM 1 x Soundblaster X-Fi Gamer 3 x 3.5" HD Do you think 500W is sufficient to power all of this AND a 260 GTX? I believe they're pretty good cards, power efficiency wise, so my fingers are firmly crossed. Thanks |
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| I don't know off the top of my head what the stats are for those, but I always play it safe on the PSU front - keep in mind that the few bucks you might save on an older PSU pale to the cost of frying your shiny new video card. You should add up the max wattage each of your components draws and check it against the peak and continuous power your PSU can supply. |
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| Thanks. Can you recommend a PSU? |
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| I think it's BARELY enough, but Enermax is a good company. I personally like my Thermaltake Toughpower 600w. You can calculate the wattage taken by your system using the PSU calculator: http://extreme.outervision.com/index.jsp |
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| Thanks _33 - I'll have a play around with that calculator. If I try the card out, and it turns out to be underpowered, can it cause serious damage to the card itself, or will my system simply switch off? |
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| Your 3D accelerator will not go in 3D if the power isn't enough, but the rest of the system will still work. |
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| I bought a GTX 260 recently and it's running off a 400W supply with no problems. It'll depend what else you have in the PC, but they do over-state the power needed by these things. (The reviews I read stated that the whole PC only used 150W or so in normal use, and 300-odd while playing games -- the card itself apparently 'only' uses 180W at full power.) |
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| That's encouraging BlitzSupport - I think I'll give it a go! Cheers (and thanks again _33). |
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| A friend of mine had no money for a new PSU, so he used his old 500W PSU after he upgraded. His specs: Intel Q9550, ati HD4870, 1 HDD, 2 sticks or RAM. It held on for two weeks, then the PSU got fried. He was lucky nothing else got fried in there. Now he's using a 750W Corsair PSu just to be sure :) I would definately recommend Corsair as a good brand (I have HX1000). All my friends that have Corsair never had a problem with them. |
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| GTX 260 and C2D 2.6 with BeQuiet 500W here. No problems. |
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| And to think that the first Athlon with a Geforce 256 DDR would run fine on a 250 watt PSU with 20Amps on the +5Volt rail. |
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| Well... So far, so good! The card arrived this morning. I installed it and ran 3DMark Vantage, to put the card through its paces (is this a sufficient test?). All tests completed and my PC didn't die or anything, so I'm assuming my 500W PSU is sufficient for this 55nm card. |
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| 3DMark is not really a good test for anything IMO. The best test will always be your favourite most recent, gfx intensive app for several hours. More fun too :) I think it's BARELY enough, According to Coolermaster, you'll be fine with a 209w PSU. Even doubling that, you're still fine with a 500. Coolermaster recommend their 400w PSU. It'll depend what else you have in the PC, but they do over-state the power needed by these things. Amen to that. It held on for two weeks, then the PSU got fried. I'd blame either the brand and/or the fact it was old to begin with. A friend of mine had no money for a new PSU, I always thought of the CPU as being akin to our brain and the PSU akin to our heart (or is that the motherboard...). Both are vital components - 'no money' for a PSU means you shouldn't be using a computer, you should be doing a day of work. |
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| It fit inside your case then? I thought I was going to need a new one at first! The size of my GTX 260 (by Palit) is absolutely ridiculous. |
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| That sounds okay as is. One thing to be wary of is the actual efficiency and output of the PSU. It may say "500W" but that doesn't mean the total output is necessarily 500 Watts. From what I have been able to dig up thanks to Google, is that an "Enermax Liberty EC 500W" outputs a total of 456 Watts. This cuts the limit much Finer, but provided you stick with one graphics card you should be just about Okay. |
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| @BlitzSupport: It just about fitted into my case. When I first saw the size of the card, I also feared the worst. If I'd had any drive in my middle bays, it wouldn't have fitted. @Malice: My Liberty 500W is a few years old now too, no I'm guessing it's even less efficient these days. It looks like the 55nm cards are pretty efficient on power consumption, so I'm optimistic that I'll get by... Just... |
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| Tell ya summat else; I ran a 230W video card - GeForce FX5200, 256MB - off a 180W PSU for several months. I now use that same card on a better 350W power supply, but neither the card nor the old PSU have suffered any detectable damage whatsoever. ;D |
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