New Build. Do I need to upgrade my power supply?

[leesiulung]

I want to upgrade an existing computer to the following:

C2D E8500 *purchased
EVGA Motherboard with Nvidia 730i chipset (click on link for specs)
8GB Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5 (x2, total 4 dimms) *purchased
WD 250GB Raid Edition (x2 in a Raid Mirror Setup) *purchased
Plextor PX-760A Optical Drive *purchased

nvidia 9800 series graphics card in the future (mostly intended for triple screen setup and very light gaming)

I want to re-use my Antec TruePower Trio 430W.

Questions:

1) I look at the mother board and it seems to require 8-pin CPU power. Can I use one of those splitters from a 4-pin to 8-pin

2) Is my power supply adequate for my uses?

3) Any other suggestions for motherboard? I choose the 730i due to hybrid SLI on the cheap. I need a triple monitor setup and it seemed like a good fit.

Help would be much appreciated.

 

[o1die]

I would try your old power supply. If your system is stable, then you should be fine. If you have artifacts on the video, or freeze ups, then a new ps would be required. Read the motherboard manual for using a 4 pin connector. I use a 20 pin atx connector on my old antec to a 24 pin motherboard, and have had no issues.

 

[geneSW]

With that GPU thrown into the mix, and the fact that it doesn't have a 8pin on it... I would say get a new one. Nothing more then a 600w though as anything more would be complete and utter overkill. At least with a 600w you should be good for awhile....

Although, how old is that PSU? Does it have a PCIe power cord?

 

[leesiulung]

@geneSW:

It is rather recent, I bought around Christmas time at a steal. It does have a PCI-E power connector and more specifically is this one:

link

It has a 20+4 Pin main power connector and 3x 12V rails (if that means anything to somebody).

I'm trying to avoid additional costs at this point so if there is no danger of damaging anything I would rather try the current 430W supply.

 

[geneSW]

My main concern would be when you throw that 9800 into the mix... Untill then you should be ok though.

 

[SunSamurai]

No ones asking for the amp ratings on the lines.. lol I guess thats what you get when you ask about PSUs in the motherboard forums.

 

[theAnimal]

Get an HD4770 instead of 9800GT, it uses less power and performs better.

 

[leesiulung]

@geneSW:
What would happen if there isn't enough power in the PSU to support the GeForce 9800 card?

Can anything get damaged?

I should have posted this in the PSU section. Don't why I didn't think of it. I might just post this over there...

@theanimal:
The reason I'm sticking with nvidia is due to the hybrid SLI and a personal preference for nvidia over ATI. It might turn out to be a different GeForce series depending on the budget. I'm looking for around $50-100.

 

[Schmide]

Originally posted by: leesiulung
@geneSW:
What would happen if there isn't enough power in the PSU to support the GeForce 9800 card?

Can anything get damaged?

I should have posted this in the PSU section. Don't why I didn't think of it. I might just post this over there...

@theanimal:
The reason I'm sticking with nvidia is due to the hybrid SLI and a personal preference for nvidia over ATI. It might turn out to be a different GeForce series depending on the budget. I'm looking for around $50-100.

Your PSU is more than adequate. It has 3 12v rails 16a each totaling 32a peak.

Just some rough numbers and these are maximum load

40w E8500
30w Nvidia 730i chipset
8w 8GB
30w WD 250GB Raid Edition (x2 in a Raid Mirror Setup)
15w Plextor PX-760A Optical Drive *purchased

total 123w

85w 9800gt

total 208w about 140w on the 12v for a total 12v usage of 11.5a. So you're less than half total power loaded and a third of you 12v limit.

SLI - At most with a Hybrid SLI you could only use it for power savings. About a 30% power saving.

Since you want triple monitors, I think that can be done with your proposed setup. It's just not considered SLI (2 display on the 9800gt one on the motherboard 9300gt)

Note: You should loose your bias for nvidia. Get the best card for your system and prospective upgrade path. However for what you want, you are on the right path.

 

[geneSW]

Keep in mind that most PSU's are rated for peach loads for a short amount of time... so that 430W wouldn't be constant... I've always considered the "true rating" of a PSU to be about 75% of what it's rated for... so 75% fo 430 would be...322.5W... Now, are the numbers you provided under load? I'm thinking so, but I figured I would ask just in case. Also, he won't be able to SLI with this PSU without a 6 pin splitter as this PSU (The one that was linked above) doesn't have 2 6pin PSIe connectors.

True, at the end of the day this PSU might work, but I like to be "futureproofed" so to say, which is why I have a modualted Thermaltake 750W PSU. I can use that PSU for a long long time.

 

[Schmide]

The motherboard OP is buying, only supports Hybrid SLI which is where the onboard graphics shares or offloads the graphics card. It has one pci-e 16x.

The numbers are maximum theoretical output, the components would never reach that level, without overclocking and overvolting.

Even with two 9800gt cards, the 12v would be around 18.75a(225w) on a 32a(384w) peak system, which would be a approx 60% maximum 12v load.

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: Schmide

Originally posted by: leesiulung
@geneSW:
What would happen if there isn't enough power in the PSU to support the GeForce 9800 card?

Can anything get damaged?

I should have posted this in the PSU section. Don't why I didn't think of it. I might just post this over there...

@theanimal:
The reason I'm sticking with nvidia is due to the hybrid SLI and a personal preference for nvidia over ATI. It might turn out to be a different GeForce series depending on the budget. I'm looking for around $50-100.

Your PSU is more than adequate. It has 3 12v rails 16a each totaling 32a peak.

Just some rough numbers and these are maximum load

40w E8500
30w Nvidia 730i chipset
8w 8GB
30w WD 250GB Raid Edition (x2 in a Raid Mirror Setup)
15w Plextor PX-760A Optical Drive *purchased

total 123w

85w 9800gt

total 208w about 140w on the 12v for a total 12v usage of 11.5a. So you're less than half total power loaded and a third of you 12v limit.

SLI - At most with a Hybrid SLI you could only use it for power savings. About a 30% power saving.

Since you want triple monitors, I think that can be done with your proposed setup. It's just not considered SLI (2 display on the 9800gt one on the motherboard 9300gt)

Note: You should loose your bias for nvidia. Get the best card for your system and prospective upgrade path. However for what you want, you are on the right path.

Good post. :thumbsup:

 

[leesiulung]

So far so good!

A few more questions:

a) So what if I wanted to get a Geforce GTX260 instead?

b) Where do I find the power rating on the graphics card?

c) What is the highest power rating I can put in this system and still be on the safe side? In case I choose a different card.

 

[Schmide]

Although many reviews will give you a general figure for power usage, xbitlabs does it the best.

They just did a really good article on total system usage where they detailed some of the methods they use.

For example the gtx260 you're asking about can be found here.

If you search around you can find various component power, but some you just give ballpark figures because the variance isn't great.

Lost Circuits is a good site for analyzing CPU power.

So yes you could get that card, nVidia did a good job of lowering it's power with the 55nm shrink.

As others have pointed out (above) you generally don't want to run at the maximum of your PSU, less than 75% is usually OK.

Since you have 384w peak total on your 12v, 75% would be 288w. Subtract out the approx 123w from my previous post and you get 165w maximum for your video card. From the xbitlabs link above you can get almost any single GPU card except the for the 65nm GTX 280. The 55nm version would come in with just a bit to spare. I would advise if you're going to get a higher end nVidia card you make sure it's a 55nm card.

You should be able to get away with almost any gtx 260 though.

Look around with some effort they can be found for less than $150

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2312222&enterthread=y

 

[yh125d]

The OP's power supply is rated 430w continuous, not peak, at 50C so it's a true 430w PSU.


That system (with a GTX 260) would be pulling somewhere in the area of 300w. Figure 80% efficiency (pretty typical) and you have 240W DC (from PSU). 240w/430w=~56% load

 

[leesiulung]

I ended up installing this board differently and on a different computer altogheter. It works flawlessly and I'm happy.

Thank you for all the help!!!

 

[hans007]

well a truepower trio is at least ATX 2.0 so it will have sepearte 12v lines and such.

It should be more than enough, considering a e8500 really doesnt use that much power, and a 9800GT is mostly just a midrange card.

i figure at full load, a 9800 is about 105 watts, 65 watts even for an overclocked e8500, 8-9 watts for a hard drive, maybe another 8-9 for the dvd drive, and another 6-7 watts for the dvdrw while being used, and 35 watts for the motherbaord and ram is still well under 430 watts.