overclocked cpu and 5970 power draw

[Dorkenstein]

I have an overclocked Q9550 with 8gb of ram and 4 drives. I have a few year old Silverstone Decathlon 750w PSU. Would I be able to comfortably add a Radeon 5970 to my setup or do I need a higher power PSU? The cpu is overclocked to 3.6ghz. Thanks.

 

[HOOfan 1]

You are more than fine with that

 

[Dorkenstein]

Will it matter how many fans and hard drives I have in the case? Thanks.

 

[MagickMan]

No, not really. You're fine.

 

[Dorkenstein]

What if I overclocked the 5970 a little? I just want to be sure that I'm not going to damage anything.

 

[Meghan54]

What if I overclocked the 5970 a little? I just want to be sure that I'm not going to damage anything.

You try to pull too much from that ps, it'll shut down. It's not a Topower/Huntkey/Coolmax/Deer.

 

[Dorkenstein]

So it's not okay? Now I'm confused, isn't silverstone a decent PSU?

 

[HOOfan 1]

So it's not okay? Now I'm confused, isn't silverstone a decent PSU?

Yes it is a good PSU..Meghan is pointing out that it has protection circuits.

You want your PSU to shut down if there is something wrong, that helps prevent things from being irreparably damaged.

For only a single card, even the HD5970, the Decathlon 750W will be enough.

 

[MagickMan]

Yeah, you can OC the CPU and GPU and still be fine.

 

[fffblackmage]

Everyone already said it, but I'll say it anyways. Your PSU is perfectly fine for the job.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Thanks everybody. I guess when I read that the 5970 draws so much more power when overclocked to 5870 speeds on each gpu I was worried. I wish I could find out how much I draw at peak.

 

[fffblackmage]

You could at least see how much power is being drawn from the wall outlet with a Kill-A-Watt meter.

My computer sucks up a maximum of 420W from the wall with my 4890 uber overclocked at 1020MHz at 1.475V. The actual power output from the PSU to the computer is actually less than 420W due to PSU efficiency.