Power requirements

[monkeh624]

Hi all.

After the recent round of nvidia price drops, it would seem that I can now get a GTX 470 for the excellent price of £175 (if anyone from the UK wants to know where this is from, the link is below).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=GX-135-OK

The cheapest 6870 I found was priced at £180, so the GTX 470 at this price would seem like a steal.

Heat and noise are not concerns for me, so no issues there.

However, power may well be an issue. My PSU is an Antec 480W (http://www.kikatek.com/product_info....source=froogle). Do you think this would be enough to power the GTX 470? Rest of my system specs are shown below:

CPU: Phenom II x4 940
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H
RAM: 4Gb DDR2 800
1 HDD + 1 optical drive (DVD-RW)

I don't think there is anything else in there, but I am working from memory at the minute, so there may be.

I don't really want to buy a new PSU if at all possible.

Secondary question, would the CPU hold the GPU back at all? It is a black edition processor, so I guess it should be easy enough to overclock, but I guess this would increase the power load even further?

Thanks in advance

 

[cusideabelincoln]

CPU is fine, especially if you're gaming at 1080p or higher.

Power would be ok, but there are different models of Antecs so we can't say for sure without knowing the exact model you have. The link you provided didn't give enough info. The timeframe for when you bought this power supply would also be helpful. Or just open up the case and take a picture of the label on the PSU - that would be the best thing you can do. If you've had this unit for 5 years, well I would not suggest using it.

Don't worry about overclocking. I'd recommend you get a new power supply if you are going to overclock any significant amount. If you're just going to overclock a few hundred mhz then don't even bother as you wouldn't notice the difference in gameplay anyway.

 

[mbeleni]

The HD6870 will give you GTX 470 performance in a GTX 460 power envelope.

But I think you'll be fine with that 480 watt PSU, you could probably even put a GTX 480 in there and overclock your CPU to boot, too.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/10/22/ati-radeon-hd-6870-review/9

 

[BD231]

If you have a PCI Express graphics card power connector on your power supply you'll be fine as most Antec PSU's are 80 plus rated and deliver plenty of juice.

Even if you don't it would seem lots of cards are coming with molex to PCI Express six pin adapters, you could just get some of those instead of getting a whole new psu. A perfectly safe option, 480 watts with that hardware is plenty.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

But I think you'll be fine with that 480 watt PSU, you could probably even put a GTX 480 in there and overclock your CPU to boot, too.

No, I'm pretty sure that would shorten the life of his PSU considerably - maybe even frying it. Although if there are good protection circuits the worst that will happen is that it will shut down the system before anything is damaged.

 

[monkeh624]

Thanks for the replies everyone

I will take a look at the PSU tonight to get an exact model number.

I'm pretty sure that there are no PCIe 6 or 8 pin power plugs coming off the PSU directly, my current GPU (4850) is powered using one of the molex to PCIe 6 pin adapters that came with the card.

I will report back later with the PSU model.

 

[Meghan54]

Since your power supply is a discontinued model, the TruePower II version, and since its +12V rail wasn't the most robust around....less than 30A on the two rails combined.....I'd really, really not suggest trying to put a GTX480 into your system unless you want continuous shutdowns and lockups from lack of power.

Your power supply wasn't the strongest around when it was produced, and since it's aged quite a bit since new, its output is even lower than it was when you first bought it.

Face it...you want a power hungry video card, you're going to simply have to buy a new and beefier power supply.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

I'm pretty sure that there are no PCIe 6 or 8 pin power plugs coming off the PSU directly, my current GPU (4850) is powered using one of the molex to PCIe 6 pin adapters that came with the card.

I will report back later with the PSU model.

If there are no PEG connectors then the model is old and outdated. Like mentioned above, the +12V rails will have a high chance of being pretty weak. There are also different flavors of the 480W Antec. As far as I know all of them are pretty old, but some are older than others.

I would advise getting a better power supply if you go with the GTX 470.

If you don't, then you need to get something close to your HD 4850s power, like an HD 6850, HD 6870, HD 5850, or GTX 460.

And definitely don't overclock the processor.

 

[monkeh624]

Thanks for the info everyone

I really don't want to replace the PSU just yet. If it seems like it wont be enough to power the GTX470, I'll just look for something a little less power hungry.

It's not like I had my heart set on it, it was just too good a deal to pass up

 

[crislevin]

I don't think 480w PSU is enough for 470, based on Tomshardware and Hardocp's review of 6870 power draw, the fully loaded 470 may needs 500w+ power. Counting the head space, you might want a 600w PSU.

EDIT, electricity price calculation was wrong.. lol