How to determine the PSU requirement for a GPU?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Futurama_Firefly

Futurama_Firefly

Honorable
Jun 9, 2013
15
0
10,510
Hi Tom's Hardware Community,

Any rules of thumb except the manufactures recommended minimum PSU to determine if it will support a particular GPU?

Would a Corsair TX 650W Modular for instance be enough for a ASUS GeForce GTX 770 DirectCU II OC (only factory over-clocked)?

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Adam
 
Solution
EzioAs
A proper 650W psu can support a 3770K and up to 2 GTX770s to be honest. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6994/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-review. IVB and Kepler aren't power hungry components.
Sort by date Sort by votes
aatje92

aatje92

Honorable
Mar 31, 2013
2,032
0
12,460
Look at the wattage the GPU and CPU use and look at the Amperage the PSU delivers on the 12V line. Then you can calculate pretty precicely what you need. Also take the efficiency in account. (wattage = amperage * voltage)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Futurama_Firefly

Futurama_Firefly

Honorable
Jun 9, 2013
15
0
10,510


Thank you aatje92 for the quick reply!

I may have jumped the gun and reading http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-psu-review,2916-3.html at the moment. I will return with some questions when I read it. :)

EDIT:

So if I understood you correctly:

CPU: ~165W load on i7 3770k non overclocked under Prime95.
GPU: ~300W (up to) according to Asus website for DCUII OC GTX 770
PSU: ~650W 80% efficiency, 54A @ +12V is 12*54*0.8 = 518W

+motherboard +case fans +memory +cpu fan +ssd etc

That adds up!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
EzioAs

EzioAs

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2011
2,306
0
20,160
A proper 650W psu can support a 3770K and up to 2 GTX770s to be honest. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6994/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-review. IVB and Kepler aren't power hungry components.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Futurama_Firefly

Futurama_Firefly

Honorable
Jun 9, 2013
15
0
10,510


That's such a relief. Thank you EzioAs.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
EzioAs

EzioAs

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2011
2,306
0
20,160
You're welcome. But when I say that it can power up 2 GTX 770s, I'm talking about wattage. You need to make sure that psu has enough PCIe cables as well (if you were planning on adding another GTX 770 later)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Futurama_Firefly

Futurama_Firefly

Honorable
Jun 9, 2013
15
0
10,510


Of course, I have no intention of going SLI, as my system is a mITX with one PCI-E 3.0 slot. :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
envy14tpe

envy14tpe

Champion
Mar 3, 2012
9,574
14
56,665


That's why 550W is plenty for all 1 GPU systems. SLI is great, if you got 3 monitors or a 144Hz monitor.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
EzioAs

EzioAs

Distinguished
Dec 6, 2011
2,306
0
20,160


True, I've been building a few systems for people and I usually pick the SeaSonic G550W for the most part since they are running a single GPU system and it's a very great psu. And it's not that 'expensive' either
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
envy14tpe

envy14tpe

Champion
Mar 3, 2012
9,574
14
56,665


When that PSU came out it was $65. And I thought...this is insane..nothing beats it. And I was right, but then the price moved accordingly to $85. I do agree it is the best PSU for one GPU, but budget is a concern....and I would rather spend an extra $30 on GPU then PSU to get that over the top factor.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Futurama_Firefly

Futurama_Firefly

Honorable
Jun 9, 2013
15
0
10,510
Just want to say thank you to all of you. I've been reading all Sunday and learning about this stuff to the extent of my ability. I'm now on to Benchmark software from Prime 95, to Memtest and so on... everything is really interesting.

But back to the point... I will go ahead and order the gtx 770 and put my current gtx in my a bit older PC.

EDIT: I didn't know I couldn't mark more than one post as a solution... if so I would have. Thank you to everyone that replied!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom