XPS 8300 GPU upgrade w/ stock 460W PSU

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Foxtrot363

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Aug 20, 2013
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Hey everyone,

I am looking into upgrading my XPS 8300 for FFXIV:ARR. I put an HD 6770 1G awhile back but it's just not really cutting it (it's OC at 875/1200). I can run most things on standard settings in 1080P, but looking to bump it up to High. The benchmark is giving me high ratings on High(desktop) at 40 fps, but in game to get 40 fps I have to set it in between standard (desktop) and (laptop). I assume it's my card. Would the HD 7850 1G/2G or HD 7870 be a good choice? I have read that w/ the 8300's 460W PSU, I could run the 7850 but I have yet to see any post specify 1 or 2g card. I also read that w/ the 8300 some people have had problems installing the 7850.

Any other suggestions besides that one? I would like to stick w/ my current PSU at the moment. What is the best card I could get for the current PSU? As far as specs it's the standard 8300:

i7-2600 3.4GHz
8G Ram
460W PSU (model H460AD-00)
IN 100-240V, 50-60Hz, 8A
OUT
+12V A:18A +12V B:16A
+12V C:8A +3.3V:17A
+5V:25A -12V:0.3A
+5V aux:2.0A


Thanks for any insight/suggestions.
 
Solution
luckiest charm
Well, i7 2600 + GTX 760 2 GB Factory Superclocked = 265W (Maximum Approx.)

Add another 100W for rest of your system as it would always be lesser than that for other components.

There you go .. Max power consumption of around 365W at its very limits. It would not cross that even at full load so 450W is more than enough.
Just get GTX 760 (Which is better than HD 7950 Boost in all benchmarks but is slightly more expensive than that too) and you would be a happier person. :)


A GTX 760 (Or HD 7950) is able to play any game out there on Ultra Settings with constant 60 Frames Per Second (Except 1-2 games like Crysis 3, Metro Last Light but it performs pretty good in those too). Overall a very strong card.
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luckiest charm

luckiest charm

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Jun 1, 2013
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How about Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost?

Uses lesser power than HD 7850 and gives same amount of performance ...

Has peak power consumption of 112W and Absolute Maximum of 118W as compared to HD 7850's TDP of 130W.
Also is rated for 450W PSU so you should have no trouble running it and it is very equal to HD 7850 in almost all games out there and gives slightly higher frame rates in many of them.

All in all consider it a more energy efficient equivalent of AMD counterpart.

Edit - Alright, its slightly slower so buying HD 7850 2 GB also makes a lot sense.

Depends on which one you can afford. HD 7850 will also run flawlessly on that PSU and CPU also won't bottleneck it at all.
 
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Foxtrot363

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Aug 20, 2013
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I checked out the 7950 and the GXT 760 cards you guys recommended. The power draws at peak on the cards are:

HD 7950 = 157*
GTX 760 = 150* (looks to have better benchmarks as well)
HD 7870 = 118*.
HD 7850 = 130 (as Luckiest stated)

As you said byo, the 7950 SHOULD run on my setup, same with the GTX 760 Luckiest, but would those two cards be pushing the limit of my PSU or well within the parameters. I CAN buy a PSU (Never put one in, doesn't look difficult at all) but I would like(aka the wife) to stay around $250. Also if it involves updating Bios...ya I'll be abit lost. Need to change spark plugs or a sprocket on a GSXR or the nomenclature for a M-19, I can do that...computers still has some grey area.

* Per http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7950-review-benchmark,3207-9.html

Again, thanks for any help and thank you Byo and Luckiest for the help.
 
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luckiest charm

luckiest charm

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Well, i7 2600 + GTX 760 2 GB Factory Superclocked = 265W (Maximum Approx.)

Add another 100W for rest of your system as it would always be lesser than that for other components.

There you go .. Max power consumption of around 365W at its very limits. It would not cross that even at full load so 450W is more than enough.
Just get GTX 760 (Which is better than HD 7950 Boost in all benchmarks but is slightly more expensive than that too) and you would be a happier person. :)


A GTX 760 (Or HD 7950) is able to play any game out there on Ultra Settings with constant 60 Frames Per Second (Except 1-2 games like Crysis 3, Metro Last Light but it performs pretty good in those too). Overall a very strong card.
 
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Foxtrot363

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Aug 20, 2013
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Thanks for the input Luckiest. I researched some more and I just wanna check to see if I got this right:
i-7 2600 = 128W (Ref. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/21)
GTX 760 2G Max = 150W - 158W (Ref. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-760-review-gk104,3542-22.html)

= 278 - 270W (CPU and GPU not OCed)

This leaves me with
460W
(278W)
=182 - 174W for the rest
8GB DDR3
motherboard
USB keyboard/Mouse
DVD RW
Card Reader
7200RPM 1T HD
Integrated 7.1 with THX® TruStudio PC sound
Wireless Ethernet - 540 Mbps IEEE802.11n(Hard Lined, gotta take advantage of my 47MB Down, 4.76 MB Up)
(I have no PCI cards other than the Graphics card
I tried inputting these into http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine and came up with a recommended Wattage of 164W

the 174W will be enought to power the rest?

Sorry for all the questions, I ask these once and next time I can answer others. I do plan on upgrading the PSU and then the RAM to 16GB(or vice versa), but not for 6 months or so.

Which model is good or will most likely to be compatible with my bios? Should I steer clear of cards that come OCed?

Note: If these wattage assumptions are correct...wow they really overestimate the PSU need of GPUs
 
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luckiest charm

luckiest charm

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Yeah that would be more than enough.

In my opinion you should stick to stock clocked cards. They use slightly lesser amount of power so that is good for you. Difference between OCed and Stock cards is not much.

Yeps they overestimate because they have to ensure system does not go down even after installing the most demanding CPU, 4 X Hard Drives (Or SSDs), 2 DVD R/Ws, lots and lots of RAM, and cramming all fans and everything else into the motherboard.

Most people do not do that so they can easily manage to run their system on low power PSUs too.
 
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Foxtrot363

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Thank you for your help Luckiest.

Now my XPS pci x16 supports 2.1 and the gtx 760 is 3.0. Will that matter or is the card backwards compatible?

I was going through the GTX 760 models and it seems most come OCed. I assume I can set them to the default clock once installed?
Should I look for one with the lowest core clock/lowest boost clock? ASUS, MSI?


NewEgg has a Sapphire HD 7950 for 199.99 which sounds like a great deal, but that sucker is 10.63" x 4.73" x 1.38" compared to 8.6" x 5" x 1.5" GTX 760. Is the $60 difference worth the higher benchmarks? The $60 can almost buy me a 550-600W Bronze/Gold PSU. Thoughts?
 
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luckiest charm

luckiest charm

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Slowly .. :)

Ans. 1 - All cards are backwards compatible. There is less than 1% difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 since almost all cards out there are not able to take full advantage of even PCIe Gen. 2.0 yet. No bottlenecks here.

Ans. 2 - Get the vanilla card. Its clocked at 980 MHz (Stock clocks) and prices are lower than OCed cards.

With Reference Cooler (Blower) -

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-02gp42761kr

With Non - Reference Cooler (Fans) from EVGA -

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-02gp42763kr

Click on middle image in both card's pages to have a brief look at them.

I would suggest fans since Reference cooling is only better for SLI configurations so if you have any motives to SLI the card later on then buy one with Blower. Both cards perform equally and can be overclocked as well if you see that your PSU is not running on its very max.

P.S - Luckiest sounds a bit odd as it is not my first name ... you may call me charm or LC since that is what others do ^_^
 
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Foxtrot363

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Roger that LC. I will be doing no SLI since I have only one PCI x16 slot. Besides MAYBE upgrading the PCU and changing out my 4x2g for 2x8 Ram, this rig has a life expectancy of only another 1-2 years before I buy/Try to build something else.

For the EVGA, is the backplate a good thing to get? I read that it aids in cooling, but I just remove the side panel while gaming(yes, ghetto). The XPS 8300 doesn't have what you would call stellar ventilation. I live in CO, it's dusty and hot here.
 
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luckiest charm

luckiest charm

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Well then Fans are best for you.

Get fan version of EVGA GTX 760 (No need to get backplate, card does not get hot while gaming).
In my opinion when you would build a newer rig next year, take out CPU and GPU from this build and use it in that one.

CPU is 2nd Gen but is still very very strong and is head to head with i5 4670K / i7 3770K in almost everything. Buying another CPU would not be a wise decision.

Similarly just buy another GTX 760 for newer rig and SLI it with this one (Get SLI supporting motherboard in that one) and there you have best CPU and GTX Titan's performance for much lesser price than buying things all over again.

One more thing, 8 GB is more than enough for gaming. 16 GB is just used for rendering, 3D work, etc. Anything over 6 GB usually gets wasted in most demanding games (95% of the regular modern games do not use more than 3 GB of RAM).
 
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Foxtrot363

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Aug 20, 2013
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Ya for 400 bucks, this thing was a steal w/ an i-7 in it. Oh I will def. use the GPU/CPU from this one. I have 8GB, but its only posting up as 6GB but like you said it's enough. It's funny, on the FFxiv arr benchmark, I get really good scores, but when I played the beta it did not match which I assumed was from the GPU. I go from High settings on the bench to standard. I'll just try to hock my HD 6750 and 6540 on amazon super cheap to help offset the allotted budget I had.

Again, thank you for the help. If I would have known this a year ago, I would have never bought the 6770.
 
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