quality psu to run a graphic card?

parik

Honorable
Jan 3, 2014
69
0
10,660
why do we need a quality psu to run a graphic card?
i have an odyssey 450w psu and i want to run a sapphire hd 5450.will it work.
my specs:
i5 2400
4gb ram
1 hitachi HDD
motherboard:asus p8z77m

psu specs

INPUT VOLTAGE RANGE 220V AC
FREQUENCY 50HZ+/-5%
D.C OUTPUT VOLTAGE: +5V; CURRENT: 40A
VOLTAGE: +12V; CURRENT: 20A
VOLTAGE: +3.3V; CURRENT: 28A
VOLTAGE: -5V; CURRENT: 0.5A
VOLTAGE: -12V; CURRENT: 0.5A
VOLTAGE: +5V SB; CURRENT: 2A
WITH 2 SATA CONNECTOR
 
Solution
Yeah it will work fine, the 5450 only uses 10w. Its not a gaming card by any means, I doubt its much better than your ondie GPU. Though that PSU disgusts me, it can only output 240w max...

Muku

Honorable
Jun 19, 2013
420
0
11,160
According to sapphire website, a 400 Watt PSU is enough to run your card, so you are good to go. But I have never heard of odyssey psu, so would suggest you to get a quality psu from corsair or seasonic.
 

Muku

Honorable
Jun 19, 2013
420
0
11,160


if you are not planning to add any more hardware in the future then go for this:
http://www.flipkart.com/seasonic-s12ii-430-watts-psu/p/itmd5xz5bzevdbzp?pid=PSUD5XZ4PQNBPMES&otracker=from-search&srno=t_9&query=psu&ref=60b06f73-961a-4735-9707-e13286806aef

but

I'd recommend this one to be a little future proof so that if you decide to upgrade the system in the future this will be able to power that easily:
http://www.flipkart.com/seasonic-s12ii-520-watts-psu/p/itmd5xz5hzvzt9cx?pid=PSUD5XZ4KFH65H9E&icmpid=reco_pp_same_psu_1
 

Muku

Honorable
Jun 19, 2013
420
0
11,160

I think you mean can only output 240 watts @ 12 volts.

More like that power supply is very old(design wise).

Before some of the more power hungry components came along, power supplies used to actually use a fair bit more 3.3 and 5 than they do now.

The reason for the switch to 12 volts was simple. Smaller traces and wires allow more wattage at higher voltage. It is all still dropped to the sub 2 volts required with in the voltage regulation module of the device it powers.

As example running a GTX 680(195 watt) would be 39 amps @ 5 volts(requires larger wire) and 59 amps @ 3.3 volts(requires much larger wire) while it is a a much more friendly 16.25 amps @ 12 volts.

Even quality power supplies like the Antec Truepower series of the day had what would seem like rather low 12 volt capacity by todays standards.

Modern designs also differ in the fact that older designs have a fully dedicated setup for the rails, while modern ones will generate massive amounts of 12 volt current and then use DC-DC converters(little dc switching power supplies) to generate the 5 and 3.3 volt lines.

This means that if you actually max out the 3.3 and 5 volt lines one a modern power supply, the 12 volt capacity will in fact go down from what is listed(thus a MAX combined for 3.3/5/12 is listed). Now with most parts running off the 12 volt rail this is not much of an issue and this design allows older hardware to still work fine with the newer supplies.

As for the card, it will work without issues,. As other have said, it is NOT a gaming card as it is more built around media playback duties.

Sorry for the rather late reply, got side tracked before submitting
 
^Well thats the thing. I thought it might be an older PSU but then I double checked and I was quite surprised as to how long ago that was. Over 10 years, with it being around the time of the Pentium 4s IIRC.

I am also seeing forum posts about the power supply in the 2011 to 2013 range.

Though I do appreciate you taking the time to write all that out :) Its good info.
 
I find in many parts of the world they still have many of those older units still on the shelves(low prices move lots of them). They would not be bad for a light system.

I am also sure the efficiency is just awful compared to the recommended Seasonic units listed above.

My personal choice would be to save for something like a 7750/7770/GTX 650 ti and a decent 450-500 watt power supply to run the system. mid level systems rarely pull over 300 watts to be honest.