Video Cards and the right PSU

denandrew

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Feb 21, 2014
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Hi,

I have a question that concerns power consumption and the proper wattage power supply needed/required. When you look at the various video cards, they recommend that a certain wattage PSU be used with that particular card. Now my question, exactly how should this be applied? Example:

The EVGA GeForce GTX 660 02G-P4-2660-KR Video Card recommends that a 450 watt or greater power supply with a minimum of 30 amps on the +12 volt rail be used, is this 450 watts solely for the video card? My concern is that other components will not receive the appropriate power to function safely. Also, I will be using two (2) video cards, running three (3) monitors and a TV.

This is what I am considering at the moment for my new machine:

Motherboard - MSI Z87 Mpower Max AC
Processor - i7-4770K, Haswell
Memory - CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) CMY16GX3M2A1600C9 (Silver)
Main Hard Drive - SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW (256GB)

I will be using two (2) of one of the following video cards – I haven’t made up my mind on which one just yet.

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 GV-N660OC-2GD Video Card
EVGA GeForce GTX 660 02G-P4-2660-KR Video Card
PNY GeForce GTX 660 VCGGTX660XPB Video Card
ASUS GeForce GTX 660 GTX660-DC2O-2GD5 Video Card

Also, any thoughts on the above mentioned video cards? Do you guys like one over another, and if so, why?

Thanks.?
 

BlacKHawK3

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Oct 4, 2011
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Manufacturers take the max power draw of the card, add the draw of a typical system, and then add a good safety factor on top of that when recommending a PSU. You can use a PSU calculator to estimate your system's actual requirements: http://images10.newegg.com/BizIntell/tool/psucalc/index.html OR http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

The 660 is rated to draw up to 150 watts (per card). For SLI 660s and a high end CPU, I would recommend using at least a 750W PSU.
 

pcgaming98

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Jan 24, 2014
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To answer your first question, it's not solely for the video card, it's for the entire system. It's 450 Watts to make sure you have headroom for other things such as in case one of your components comes under load, and it requires extra power to run. But pure wattage doesn't make a PSU, you need to make sure you have a good amount of amps on your 12V rail. I'll suggest you a good PSU that has more than enough ample amps on the 12V rail.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/406087/CX_Series_CX500M_500_Watt_ATX_Modular_Power_Supply

The Corsair CX500M has 38 amps on the 12V rail. If you multiply the amount of amps by the voltage rail it's on (in this case, 38*12), you get just how much wattage that voltage rail puts out for your component. 38*12=456, so the 12V rail on this card puts out 456 watts for all of the important components in your system, with 44 watts left over for other necessary things. Your GPU only needs about 150Watts (based off of PCPartPicker) so that means you have plenty plenty plenty of power to go around.

Also, for your graphics cards, OC-2GD cards are overclocked cards, so they'll perform faster than stock clocked cards.

And to critic your entire system, is this really needed? If you're going to use this for gaming, you dont need a hyperthreaded quad core CPU and 16 gigs of RAM. The Core i5 4670k and 8 gigs of 1600 MHz RAM with 9 CAS Latency is more than sufficient for gaming, since alot of games out on the market dont utilize more than these specifications. I can try to suggest you another build that can meet your needs and even better:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Xpi8
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Xpi8/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Xpi8/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Microcenter)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($139.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($249.95 @ Amazon)
Total: $794.89
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-21 11:54 EST-0500)

Much cheaper and get stuff done. I'd explain why I replaced parts and so but class just ended so I gotta go.
 

denandrew

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Feb 21, 2014
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Blackhawk3, thank you for the clarification and links.

Pcgaming98, Thank you for your insightful info and suggestions, although in addition to doing some gaming I also edit video which as you know can take some horsepower to do in a timely manner.

Any other insight is very much appreciated...