So complicated.. Please help!

anthony8989

Distinguished
I have an Antec Earthwatts 500 watt PSU, and my GTX 770 needs 1 x 6 pin and 1 x 8 pin to power up. The 8-pin on the PSU looks identical to the 8-pin needed, but it isn't. It absolutely won't fit and I don't want to force it. I found a workaround that seems to work:
The PSU has 2 x 6-pins. So I used a 2 x 6-pin to 8-pin converter to get an 8-pin in the GPU. But now I need a 6-pin. So I took a 2 x 4-pin MOLEX converter and converted 2 x 4-pins into a 6-pin and plugged that into the GPU. The GPU works seemingly okay. But am I going to screw the PSU or starve the GPU of reliable voltage, or is it okay to do that ?
 
Solution
As long as the cable your using is coming off of the 12v rail using adapters shouldn't matter. And from what you're describing it is because ti wouldn't work on 5 or 3 volts. I would say if the card is turning on you're likely in the clear. The only thing that may happen is if your max wattage won't cover your usage it will simply turn off. it wouldn't break your card. Keeping that in mind I'm running a gtx 770 from a 500w seagate and it is running just fine.

clutchc

Titan
Ambassador
Your only problem will be when the gfx card is maxed out (if your CPU can keep up with it). The 500W Antec may be a bit underpowered. Nvidia recommends a 600W PSU for that card: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-770/specifications
Generally speaking, if a PSU manufacturer does not supply a 6 pin and 8 pin connector for the gfx card, it isn't designed to handle it. Btw, you probably were looking at the CPU power cable when you grabbed the 8 pin connector you thought was for the card. They look alike, but the ones for the card will say PCIe on them.
 

anthony8989

Distinguished


Yeah may be. The PSU actually comes with an 8-pin cable. But I bought it off a friend and I suppose he removed it at some point.
 

gamesturbator

Distinguished
Feb 8, 2014
78
0
18,640
That PSU is not compatible with your new GPU! Plus its grossly under-powered for that card. I use a Corsair CX600 that probably supplies way more power than it's rated for but I wouldn't even try it with a card that good (mine is a GTX 570) considering my other components like my FX8350 that are power hungry, too. You have to feed power to your whole system, not just your GPU! Find a 750 PSU (Corsair is superb) just to be safe. BTW a great Graphics Card can be bottlenecked by an under-performing CPU and Motherboard.
 

clide005

Honorable
Feb 13, 2014
107
0
10,710
As long as the cable your using is coming off of the 12v rail using adapters shouldn't matter. And from what you're describing it is because ti wouldn't work on 5 or 3 volts. I would say if the card is turning on you're likely in the clear. The only thing that may happen is if your max wattage won't cover your usage it will simply turn off. it wouldn't break your card. Keeping that in mind I'm running a gtx 770 from a 500w seagate and it is running just fine.
 
Solution

anthony8989

Distinguished
Thanks for the replies guys I appreciate it, really. The cards temps are great. It idles at 28 degrees Celsius and won't go above 80 degrees Celsius on account of boost 2.0 or w/e. I noticed during long benchmarks the Performance cap is Thermal limit as Boost 2.0 doesn't let the card go above 81 Celsius. When I use overclocking utilities to raise the target temp the PerfCap shifts to a 50/50 split of Reliable Voltage and Operational Voltage. But I just read that it's not an error, just information. The card's performance has to cap somewhere.
 

clide005

Honorable
Feb 13, 2014
107
0
10,710
Dude I have nearly the exact same build as you do and 500watts is working just fine for several weeks. I was playing bf4 on ultra last night for several hours. Don't listen to these guys telling you to get a stronger PSU if the 12 v rail has anything close to what is recommended you're fine.
 

anthony8989

Distinguished


Thanks for sharing your experience Clide005. And yeah I'm not concerned at all about not having enough power. I understand that wattage isn't as important as amperage on the 12 volt rail, and efficiency also plays a role. A lot of people don't seem to know that the recommended wattage from nVidia and AMD is over-estimating in case of a low-efficiency low quality PSU. Plus I've done calculations on http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp to get an idea of what the PC will pull from the wall.
 

clutchc

Titan
Ambassador
Just so you know, watts = volts x amps. But the PSU's available wattage at the +12V rail(s) is usually less than what you would get if you simply multiply amps time volts due to other factors. Always check you PSU's nameplate for the specs. Enjoy.
 

gamesturbator

Distinguished
Feb 8, 2014
78
0
18,640
I stand corrected! LOL But if you find your computer shuts down then you it is time to upgrade the PSU. The reason being that unnecessary shutdowns can possibly damage your system (hard drive errors might start accumulating, for instance). I've run into that exact same situation before I got the CX600. Good luck and have fun. :)