Motherboard/AMD gfx card compatibility?

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commodorejim

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Jan 14, 2016
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I recently purchased an AMD Radeon R9 380 (a NITRO 4GB GDDR5 PCIe card from Sapphire Tech.) However, the PSU in my desktop tower is nowhere near powerful enough to run it so I need to buy a new one. However, the local IT guy told me that it was pointless to buy a new PSU as my motherboard won't support the AMD card, claiming that I would still have power issues pertaining to the motherboard. (My motherboard is an Asus H81M-K micro ATX board). I got a second opinion from another IT guy who told me as long as a new PSU was fitted to the tower, I would have no problems.

Who is right? Can there really be compatibility issues between this card and a motherboard that is just two years old? I'd assumed that a gfx card got all of its power requirements from the PSU and didn't draw any power from the motherboard. Is it safe to go ahead and fit a more powerful PSU?
 
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He may have been confusing the details. Most motherboards will not have the power to run even some mid range video cards. That's why they have auxillary power ports.

Hope that clears everything up for you. Enjoy your new graphics card!

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speach

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Feb 12, 2015
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As long as you are powering the card off of the power supply you shouldn't have any problems.

AMD-Radeon300serieslineupoff-3.jpg


If you look in the image above you will 2x 6 pin VGA sockets (on the top right corner of the picture). Connecting the 6 pin connectors from your power supply to those slots will ensure that the video card will work with any motherboard.
 
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commodorejim

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Thanks speach. So was the first guy I spoke to talking through his hat?
 
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speach

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He may have been confusing the details. Most motherboards will not have the power to run even some mid range video cards. That's why they have auxillary power ports.

Hope that clears everything up for you. Enjoy your new graphics card!

 
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commodorejim

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Thanks rolli59. I didn't know any power at all came through the PCIe slot so it's nice to learn something new.
 
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Paul17041993

Paul17041993

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It's only a 380 so you should get by with a bare minimum of 450W, 550W-650W highly recommended. Motherboard wise I'm yet to hear of a motherboard that actually cares about the GPU installed as they're supposed to fit the 75W standard, it's only in the case of heavy multi-GPU and/or overclocking that beefier boards are needed.
 
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commodorejim

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Hi Paul it's a 380 though, not a 280. So I'm opting for a 700W PSU, just to be safe.
 
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speach

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One thing I can't advocate enough is spending a little extra for extra headroom. Power supply lengevity is greatly increased when you have 25%+ extra capacity you are not using.
 
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