320W Power Supply Enough For GTX 950?

Golcsae13

Honorable
Jul 7, 2013
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10,660
Have a HP Elite 8200 desktop with a stock 320W power supply. The power supply has no molex or pcie power cable, but I did order a SATA to pcie adapter. I bought a GTX 950 STRIX that requires a 6pin pcie power connector. I cannot change the power supply since the HP motherboard requires a special power connector. Will the 320W power supply be enough to power to GTX 950?

Specs:
HP Elite 8200 Motherboard/Case
Intel Core i5-2500
2x4GB DDR3 Memory
Samsung 840 EVO 256GB SSD
320W Power Supply
DVD-RW Drive
 
Solution
So if they spec the full thing at 320 watts. Take off about 20 watts for SB and your negative rail(it is actually 17.4 watts).

This leaves you with 300 watts for EVERYTHING else. You video card will take about 100 watts.(so most of that should be able to come from the board).
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_950_STRIX_OC/28.html
The board is rated for cpus of 95 watts and less and I do not think the i5 2500 takes that unless under very heavy load.

This leaves you about 100 watts for the SSD/Optical/Board. Remember all your other devices will use the 12 volt rail as well. It must be converted to 5 volts as needed on the board. This is different than on normal systems that have a dedicated 5 volt rail(that comes off the 12...

Boney Thomas

Reputable
Sep 29, 2016
70
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4,660
Well In my Opinion 400 watt psus are the entry level for gaming pc i think u should chage ur psu to 400 watt or 500 and 350 watt is Recommended System Power for gtx 950 from nvidia

If u change it though make srue u get a high quality one from seasonic like M12II 520 watt psu it is brozne certified and its a tire 2 psu

Do what said by trubo he helped me built my pc
 

Bareq

Commendable
Sep 24, 2016
13
0
1,510
I really suggest upgrading the power supply. Nvidia recommends a minimum of 350w and your 320w might work (I don't like using molex to power up a GPU) but it'll be pushed to it's full potential and that's not good. A power supply I recommend is this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SEASONIC-550W-ATX12V-V2-03-EPS12V-V2-91-ACTIVE-PFC-F3-PSU-POWER-SUPPLY-SS-550HT-/391384022093?hash=item5b204e3c4d:g:MssAAOSw0UdXripI

I ordered it yesterday since I had the same problem as you, I got a HD 6950 and I only had a 400w psu and it was recommended to at least get a 500w so I ordered this ^ its $20.
 
You may well actually be better off swapping out your PC. Look at the local used computer prices. If you can sell yours and buy something a bit more appropriate, you'd be better off.

Even something like this Dell XPS desktop on Ebay for $200: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-XPS-8300-Intel-Core-i7-2600-3-40GHz-500GB-8GB-Windows-7-WiFi-Desktop-PC-/122158078205?hash=item1c713058fd:g:wkUAAOSwYIxX7UXk
The bundled 460W PSU has 1 PCIe connector and would manage a 950 (just). Plus it's standard, so you could swap it out if you wanted. Keep your SSD, put the HDD from the new machine in your HP and sell it. Depending on how much you could sell your current PC for, it might be a better option.
 
How much 12 volt current do you have? It will be on the label?

I ask this because I have seen 300 watt power supplies with the 6 pin cable. I know you are stuck with that power supply so we need to know how much actual power it provides at 12 volts.

I am a 5770(a card that takes as much power as your card based on a techpowerup review) for a while on one of these 300 watt units without any negative effect. 12 volt current and power supply quality matter here.

Your system does not seem to be too loaded either and that can help.
 
So if they spec the full thing at 320 watts. Take off about 20 watts for SB and your negative rail(it is actually 17.4 watts).

This leaves you with 300 watts for EVERYTHING else. You video card will take about 100 watts.(so most of that should be able to come from the board).
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_950_STRIX_OC/28.html
The board is rated for cpus of 95 watts and less and I do not think the i5 2500 takes that unless under very heavy load.

This leaves you about 100 watts for the SSD/Optical/Board. Remember all your other devices will use the 12 volt rail as well. It must be converted to 5 volts as needed on the board. This is different than on normal systems that have a dedicated 5 volt rail(that comes off the 12 volt rail, but inside the power supply instead.). All these numbers are full load and very few systems reach such loads, but do also have very short spikes of very high load. This is where power supply quality comes into play since these spikes are very short, but can exceed the parts normal peek load for very short times.

So now it is upto you if you wish to try this or not. No one can promise it will work or burn down the house(should not to this unless it was a VERY bad power supply).

I am not disagreeing with others about a risk. based on past experience computers are more power friendly than some may think(and low quality power supplies have driven up the amount of power a user thinks they need.) and very few push them that hard(at low loads everything clocks down to save power). Highest my UPS shows(at the unit so after power supply losses) is about 341 watts for 2 computers(one gaming[2600k @ 4.4 and a gtx 1070 gaming and one i5 750 with a gtx 650ti idle] one idle and my monitor.)

I was using an old i5 750 + 5770 on a 300 watt power supply with 264 watts on its 12 volt rails without any issues, but my board is a pretty friendly mITX board and the cpu is quite friendly as well(even with the 95 watt rating that all the cpus of that family share)

If you can get a power use meter from a hardware store(If you have a UPS it may also list power use in its software) you may be able to get an idea of how much power your computer uses. These at the wall readings tend to be higher because of power supply losses. They are not fast enough to see these spikes, but will give you a decent idea.
 
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