Overclocking: 500 Watt PSU good enough?

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ddebroux93

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Mar 9, 2016
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I have a multi-sectioned question where it relates to overclocking and power supply requirements:

I want to start overclocking on some of my hardware, however I want to start overclocking my graphics card. My current GPU is an RX 480 4GB manufactured by Sapphire, the "Sapphire NITRO RX 480 4GB," to be exact. To give a better idea on what kind of wattage I also run, I run this with an LGA 1150 based socket motherboard with a locked Core i5-4460 installed, and I run this on an 500 Watt EVGA 80 Plus Power Certified power supply. If I overclock my graphics card, would my 500 Watt power supply suffice? If so, how much overclocking mileage -- whether it's my GPU's memory clock or the GPU clock -- would I get out of it? Thanks in advance.
 
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Hi, considering your cpu and gpu your system probrably uses around 250 watts when gaming and 300 under a worst case scenario. That leaves you at least 100 watts to play with. Which means you can overclock your rx 480 to the moon and back and should be ok, since EVGA generally makes good psu's. If you raised the power and voltage limits to the max on the rx 480 I think you could get the core up to 1350-1400 and the memory to around +200-400mhz. These are just guidelines and you will have to test yourself, everycard is made different.

If you "hit the silicon lottery" I would say 1450mhz and +500 (9ghz from the stock8) on the memory is about the max you could get.
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jp95

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Apr 5, 2014
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4,710
Hi, considering your cpu and gpu your system probrably uses around 250 watts when gaming and 300 under a worst case scenario. That leaves you at least 100 watts to play with. Which means you can overclock your rx 480 to the moon and back and should be ok, since EVGA generally makes good psu's. If you raised the power and voltage limits to the max on the rx 480 I think you could get the core up to 1350-1400 and the memory to around +200-400mhz. These are just guidelines and you will have to test yourself, everycard is made different.

If you "hit the silicon lottery" I would say 1450mhz and +500 (9ghz from the stock8) on the memory is about the max you could get.
 
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ddebroux93

Commendable
Mar 9, 2016
16
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1,510
The one thing I am concerned about, as well, are the NITRO's cooling capabilities: a lot of people seem to note that its fans are not as good compared to those like MSI or XFX. Is this entirely true, especially with the NITRO's fans? I noticed that under load with its factory overclock (1306MHz), the GPU doesn't go any higher than 75 - 77 degrees Celsius. I understand the Polaris GPU is designed to be more power efficient, thus less heat/TDP output. Will overclocking this GPU be a bad idea given the word about its cooling solution? Or does anyone else's evidence suggest or prove otherwise?
 
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jp95

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Apr 5, 2014
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The fans will suffice for overclocking the cooler is actually pretty good I had one for a while. I suggest adding a extra case fan to blow air on cpu, and run a custom fan curve when overclocking.
 
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ddebroux93

Commendable
Mar 9, 2016
16
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1,510


Trust me, my PC has *more* than enough fans to deal with all the heat: aftermarket CPU cooler, several case fans, and, well, that's it.

If I go over the wattage the PSU can supply, will the computer shut itself down? Or... something worse?
 
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