Powering a Radeon HD 7770 with a PCI-e power adapter

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Mar 31, 2015
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I know that this is going to seem like another thread where someone with an old/cheap power supply is trying to find ways to power their demanding graphics card, but it's not. I'm wanting to use a quite decent PSU with a lighter GPU, but the only thing holding me back is the lack of any PCI-e power (simply because the PSU wasn't designed as a "gamer" component but is still reliable; more on that later).

I'm building a secondary PC with spare parts lying around, and I really want to use my old Radeon HD 7770 (reference model from AMD, not overclocked). Either I use that or a GeForce 8400 GS, and I really, really do not want to use such a poor card. However, if I'm going to be using the 7770, I'm going to need the 6-pin PCI-e power, of which my older (but not of low quality) SeaSonic SS-350ET does not have. I'm sure the SeaSonic can support this setup, it's just that I'm skeptical about using an adapter and its ability to safely power the GPU. Should I use a molex to PCI-e adapter or a SATA to PCI-e adapter? Or is this just a bad idea in general?

I'm not wanting to spend any extra money on this because, like I said, it's a secondary PC. I'm not going to be using it constantly.

Thank you!