450 watt psu for a 1080?

ken_shamrock_92

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Dec 9, 2017
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Hey guys its been a while! I am currently in the process of building a new pc and my other components wont be in until next week but i got my gpu in. I was wondering if i could run it in my current build? PCpartpicker puts my current build at 383W and my psu is a evga 450W Bronze. Would it harm my new gpu trying to run it with that Power supply?
Thanks!
 
Solution


Like we were saying, it won't even boost with GPU Boost 3.0 hardly at all. which means it will run at completely stock clocks and when I say stock I mean actual stock not the stock speeds that the add in board partners put on the card for an out of the box overclock but the stock speeds of the reference 1080 (founders edition) which is 1218Mhz or 1.2Ghz so all that money you are paying for that 1080 goes out the window since you aren't even getting what you paid for. to be able to achieve the boost clock that the card is supposed to go to you'll need about 550w to be on...

therealduckofdeath

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It's probably 50W below recommendations by the manufacturer. Try Googling your card with "specs" at the end to find the manufacturer's minimum recommendations. If you're not on a power hungry i7 with a bunch of other stuff inside the PC I don't see why it shouldn't be enough. Though, it's probably cutting it relatively close. It shouldn't harm your hardware. Worst case should be the computer crashing a lot because things isn't getting the power they need.
 

ken_shamrock_92

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Like i said on pcpartpicker it has my max wattage at 383w. ALso nope im just running an i5-4670 until my new stuff gets here! (i7-8700k etc)
I'd just hate to have it for a week and not use it! It's hard enough for me to even be asking instead of just doing it! Lol
 

QwerkyPengwen

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That is going to be the bare minimum for just running the card. It won't even boost that much since it'll hit it's power target almost immediately. If you want your card to perform properly like how you see everyone elses when gaming then you are going to want at a good 600w so as not to push your PSU to it's limits and maintain a decent power efficiency curve.
 

R0GG

Distinguished
I think if you are NOT planning on overclocking video or cpu, this PSU will suffice your needs for regular desktop apps and "conservative" gaming (while keeping an eye on your system for signs of instability), because with higher power loads you'll be running your PSU at it's upper limit which is not very good for it's longevity or efficiency or the consistency of components power delivery, as PSUs are known to be the most efficient when run around 60% of their designed load.That's why I myself went with a 600 watt SFX PSU for my 350 Watt rated SFF build.
Added benefit when you go or upgrade later to a more confy PSU with more wattage headroom and reputable quality, you get more quieter performance (maybe a larger and quieter PSU cooling fan or Hybrid cooling) and probably less heat dissipation because of the increased efficiency.

 

therealduckofdeath

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The 4th gen Core i5 is relatively power efficient so you should be fine. Manufacturer recommendations base them on power supplies without the efficiency guarantees as far as I know, so yours with above 80% efficiency should keep you in the safe. Your next i7 might even work, though I'd get a slightly bigger one just to be sure you won't get random BSOD's because of lack of power. Power supplies are the most efficient around 50% load, so even if a 600W is slightly overkill it might save you a couple Watts on your utility bill compared to a 450-500W. :)
 

QwerkyPengwen

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Like we were saying, it won't even boost with GPU Boost 3.0 hardly at all. which means it will run at completely stock clocks and when I say stock I mean actual stock not the stock speeds that the add in board partners put on the card for an out of the box overclock but the stock speeds of the reference 1080 (founders edition) which is 1218Mhz or 1.2Ghz so all that money you are paying for that 1080 goes out the window since you aren't even getting what you paid for. to be able to achieve the boost clock that the card is supposed to go to you'll need about 550w to be on the safe-ish side. I still recommend a 600w PSU and a 750w PSU if you want to add a manual overclock to push it further than the boost speeds.

All in all I recommend this PSU for your 1080 and and your future upgrade of your processor and especially in preparation for when you decide you want to overclock.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Hwbkcf/evga-b3-650w-80-bronze-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-220-b3-0650-v1
$70 with no tax and free shipping from B&H (there will be tax if you are living in New York of New Jersey)
 
Solution
For a week ??
A half decent 450w PSU will handle a 1080 with no issue.
Plenty are running rx 480/580's on sub 500w psu's & they pull more power than a 1080.

Id be more concerned with actual psu quality , that said pretty much every evga model I can think of haa at least 34a 12v available.
 
My rough estimation is that you will need around 390-430W PSU as minimum for GTX1080 and 8700k. All stock speed and voltage.
450W PSU should be enough GTX1080, if the PSU is from good quality.
However, I would not do that.
It is not exactly a good idea to put the max capacity of your PSU to the test or put your PSU under over 90% load for a longer period. You will need this power during heavy gaming.

There are really reasons why nVidia recommends 500W.
If you do not OC at all, I would really recommend nVidia's recommendation (500W).
If you plan to OC, you can pick anything between 550-650W.

 
Personally i would recommend at least 600w to 650w unit. Not just for the head room but that way you don't need to worry about power supply the next time you want to get new GPU since you can pretty much fit any GPU inside your system with such wattage (nvidia recommends 600w for 1080ti). Although this might not rrally apply for AMD GPU.
 

samyakjain222

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PC part picker recommends the base wattage to run the system, which is not enough. Try buying company's recommended PSU. For getting the full performance, it is very necessary.
 

jr9

Estimable
I'd just wait a week personally. It's not really the risk. Very unwise to load a PSU that much especially a lower wattage one or low quality. 450B is not a very high quality unit. I'd wait and get a decent 650W such as a G2 or Seasonic. 450W is below even the nVIDIA bare minimum recommended.
 


The power supply will not affect the performance of a computer, such as gaming, benchmarks, etc. If it can't do what it's supposed to do the computer will just crash or shut off.



I'm not sure, Nvidia never gave their reasoning. Do we think it's a justified reasoning? Is it a reasoning we should agree with?

A system with the same GPU but different CPUs can vary in power consumption by +-(0-200W) with flexibility. It seems like their estimation doesn't make much sense to me when system power can vary so much and basing power off of a single component is unreasonable. Not to mention the differences in the power supplies of the same rated wattage themselves.



Two identical computers with different PSUs, one crappy one good, will perform the same. As long as the crappy PSU doesn't cause a crash or shut down gaming performance and benchmarks will be the same.



Can you list your full specifications, as well as the model of your power supply? There is no use discussing much when we don't know exactly what you own.
 


Are we sure the engineers came up with those numbers? Could it maybe have been marketing? If it was engineers, how do you think they account for the vast difference in power consumption of systems with identical GPUs? What do the numbers even mean? What makes a unit recommended besides wattage? Are there not 450W power supplies outside the recommendation that on average would last longer than 500W power supplies within the recommendation? Is not wattage something not indicative quality? What do you mean by "headroom" in this case? How do we define how much "headroom" is a decent amount? What do you mean by "scrapping by wattage"? How do we know it's never bright?

I'm not trying to pick on you, but these are important things we need to think about in general. There are questions everyone should think about, and if they are afraid of thinking of them it may because they are seen as an attack on already-flawed logic, which should then be inspected.
 

jr9

Estimable
Uhh we are sure because they don't leave it to the marketing department to determine the ideal power supplies needed for their cards. They aren't stupid. This isn't that complicated. nVIDIA only states a wattage over and above the general power draw of an i5 or i7 system with whatever graphics card it is. The extra wattage is a failsafe for other factors like overclocking or extra devices. If you are 100-200 watts over what you need/load that is ideal. The PSU will last longer and the card will not fail when it's not constantly being pushed, that is basic. This is what the GPU maker wants. Power supplies also lose wattage over time; another reason why it's not wise to cut corners on wattage. If you are building a PC you never cut it that close on wattage.

If you have a calculated load draw of 380W, using a 450W bronze tier 5 power supply is not a good idea. Surely you you agree?
 

Rogue Leader

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I'm going to regret even entering this thread.

Turkey has a point, however you are correct about this PSU in a way, hear me out.

The minimum wattage they recommend are ALWAYS jacked up, its probably a combo of engineer, and bean counter. The engineer says "well a system with an i7 and this GPU and x y and z needs this wattage", the bean counter adds an arbitrary number to that figure. They do that to account for the fact that many people are using low end PSU's because they don't know any better. They do that so people aren't warrantying busted GPUs for using way underpowered crap PSUs, its an out.

So in this case a 450w PSU that we know is low end, isn't a good idea here.

However had he told us he has a Seasonic FOCUS gold 450w unit, I'd say go for it. The problem here isn't 450w, its that he has a low end 450w unit thats going to be run up near 100% under a gaming load, and its just not up to snuff for that.
 

Now these here are sort of muddy waters. This isn't necessarily true. Good PSUs will be perfectly fine and doing their full output continuously for many many many years without maximum power ever decreasing. Even if electrical performance were to decrease, electrical performance is not really the same thing as power. You can have worse electrical performance but the same amount of power, and many people confuse one with the other. In other words, this is a myth.



This implies that ideality, that is, what makes a power supply ideal for a particular context, is most importantly wattage. I find the fan and soldering to be much more important than the labeled wattage. The fan is the first thing to fail on most power supplies, and soldering is very important for the longevity of a power supply.



But where is the argument? You are stating what seems to be a conclusion with no supporting argument. I don't think it's ideal. I think the notion of "ideal" pertaining to a certain wattage doesn't go well when the power supply has so many other things that are more important than the labelled wattage.



The graphics card pushes the power supply, not vica versa. Also, it is not necessarily true that a PSU will last longer if it's under lighter loads. We like to think that's true, and people assume it, and it's probably true most of the time, but it really depends on what it is that is going to fail first in a power supply. It really is going to be particular to a certain context. Not one thing applies to every case. And remember, buying a high quality 450W power supply is better than buying a low quality 600W power supply. I say this assuming it's true, but arguably this is a general consensus. Give me an FSP Hydro X 450W any day over something like an EVGA 600B. I get a much better fan, better performance, and it should last much longer. On the other hand, the EVGA 600B has a higher labelled wattage. But what does that even mean? If you delve into it you'll find... it depends...



But your close is not my close maybe. Or someone else's notion of closeness is not ours.

Anyway, I do really enjoy discussing this stuff with you. Like legitimately, I'm not being sarcastic.

Regardless, it'd be nice if OP updated us with some details of his system specs. He might have the EVGA 450B3, which is actually pretty good if you like dealing with some risks.
 
Has anyone actually taken into context his actual original post?

He didn't ask if he should buy a 450w psu to run a 1080.

He mentioned his 1080 came before the rest of his components & if he would likely be ok running iton the evga 450w for a week to test it out.

For a week ?? Id say yes ,go for it.

Ive taken the assumption that along with the rest of his components he actually has a new psu coming as well.
A450w evga (assuming b1 or similar) is not ideal for running a 1080 long term,it does however have enough power to run that setup to no ill effect if you;'re not overclocking & continually running stress tests ,benchmarks.

A general gaming load on a 1080 is 150-160w ,pretty much the same s the last gen 970 - there are a huge amount of people running 970's on sub 500w psu's.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
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Don't let the facts get in the way of another PSU holy war.....