Upgrading to 6870, will my PSU cut it?

[Junk87]

I bought a prebuilt pc off newegg a few years ago that has kept me going more or less on recent games. Its been falling behind on games like battlefield 3 and now the new star wars mmo.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=83-229-193&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=3#scrollFullInfo

Now im planning to upgrade the video card to the 6870 which requires 2 6 pin connectors and i dont believe this psu has any. It comes with adapters for the 4 pins that i have but ive read that it still might not supply enough power to the video card. Its all gibberish to me, i never really learned about rails and voltages and stuff.

My power supply seems pretty cheap, but im hoping i can slip by with it.

PSU specs

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/spec/getspec.aspx?n=POWERSUPPLY&v=600%20Watts%20-%20XtremeGear%20Power%20Supply%20-%20SLI/CrossFireX%20Ready

Will i be safe to use this with the 6 pin adapters?

 

[jsc]

Probably not. Your PSU is rated to produce 31 amps. This is great - for a 400 watt PSU. A good 600 watt PSU should be able to produce at least 45 amps.

Estimated power usage:
6870 - 12 - 14 amps
CPU - 6 amps if dual core, 10 amps if quad core.
Drives and fans - 2 - 4 amps.

Assuming your PSU is not overrated, it has plenty of power. It's just not in the 12 volt rail where it need to be. At the very minimum, I would get one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013

Yes, nominally, it is not as powerful as yours, but:
It will produce its rated power.
It has a pretty heavy 12 volt rail (44 amps).
It is built by Seasonic, one of the best PSU builders in the business.

 

[Vettedude]

I wouldn't risk it

 

[Junk87]

Thats what i thought, can anyone recommend a decent replacement that would have the right plugs for my older hardware plus the 2 extra 6 pins?

 

[Vettedude]

Not off the top of my head but look for XFX, Antec, or Seasonic supplies.

 

[ko888]

For a system using a single Radeon HD 6870 graphics card AMD specifies a minimum of a 500 Watt or greater power supply. The power supply should also have a combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 28 Amps or greater and have at least two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors.

The XtremeGear 600 Watt (PSAZ-CP600), with its combined +12 Volt continuous current rating of 31 Amps should be electrically sufficient.

For a power supply that claims to be SLI/CrossFireX Ready there should be at least two 6-pin PCI Express supplementary power connectors wired to it.

 

[Junk87]

Cyberpower isnt known for their honesty or reliability so im not really surprised. Im shocked that the pc is still running at all after this long.

I looked around a bit and all ive seen is 4 pins, 3 of them are being used on case fans at the moment. I cant even find specs for this PSU on the net anywhere.

The pc shipped with all the wires tied up, it goes behind my hard drive mounts and i cant see if there is any more connectors back there

 

[bak0n]

My advice is to run it. If your pc powers off or freezes after a heavy load, replace the PSU asap. Continued use with it locking, powering down will damage other components, like your motherboard. Spec wise however, I agree, you have the amps on the 12volt rails to handle it based on the specs and it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Junk87]

Is there any way to test that it is receiving the full power it needs once i install it?

 

[soidier37]

Well, I believe that the PSU should be able to run the hardware, but if you want some peace of mind, this PSU should do the trick.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?SID=u1679118t3870022f9fp0dd0c0s701&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16817341047&Tpk=zs550

It's 35 AR.

While the PSU is indeed lower than the original 600 watt PSU, this one is 80+ bronze certified, so you know you aren't buying a piece of junk.

Assuming that you are not planning on cross-firing in the future, either PSU should suffice.

 

[Junk87]

Now for a more complicated question, do all of my 4 pins work off the 12v rail or whatever? Are there certain connectors that do or dont?

 

[ko888]

Now for a more complicated question, do all of my 4 pins work off the 12v rail or whatever? Are there certain connectors that do or dont?

Any connector that has a wire with a yellow colored insulator jacket comes from a +12V rail.

On power supplies with multiple +12V rails the yellow jacketed wires will have a secondary color stripe on them to indicate which of the +12V rail(s) they are connected to.

 

[Junk87]

Best answer selected by Junk87.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey