Is my PSU sufficient?

[mark2410]

hi, so while im dicking around with other comp issues i figure i may aswell ask about this.

So ive got a corsair cx430 (the version 1 one i think) and my present gpu is a radeon 5550. i got a friends 660 for 20 quid and when i had it in the machine was mostly fine, gaming benchmarking all fine. however without warning, randomly the camp would black screen, hard restart. i had worried if the PSU was sufficeint to run it all but it seemed happy to benchmark so i thought it was fine.

i was going to try putting the card back in, so is the PSU enough to power everything?

 

[Kelt]

A quick google suggests a minimum of a 450W PSU required for a GTX 660.

So no, your PSU is probably not up to snuff.

 

[mahius]

On a similar note, what modern GPUs would be suitable for a branded 400W modular PSU? I got it long ago to run a Q6600 PC with a HD 6770. Now the person who has it, is on a intel i5-4460. Which modern GPUs would be a step too far for it? I doubt a 980 or a 290/390 would be suitable, but what about below that?

 

[abui1806]

Gtx 1060

 

[pastymuncher]

hi, so while im dicking around with other comp issues i figure i may aswell ask about this.

So ive got a corsair cx430 (the version 1 one i think) and my present gpu is a radeon 5550. i got a friends 660 for 20 quid and when i had it in the machine was mostly fine, gaming benchmarking all fine. however without warning, randomly the camp would black screen, hard restart. i had worried if the PSU was sufficeint to run it all but it seemed happy to benchmark so i thought it was fine.

i was going to try putting the card back in, so is the PSU enough to power everything?

That version and the couple of follow up versions have a pathetically weak 12v rail of only 336w so you can't really look at it as a 430w unit. The rest of the power is on the minor rails. Any decent modern psu should be able to deliver all or near enough all (within 10-20w) of it's stated power on the 12v rail where it's actually needed.

Looking at reviews for the GTX660 it shows total system power varying between 227w and 373w so it could be the psu being unable to deliver enough power. Your psu must be quite old now as well seeing as the original CX430 launched in 2011 so due to internal components degrading it will not be able to deliver the same power it had when new. You can't rule out a potentially faulty card though so I don't want to tell you to buy a new psu only to find you still have the same fault. Are you able to borrow a more powerful psu to test in your pc?

On a similar note, what modern GPUs would be suitable for a branded 400W modular PSU? I got it long ago to run a Q6600 PC with a HD 6770. Now the person who has it, is on a intel i5-4460. Which modern GPUs would be a step too far for it? I doubt a 980 or a 290/390 would be suitable, but what about below that?

Just saying a branded 400w psu means nothing as you can see from my post to the op. It's all about the power available on the 12v rail. What make and model is your psu?

 

[mark2410]

That version and the couple of follow up versions have a pathetically weak 12v rail of only 336w so you can't really look at it as a 430w unit. The rest of the power is on the minor rails. Any decent modern psu should be able to deliver all or near enough all (within 10-20w) of it's stated power on the 12v rail where it's actually needed.

Looking at reviews for the GTX660 it shows total system power varying between 227w and 373w so it could be the psu being unable to deliver enough power. Your psu must be quite old now as well seeing as the original CX430 launched in 2011 so due to internal components degrading it will not be able to deliver the same power it had when new. You can't rule out a potentially faulty card though so I don't want to tell you to buy a new psu only to find you still have the same fault. Are you able to borrow a more powerful psu to test in your pc?





Just saying a branded 400w psu means nothing as you can see from my post to the op. It's all about the power available on the 12v rail. What make and model is your psu?

first off, great answer, thank you. as for borrowing another psu, well no pretty much everyone i know doesnt use desktops anymore. ive got another comp but its psu is even lower, its a antec earth power soemthing 380w i think.

 

[mahius]

Just saying a branded 400w psu means nothing as you can see from my post to the op. It's all about the power available on the 12v rail. What make and model is your psu?

My PSU? In the sig... lol.

Of course the PSU I brought up (which is certainly not an EVGA PSU), mentioning the make is tricky since it's a competitor to OCUK here (it begins with N, should be obvious if one buys PC parts in the UK). It's no longer available for sale, but I purchased it due to a large number of good reviews on it back then.

I have the spec sheet here, the 3.3V and 5V is 120W output, while the 12v as you mentioned, is 300W output. Somehow that total wattage is 400W. The amps are 24A on the 3.3V, 20A on the 5V and 18A each on 12V1 and 12V2. It doesn't say about single rail 12V, so I assume it's 2 rails?

I've bought an RX480 for the person who has this PSU now, and they themselves argued that their PSU isn't good enough for 'mid-range/high-end' cards. I don't want to give them the GPU only to find out they can't support it.

 

[pastymuncher]

Obviously the one I was refering to was the 400w unit that you mentioned and not the quality 650w EVGA in your siggy.

I know who you mean and from a quick look online the oem is probably either FSP or Sirfa. 12v1 + 12v2 does indeed mean it has dual 12v rails. With 12v rails of only 300w I probably wouldn't even try running a RX480 off that.

 

[pastymuncher]

first off, great answer, thank you. as for borrowing another psu, well no pretty much everyone i know doesnt use desktops anymore. ive got another comp but its psu is even lower, its a antec earth power soemthing 380w i think.

Antec Earthwatts maybe? That has even less on the 12v rails with only 324w. Better quality unit though as the oem is Seasonic.

 

[mahius]

Obviously the one I was refering to was the 400w unit that you mentioned and not the quality 650w EVGA in your siggy.

I know who you mean and from a quick look online the oem is probably either FSP or Sirfa. 12v1 + 12v2 does indeed mean it has dual 12v rails. With 12v rails of only 300w I probably wouldn't even try running a RX480 off that.

I know there were variants too, the one I was talking about is the modular one. But I know, I felt slightly disappointed upon realising that it didn't even have a single (as opposed to double) 12V rail. A shame, since it's a very good PSU and ran my HD6770 and Q6600 well, some years back.

I know ************ says that the power usage of the system would be well below 400W and that some folks have had power savings from undervolting. Ugh... having to buy a PSU as well would increase the cost significantly. I might as well have bought a 1060 instead, for the 30W less power usage.

So any cheap PSUs you can recommend? I personally wouldn't look south of £50, but the cost is already accumulating for something meant to be a gift.

 

[pastymuncher]

It's a tricky one, seeing as you are buying it for someone else as well as the gpu and understand where you are coming from with regards to price. PSU pricing in the 500-600w size seems to have increased lately and most of the top quality units are well over £70 now. If it was for yourself to keep long term I would be suggesting something in that price range such as the EVGA G2 550w/EVGA GS 550w/Corsair RMx 550w/XFX XTR 550w. There are a couple of half decent budget models for you to consider though:-

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x XFX XT Series 600W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £46.99
• 1 x XFX TS 650W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £54.95
• 1 x XFX XT Series 500W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply= £39.95

​

The XFX XT series are designed by Seasonic but actually outsourced to a Chinese company for building to keep the price down. It doesn't make them a bad unit (I wouldn't suggest them if they were) although there are some cheap capacitors in them, it just means that they are nothing special but do get the job done. They are both single 12v rail designs and the 500w has 480w on the 12v rail while the 600w has 576w on the 12v rail.

The XFX TS series is designed and built by Seasonic and has a single 12v rail of 636w.