Looking to upgrade graphics, will it bottleneck?

Bexx

Bexx

Bexx

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21 Mar 2015
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292
I build my current PC almost 2 years ago, I have

Corsair 50​0W CX Buil​der 80 Plu​s Bronze P​SU
AMD FX-430​0 3.8GHz S​ocket AM3+​ 8MB
Kingston 6​0GB SSD
Kingston 8​GB (2x4GB)​ DDR3 1600​MHz
Toshiba 1T​B
Asus M5A78​L-M/USB3 A​MD Socket ​AM3+ M​otherboard
MSI HD 775​0 2GB DDR3​ DVI HDMI ​DisplayPor​t PCI-E Gr​aphics Car​d

Apart from general internet browsing the only thing I do and game I play is Final Fantasy XIV. With the expansion coming out in a few months I've bought a new SSD 240GB to put it on so the game will load faster :)

I thought why not get a new card too, things do look a bit pixely around the edges in the game and I can only run it on standard desktop settings.

I wanted to upgrade my graphics card to this
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-347-SP

I thought 500W PSU would be fine but I've been told I'd need a bigger one. Fair enough. Then I was told it would bottleneck my PC and I wouldn't get the full amount from it so I should buy a new processor. I'd be on my way to replacing every part which I'd rather not do. Also I won't be overclocking or anything like that in any way.

Is that a good card, will it make edges smoother, run on high or above settings?
Will I need a bigger PSU?
Will it work well with the rest of my build?

Thanks in advance
 
Running that card on that particular PSU would be a pretty borderline choice IMO,i think it would be fine but you would be pushing that psu pretty hard and would reccomend a psu upgrade for piece of mind.

As far as bottlenecks go,yea that CPU will bottleneck in FF:ARR particularly in the town areas.Out in the open world not so as much tho.That card should be able to run the game at max settings(1080P) at or close to 60fps.

It would be a noticeable upgrade tho,your framerates wont drastically increase,but you would be able to run all the eye candy .

My advice, get the card, and if you can afford it get a new PSU aswell. Then do a little reading about OC'ing your CPU.

Edit: Some high quality PSU's should you choose to replace that


YOUR BASKET
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 650W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - White £74.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 750W "80 Plus Gold" Semi-Modular Power Supply - Black £72.95
1 x Antec TruePower Classic 550w '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £55.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £51.95
Total : £265.48 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
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I don't really have a budget, I wasn't planning to upgrade so many parts :p

It was originally £100-£200 for a graphics card (obviously the lower the cost the better) but now that's going to have to include the PSU too.

Maybe I'll just stick with the SSD upgrade and buy a new everything when it's time. This build was meant to last me a good few years, no barely two :(

Thanks for the PSU suggestions too :)
 
Hi and welcome to the forums. :)

I was going to say that your psu although not very good, will be fine with a 280x and then I looked up some reviews and total system power can hit 450w with that card. Your psu is a budget model with cheap internals and is not capable of 500w on the 12v rail where it's needed. Depending on the actual version you have it only has 408w or 456w on the 12v rail. When buying a psu ignore the big numbers on the label that state 500w etc. That's the total power that it can deliver in ideal circumstances across all the rails. It's the 12v rail that matters and any decent modern psu should be able to deliver all or near enough all of it's power on that rail. This is a excellent source of information on psu's and links to reviews.
 
Ahh okay I never knew that, thanks!

Say I'm looking in a product description for a PSU, where will I find that number to know what I'd actually get?

EDIT: For example, using that site and looking up the Superflower 650w previously mentioned it says you get 649w which seems fair enough. Is there anywhere this is mentioned in product descriptions or is it literally only that site that says?
 
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Bexx said:
Ahh okay I never knew that, thanks!

Say I'm looking in a product description for a PSU, where will I find that number to know what I'd actually get?

EDIT: For example, using that site and looking up the Superflower 650w previously mentioned it says you get 649w which seems fair enough. Is there anywhere this is mentioned in product descriptions or is it literally only that site that says?
Click to expand...

Manufacturer's product webpage and "Tech Specs" tab, usually. E.g.: http://www.corsair.com/en/cx500-80-plus-bronze-certified-power-supply
 
The link in my post above is all you will need to find out information on any psu worth buying. If it's not in the database it's likley a cheap and nasty generic unit so avoid it. Check the reviews too. Manufacturers websites can be very sketchy when it comes to details and as illustrated above, only applies to the latest version so it's best to look at independant sources.
 
Pasty's site, though looking good, seems a little inconsistent, for instance, the seasonic X series 650w models, the discontinued model is not Haswell compatable. It does not wake from hibernation. Personally Johny Guru and other review sites are worth looking at, while bearing in mind that a card not being on the top of the awards list does not mean it's a bucket of excrement that will blow up.
Hiper were a bad manufacturer, I ran three, one was put in the recycling bin recently still working, one was given away inside an old Socket 462 system years ago, one still resides and see's daily use driving a system with an E5300, 4gb PC6400, and an HIS 3850 AGP system I gave my sister years ago.
I have also had four off the shelf PC's with generic power supplies, three of which were socket 462 originals such as Packard Bell Imedia's and a Generic biege tower, from Windows 98 to Windows XP, one an LGA 775, all were again put in the recycling recently, also all still working. My old G4 Mac was also still running on it's original PSU even with every upgrade the darn thing would take, and was still working when it went into the recycling.

Maximum power draws. Some are based on running stress tests we do not even see during gaming. And can be dependent on other hardware, and screen resolutions. Also, 500w at the wall on a psu meter is not your single 12v rail, it's the complete system input before your PSU turns it into output, so 500w at 80% efficiency may well be 400w out the total PSU across all rails.

An Nvidia 780ti can be comfortably run off a Corsair RM450w psu (Corsair state that has 450w available on the 12v rail).
Which could sort of suggest you may well be OK running an R9 280X off a 12v rail with 408w available on it? Typing "how many watts does your power supply need" into google will show you some interesting vids, inc OC3D on the tube.

Take a look at eXtreme PSU calculator with your system. It will give you a guidline 407w minimum, with 457w recommended and it then shows you a 750w EVGA as a good choice. Corsair states your PSU has 408w out on the 12v rail (Tom's hardware states 456w). Are you going to be maxing out your GPU at all times? The 280X you state has a 250w board power (no I am not talking TDP) according to Tom's Hardware, and the card alone can consume up to 257w bitmining, which is more than gaming requires.

A good power supply is a great investment, for some people. Because quite simply anything can fail, and as we see most people within the forums have issues with branded PSU's. No different from some who may have issues with a PSU included within a case.

Not everyone deliberately stresses a PSU to failure for magazine reviews. Nor does the majority of PC users in the planet avoid generic PSU's, because they have been the majority for decades, with a smaller percentage of failure rates than many branded revered models when you consider how many units actually were out there in constant use every day in offices and homes.

Personally I would be surprised if your 500w unit could not run the 280X.
 
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