New PSU needed for budget GPU?

tomd96

tomd96

tomd96

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Hi all, I'm looking for some advice.

I just bought an RX 570 GPU for my wife's PC to let her do some light gaming, and the deal was sweetened by the inclusion of RE2 and DMC5 within the already pretty decent price, which made the card itself effectively ~£100. Unfortunately, I think I may now need to buy a new PSU for the card to work.

I built the PC in late 2016 using a mix of then-new components and some leftovers from an older build. Ignoring the new GPU, the specs are:

ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Socket 1151 ATX Motherboard
Intel i7 6700K
16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666 MHz Corsair Vengeance RAM
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler
Crucial MX300 SSD

I re-used an older case and optical drive, but the main issue today is the PSU. It's a Corsair HX620 modular PSU from 2007, which has never skipped a beat in all those years but is now the limiting factor because it doesn't have 8-pin PCI-Express connectors, only 2 6-pin ones. I have a lot of PSU cables but none that would convert a 6-pin port on the PSU to an 8-pin for the card.

I've looked online and it's a minefield of suggestions, seemingly dodgy adapter cables, and years-old customer support discussions about Corsair providing adapters in such cases that don't seem to be available anymore.

Can you advise on if I just need to buy a new PSU at this point? If so, could you recommend a good quality one that would support the components above without pretty much doubling the cost of this upgrade? (None of the components are currently overclocked, but a little headroom wouldn't hurt.)

Cheers all!
 
You can get 6 to 8 pin adaptors but to be honest that psu is 12 years old now so I would replace it. A quality 550w psu would be more than enough for that pc and even with overclocking will leave you with some decent spare headroom. If you want to cover yourself for future upgrades go for a 650w but as long as you stick with a similar class of card the 550w will be fine. I am covering different budgets with these suggestions with the cheapest ones having fixed cables then the next having semi-modular cables and the most expensive having fully modular cables. Rest assured that no matter which you choose they are all quality psu's with either 5 years(Bitfenix), 7 years (Antec Earthwatts) or 10 years (Antec HCG, Seasonic Focus Plus) warranty.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
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At the cheaper end are the Bitfenix Formula series. These are gold rated CWT built units with all of their 550w and 650w available across their quad 12v rails. All the cables are fixed and they have a 5 year warranty.

The Antec Earthwatts Pro series are gold rated Seasonic built units based on a modified Focus Plus platform. They have 540w and 648w respectively on their single 12v rails. These are semi-modular and have 7 year warranties.

The Antec High Current Gamer Gold series are also Seasonic built and are basically a Focus Plus Gold in a different case. Gold rated and fully modular it has 648w available on it's single 12v rail. It has a 10 year warranty.

The Seasonic Focus Plus is gold rated and fully modular. They have 540w and 648w respectively on their single 12v rails and have a 10 year warranty.
 
Wow, thanks for such a thorough reply! I knew the OcUK community would deliver. Do you have any thoughts on how the Corsair CX or TX 550W PSUs compare with the ones you've listed? I also note that you've only included Gold-rated PSUs - are Bronze ones not worth looking at for this spec?

I do prefer the idea of modular PSUs, although it's a shame that seems to mean starting at a cost of around £85+ once delivery is included when the RX 570 was meant to be a nice cheap upgrade to a system that's been working perfectly for years but just needed a bit more power for gaming. £85 would unfortunately nearly double that cost (although it could be a good thing to be pushed to replace such an old PSU before something pops due to its age!)

I don't want to cheap out and risk damaging any components, but I would like to minimise the additional cost while staying safe.
 
I recently replaced my failing HD5770 with an RX 580.

The PSU is still my old HX520, but that did come with 6+2 pin cables for the GPU.

If you look at those cables there are only six wires back to the power supply. The additional two pins are looped off from other pins in the plug. This is no different to sticking a six to eight pin adapter cable on.
 
bremen1874 said:
I recently replaced my failing HD5770 with an RX 580.

The PSU is still my old HX520, but that did come with 6+2 pin cables for the GPU.

If you look at those cables there are only six wires back to the power supply. The additional two pins are looped off from other pins in the plug. This is no different to sticking a six to eight pin adapter cable on.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. One thing I'm not clear on is the 75W for 6-pins vs 150W for 8-pins that I've seen quoted, despite the extra 2 pins apparently only being grounds.

How long have you been using the RX 580 on your old HX520? I assume it's all been smooth sailing so far or you'd have mentioned otherwise?
 
It's been in there a couple of months, but not heavily used.

Power consumption for an RX 570 card is under 200W (if the Internet is to be believed).

The PCIe slot can supply 75W. If you add 2 x 75W from the PSU PCIe cables you have more than enough capacity without needing an 8 pin. I'd stick an 8 pin adapter on it, but that's up to you.
 
tomd96 said:
Do you have any thoughts on how the Corsair CX or TX 550W PSUs compare with the ones you've listed? I also note that you've only included Gold-rated PSUs - are Bronze ones not worth looking at for this spec?

I do prefer the idea of modular PSUs, although it's a shame that seems to mean starting at a cost of around £85+ once delivery is included when the RX 570 was meant to be a nice cheap upgrade to a system that's been working perfectly for years but just needed a bit more power for gaming. £85 would unfortunately nearly double that cost (although it could be a good thing to be pushed to replace such an old PSU before something pops due to its age!)
Click to expand...
CX is cheap series made form cheap components.
While 80+ Bronze is pretty medieval efficiency.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/A_Better_Way_to_Compare_PSU_Efficiency

Though because of Corsair tax price might not be better than Bitfenix Formula.
Also other Corsairs aren't usually that price competitive at least in Europe.

So would keep that Bitfenix Formula as minimum level.
PSU stays current lot longer than any graphics card.
 
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