Suitable GPU for 310-watt PSU?

[barnettgs]

Since my 2-year-old PC is HP (unfortunately, I didn't think I would go back into casual gaming), upgrading it would cost a lot more, especially with the proprietary PSU, which ruled it out for me. If I were to spend more money on PC upgrading, then the money would go to PS5 or Xbox anyway.

However, having looked at the PSN and GamePass stores, I don't think much would interest me, and I'm still unsure about the console because it could go either way, and I may end up not using it. PC gaming seemed to be a bit more flexible, where you can play much older games such as Need for Speed, etc, but not so much with either PS5 or Xbox.

Unless I start with a new build, I decided that £200 would be sufficient for my existing system. My HP PC has a Ryzen 7 5700G CPU, and its total system power usage peaked at 115 watts (5700G is only 65 watts on its own).

Based on that, I could get RX 6600 (132 watts), but its power spike is concerning (see TechPowerUp for review).

Nvidia RTX 4060 (115 watts) is too expensive, far too close to the cost of buying a new console, but the RTX 4060 is probably the most sensible option. I read somewhere that Nvidia put 300 watts as a minimum for 4060, but somehow, they changed it to 550! That defeats the point of having the low-power GPUs. Also, my 5700G has PCIE 3.0 16x, so I would get PCI 8.0 using the newest cards mentioned above; maybe the performance difference would be minor.

The more I looked at the newer mid-range GPU options, the more I think we get an inferior deal because I read that both Xbox and PS5 have a much higher bus bit width, much faster 16 GB of DDR6 RAM (unlike DDR4/DDR5 in PC alongside with just 8 GB of DDR6 in mid-range GPU). Still, we would be mainly limited to 1080p unlike the consoles (around 1440).

If I were to play older games, maybe a low-power, 75-watt GPU would be sufficient. Any recommendation or advice would be much appreciated here!

 

[Tetras]

The more I looked at the newer mid-range GPU options, the more I think we get an inferior deal because I read that both Xbox and PS5 have a much higher bus bit width, much faster 16 GB of DDR6 RAM (unlike DDR4/DDR5 in PC alongside with just 8 GB of DDR6 in mid-range GPU). Still, we would be mainly limited to 1080p unlike the consoles (around 1440).

Yep, newer £300 cards all bad really... The 4060's power consumption is the only good thing about it. The 'proper' gaming cards start at £500ish.

If I were to play older games, maybe a low-power, 75-watt GPU would be sufficient. Any recommendation or advice would be much appreciated here!

The 6400/6500 XT are even more limited because they only have 4 lanes, so they do lose a fair chunk of performance @ 3.0 and require a lot of VRAM management.

The 1650 is a more consistent performer, but the 6600 smacks it silly and since it was not a great card on release, it is a very poor card for modern AAA games.

If you buy something like a 1650 or 1050 Ti, they can handle everything from the Intel stagnation era (up to the release of 8th gen), so that's fine for casual gaming, but don't expect to start running things like Starfield and Alan Wake at good FPS.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You need to examine the TPU charts in more detail.

The power spike is for Furmark - not any games. At one point Nvidia cards used to reduce performance in the application to stop damaging the cards! The RX6600 can also be undervolted and underclocked too:

https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/172zztk/rx_6600_undervolted_at_50w_gtx_1080_180w/

Undervolt your RX 6600 for more FPS! - Tutorial

It seems like pretty much every AMD card in existance benefits HEAVILY from undervolting! Better than overclocking, actually. This tutorial works for the RX ...

www.youtube.com

This can be done via the AMD software which comes with the drivers.

There is a bus powered RTX3050 6GB which has been released for £170. The first benchmarks put the RTX3050 8GB as around 25% to 30% faster:

Erste Tests: Gaming-Benchmarks zur GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB mit 70 Watt

Die GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB ist offiziell und schon in der Redaktion. Erste Benchmarks zeigen ihre Leistung im Vergleich zur RTX 3050 8 GB.

www.computerbase.de

If this holds for other games,that would place it around a GTX1650 Super:

Intel Arc A380 Review - Runs Fine on AMD Ryzen

Intel Arc A380 is the first graphics card that the Blue Team is releasing this year. It's based on the new Xe "Alchemist" architecture, which includes support for hardware-accelerated ray tracing. In our in-depth review of the A380 we check rasterization performance, RT performance, power, heat...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[pastymuncher]

Does that psu even have 6+2 or 8 pin pci-e connectors? If it does I would be worried if it can actually deliver 310w on the 12v rail or is much of it on the minor rails?

 

[barnettgs]

Yep, newer £300 cards all bad really... The 4060's power consumption is the only good thing about it. The 'proper' gaming cards start at £500ish.

The 6400/6500 XT are even more limited because they only have 4 lanes, so they do lose a fair chunk of performance @ 3.0 and require a lot of VRAM management.

Thanks, that is even worse with just four lanes! It seems it is going backwards, especially on the budget and mid-range GPUs.

The power spike is for Furmark...

Yes, I have noticed it is just for Furmark, but I wasn't sure if I could take that risk. You have shown that RX 6600 can be under-volted to reduce the power; RX 6600 is now looking better! I see that the power limit can also be set lower if needed.

Does that psu even have 6+2 or 8 pin pci-e connectors? If it does I would be worried if it can actually deliver 310w on the 12v rail or is much of it on the minor rails?

Yep, it does come with a 6+2 PCI-E connector. I noticed then that HP did sell a similar 310-watt system with a 1660 Super last year, even though the minimum recommended PSU limit is 450 watts for the 1660 Super.

 

[muon]

You can always power limit cards, as long as you have the connectors.

So you can run a 150W cards at 80% and it becomes a 120W card.

You dont usually lose much performance, as cards are more efficient at lower power limits.

 

[G J]

The Sapphire Pule rx 6600 I used to own had a default 100w bios and went to 120w if I maxed the power limit % using MSI Afterburner. Great card and uses little power only got rid of it due to needing something abit more faster (Got a 3060ti) as I got a cheep 1440p monitor.

Strange how it has power spikes higher than a rx 6600 XT as the techpowerup reviews for it show 204w.

 

[barnettgs]

Strange how it has power spikes higher than a rx 6600 XT as the techpowerup reviews for it show 204w.

Indeed, XT averages 159 watts, so the spike is much smaller (45 watts above the average) than the RX 6600, where the difference is much more significant from 120 to 250 watts, more than doubled. On the RTX 4060, the spike is much smaller, at around 148 watts.

The RTX 4060 performs 30% faster in average FPS than the RX 6600 at 1080 and almost 35% at 1440. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read the Nvidia GPUs would be much better at Adobe Premerie than AMD; I occasionally do some video editing for my work. However, it is probably insufficient to warrant a new GPU card, which is too close to new console prices.

I just remembered to put a picture of my PSU:

 

[Tetras]

I read the Nvidia GPUs would be much better at Adobe Premerie than AMD; I occasionally do some video editing for my work. However, it is probably insufficient to warrant a new GPU card, which is too close to new console prices.

I occasionally watch the reviews on Technotice (here), which are productivity oriented and the general conclusion I have in my mind is: for 2D and video work AMD is fine, but for 3D work nvidia is much better. This is a conclusion that applies to RDNA3 (7000) though, I'm not sure about RDNA2 (6000).

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www.youtube.com

 

[barnettgs]

I think I'm leaning more towards RTX 4060 as I read that it uses around 10-15 watts less than RX 6600, which is quite a difference in my power-limited system, but will my 5700G bottlenecks 4060?

EDITED: I meant 5700G!

 

[Tetras]

will my 5700G bottlenecks 4060?

It's not a big deal if the card suits your build.

I read that it uses around 10-15 watts less than RX 6600

It seems to vary a lot depending on the review and the model, I suspect they're about the same overall.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think I'm leaning more towards RTX 4060 as I read that it uses around 10-15 watts less than RX 6600, which is quite a difference in my power-limited system, but will my 6700G bottlenecks 4060?

Both cards will be affected by the PCI-E 3.0 in your system as they use an 8X connection,so performance won't be optimal. But Nvidia dGPUs have more driver overhead:

Nvidia Has a Driver Overhead Problem, GeForce vs Radeon on Low-End CPUs

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hardwareunboxedJoin us on Floatplane: https://www.floatplane.com/channel/HardwareUnboxedBuy relevant products ...

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Nvidia Driver Investigation [Part 2] Owners of Old CPUs Beware

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Benchmarking the Ryzen 7 1700 in 8 games using a Radeon RX 6700 and Geforce RTX 3070 to test driver overhead in CPU limited situations.Now that DirectX12 and...

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Is Nvidia's Driver Overhead a PROBLEM?!? RTX 2080Ti vs RX 6700XT i3 10100 Benchmarks

CDKdeals(25% Coupon code:GOG25) https://www.cdkdeals.com/ap/GOG25-WIN10 Is Nvidia's Driver Overhead a PROBLEM?!? RTX 2080Ti vs RX 6700XT i3 10100 Benchmarks....

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So I would probably go for the RX6600 over an RTX4060,especially as it can be had for around £190~£200.

However,have you not considered the bus powered RTX3050 6GB? I have seen it on sale for around £170.

Here are some reviews:

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB vs. 6 GB im Test

Wie schnell ist die GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB? Der Test liefert Antworten über den Vergleich zur 8-GB-Version, GTX 1650 (Super), RX 6600 & Arc.

www.computerbase.de

RTX 3050 6GB review. More like RTX 3040...

NVIDIA silently released RTX 3050 6GB version to the market but how different it is to the RTX 3050 8 GB card? Is it worth buying or should you get something...

www.youtube.com

It is about 40% faster than a GTX1650 Super but the RX6600 is 50% faster than the RTX3050 6GB. However,the RTX3060 6GB is bus powered so needs no additional power,and wouldn't tax your PSU.

 

[barnettgs]

Both cards will be affected by the PCI-E 3.0 in your system as they use an 8X connection,so performance won't be optimal. But Nvidia dGPUs have more driver overhead:

So I would probably go for the RX6600 over an RTX4060,especially as it can be had for around £190~£200.

However,have you not considered the bus powered RTX3050 6GB? I have seen it on sale for around £170.

It is about 40% faster than a GTX1650 Super but the RX6600 is 50% faster than the RTX3050 6GB. However,the RTX3060 6GB is bus powered so needs no additional power,and wouldn't tax your PSU.

I have just ordered the RX 6600 last night. I appreciate your input. I realised my 5700G isn't great to pair with a more powerful GPU, and also, since the RX 6600 is much faster than the RTX 3050 for a bit more money, plus 8 GB would be very handy in some games so, I can always underclock it to reduce the power consumption and still be faster.

Now, I need to find a good PC controller similar to the PS4/5 controller, especially for the driving games.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Rtx a2000 or rtx 4000 sff

 

[los]

Have you got it yet? How did have you found it?

 

[barnettgs]

Have you got it yet? How did have you found it?

I installed it last night, but it did not go well. The total power consumption was 180-230 watts when the game ran. It was much less, around 90 watts on an older game, but FPS was great. It peaked at 250-ish watts once, and there was stuttering occasionally.

But the Windows 11 was unstable and freezing. I had to remove all the chipset drivers that AMD software installed and install just the driver, but it was better but a bit unstable. I was not impressed with the newest AMD software. It says it installed Adrenalin, but it isn't on Windows 11 or the Apps list.

However, it goes very well with 5700G and can run on games tremendously well, but not on a generic HP system like mine, especially with its limited PSU.

Ultimately, I am returning it and looking at a used one, like the GTX 1650 SUPER. My HP BIOS does not have the option to disable iGPU to free up the system resources. It is what you get with HP and the like.

 

[Tetras]

FYI: sometimes instability with newer cards can be addressed by setting the PCI-E Gen in the BIOS (gen 3 for you), though your HP might not have this option.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Also make sure the BIOS is also updated to the latest version. The power consumption doesn't seem an issue,but you could try the RTX3050 6GB as it is bus powered.

 

[barnettgs]

FYI: sometimes instability with newer cards can be addressed by setting the PCI-E Gen in the BIOS (gen 3 for you), though your HP might not have this option.

Since my 5700G only support PCIE 3.0, unlike the 5600X with its PCIE 4.0. I double-checked it with GUP-Z to confirm it ran in x8 mode on PCIE 3.0.

Also make sure the BIOS is also updated to the latest version. The power consumption doesn't seem an issue,but you could try the RTX3050 6GB as it is bus powered.

Yes, it has the latest BIOS update, and I have looked up RTX 3050 6 GB, but its bus width is 96-bit instead of 128-bit. I think I will go for GTX 1660 Ti or 1650 Super as both are low power, so I can play older games on my PC and put the money towards the console for newer games.

The way the GPU industry is going, it is looking pretty depressing.

 

[Trickle]

I installed it last night, but it did not go well. The total power consumption was 180-230 watts when the game ran. It was much less, around 90 watts on an older game, but FPS was great. It peaked at 250-ish watts once, and there was stuttering occasionally.

Glad to hear that the power was manageable. Get it undervolted. Hope you solve the other issues and don't need to ditch it.

t says it installed Adrenalin, but it isn't on Windows 11 or the Apps list.

It should appear as a red square icon when you type AMD or Adrenalin in the windows search bar. I find the software fine vs the Nvidia control panel/geforce experience apps.