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!

 

[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.

 

[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:

 

[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!

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[barnettgs]

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

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.

Indeed, but the system was unstable; maybe it has to do with the limited resources of PCIE bandwidth, as my HP PC has an M.2 SSD, so it shared the same bandwidth because the apps I tried opening were not responding. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think I would be a lot better off just getting a new motherboard and a new case/PSU and moving everything from my HP to a new system so that I can have more choice in selecting a better GPU, but for PCIE 4.0 support, it would mean replacing 5700G with something better? Honestly, I don't know why some companies like to scale back/cut down on the PCIE bus, especially with GPU and CPU. It is pretty pointless to move to newer technology yet cut back simultaneously.

EDIT: There was no red square or Adrenalin app icon when I typed in the search bar, which is why I think it may have to do with issues with PCIE on M.2 SSD. I don't know, but I returned the GPU card as it was not worth troubleshooting on a restricted HP system.

 

[barnettgs]

The missing app will just be due to the Adrenalin software not being installed/properly.

That could be it, and I read plenty of stories about people having a bad experience with AMD drivers. Even though the AMD installer says Adrenalin is installed, it was just not there. I had to redo the driver installation wizard but to no avail. I read that it is recommended to use an older driver, but I didn't try that.

So the concern is where is the instability coming from. The fear is that the Power Supply can't truly handle the new card (perhaps test this by limiting the card's max power). Or it is something to do with the change to AMD drivers. [assuming you had no stability issues prior to the install]

The system was still unstable when the GPU was barely used, as I monitored the wattage level, so I don't think it could be a power issue.

Now, I think it might have to do with AMD driver/software issues, and if I had Adrenaline properly installed on my computer, then I would have been able to limit the power.

 

[barnettgs]

RTX3050 6GB review:

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB Review - The Fastest Slot-Powered GPU

Priced at $180, the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB offers an accessible entry point into PC gaming. Operating solely on PCIe slot power, it's compatible with all PCs, including older OEM models, eliminating the need for power connectors. While noise levels are impressive, the price-to-performance ratio...

www.techpowerup.com

If I were to go for 3050, I would have gone for 3050 8 GB. As for the power consumption, apart from 70-75 watt cards, it is the lowest of all GPUs and 14 watts less than RX 6600 on Tom's Hardware. However, the power consumption seemed to vary slightly from site to site. The 6 GB version is just too close to the pricing of the standard 3050; I probably would have gone for 1660 versions, which have full PCIE 3.0 x16 support.

I am willing to bet that Nvidia will probably be more stable in my system, not that I'm biased toward AMD or Nvidia.

The GPU benchmarks hierarchy 2025: Ten years of graphics card hardware tested and ranked

We've run hundreds of GPU benchmarks on Nvidia, AMD, and Intel graphics cards and ranked them in our comprehensive hierarchy, with over 80 GPUs tested.

www.tomshardware.com

I am still not making up my mind.

 

[barnettgs]

I ordered the Zotac RTX 3050 from overclockers.co.uk at £199.99 as it was the cheapest RTX 3050 8 GB I could find, and it was too good to turn down. I installed it last night.

It was the opposite experience from what I had with RX 6600. Before installing it, I didn't even bother to uninstall the AMD GPU driver first, but the system was very stable; everything seemed snappier, especially on web browsing. There was barely any stuttering on the same game I was playing, unlike the RX 6600. Total power consumption, on average, was 220 watts during the game, peaking at 230 watts at times on my power monitoring plug.

Overall, RTX 3050 is the best compromise GPU for my system without the need to upgrade. I think I just wasn't aware of AMD driver issues before using the RX 6600, as I was not on the PC gaming scene for years until recently, and if I had been, I would have paid more attention to it. I have read that installing an older AMD driver resolved most issues. However, Adrenalin software failed to install despite the AMD installer saying it did; it was strange. I never had any other app that failed to install on my system.

Since it is my work PC and I will be doing more video editing in the coming weeks, it will also be handy for playing older PC games and a few odd ones unavailable on the consoles. I recently got myself a PS5 Slim to keep it separate from my work PC, for use with a bigger TV, and for playing with newer titles.

Thanks to @CAT-THE-FIFTH for pointing RTX 3050 out to me; I would have overlooked it.

 

[barnettgs]

I suggested the RTX3050 6GB,because it was bus powered!

TBF,I have known plenty of people with the RX6600/RX6600XT and apart from one launch driver oddity they have been fine. So I am not really sure what was happening with your RX6600!

Yes, you have suggested the 6 GB version. However, you made me take a look at the 8 GB version.

The Google search says otherwise regarding the RX6600/RX 6600 XT. Many users have a perfectly usable system with ample PSU supply, only to have them crashed by AMD GPU, especially on the 6000 series. To be honest, I'm not sure what is going on with these GPUs.

 

[barnettgs]

I see. It was a bit déjà vu all over for me when I tried the RX 6600. It reminded me of the GeForce 32 MB and 64 MB GPUs I had over 20 years ago, dealing with driver issues, especially the former.

I guess the GPUs are still as finicky as they were many years ago!

 

[barnettgs]

For what it is worth, I also own 2x 6600, which I've used @ PCI-E 3.0 & 4.0 and I haven't had any issues with the drivers either. I honestly see more posts with people complaining about (stability of) nvidia builds, but I suppose that's to be expected when most purchases are nvidia.

I'm not picking on AMD; it is just that I was puzzled by what had happened to my system, which rarely had a hiccup. My initial thoughts about my HP PC's limited system resources, PSU and PCI-E, were unfounded.

Regarding PCI-E, it runs on 3.0 x8, although I see it being reduced to PCI-E 2.0 and 1.1 due to its power-saving feature during light use.