Will a 90 watt GPU work on a mobo which can output 60 watts?

[Gamer1992]

Hey guys i was wondering whether i could put a GTX 950 in my PC following are the specs

i7 3770

8GB ram 

450 watt PSU 

But the motherboard manual says PCIE x16 slot 60 watt.

Will the GTX 950 work on it?

[Jurrunio]

Is it a prebuilt machine?

[Gamer1992]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

Is it a prebuilt machine?

Yes

 

[Majestic]

PCI-slot should in theory be 75W. But if it says 60 I wouldn't go over it. But also make a picture of the power supply's technical data on the side. 

[Gamer1992]

Just now, Majestic said:

PCI-slot should in theory be 75W. But if it says 60 I wouldn't go over it. But also make a picture of the power supply's technical data on the side. 

Yeah its said as 60 watt but i read on some sites that people saying they ran GTX 1080 on PCI|E x16 2.0 slots

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, Gamer1992 said:

Yes

 

if the PSU has a 6pin connector then maybe.

[Majestic]

Just now, Gamer1992 said:

Yeah its said as 60 watt but i read on some sites that people saying they ran GTX 1080 on PCI|E x16 2.0 slots

That's probably when discussing the bandwidth considerations with PCI-E 2.0 slots. Not power.

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, Gamer1992 said:

Yeah its said as 60 watt but i read on some sites that people saying they ran GTX 1080 on PCI|E x16 2.0 slots

All PCIe x8 and X16 slots get 75w according to PCIe spec, all boards sold on their own follow this rule.

[Gamer1992]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

All PCIe x8 and X16 slots get 75w according to PCIe spec, all boards sold on their own follow this rule.

Then how do people get to run 1080's?

 

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, Gamer1992 said:

Then how do people get to run 1080's?

 

They use PCIe power connectors. Every card with power draw above 75W have one or more. Even cards with 75w power rating sometimes have one.

[Majestic]

Just now, Gamer1992 said:

Then how do people get to run 1080's?

 

So you already upgraded the power supply. Why are you asking questions about PCI-E power specifications.

[Gamer1992]

2 minutes ago, Majestic said:

So you already upgraded the power supply. Why are you asking questions about PCI-E power specifications.

That was a different PC this is another one of mine

[mariushm]

All pci-e slots are providing two voltages to video cards : 3.3v for a maximum of 3A (10w) , 12v for a maximum of 5.5A (~66w)

From this specification, some people generalize or simplify to say that video cards take 75w from the slot, but in reality a lot of cards don't really use much of the 3.3v part (those 10 watts).

 

Some systems, mostly those half-height ones, ultra-thin, will be designed to support maximum 25w on 12v.

So what your motherboard advertises is that basically, your pci-e slot is a STANDARD one, which will accept any video card. The listing probably rounded down to 60w to look nicer.

 

Video cards are not allowed to take more than 75w from the slot, so any card that's supposed to consume more will have an extra pci-e 6pin or 8pin connector, or several such connectors. 

 

All you have to do is make sure your power supply actually has the number of watts needed to power everything on 12v.  Look on the power supply label inside and make sure you have around 100 watts for the video card, and around 100w for the rest (processor, motherboard, hard drives) , so at least around 200w .. that's 200w / 12v = 16A or more.  

Your power supply should also have a 6pin or 8 pin pci-e connector, but if it doesn't (and it still can provide the amount of watts according to label), then you could use a molex or sata (hdd connector) to pci-e 6pin/8pin adapter to give more power to the card. 

[Gamer1992]

I had two units which were almost similar in specs

[Gamer1992]

Just now, mariushm said:

All pci-e slots are providing two voltages to video cards : 3.3v for a maximum of 3A (10w) , 12v for a maximum of 5.5A (~66w)

From this specification, some people generalize or simplify to say that video cards take 75w from the slot, but in reality a lot of cards don't really use much of the 3.3v part (those 10 watts).

 

Some systems, mostly those half-height ones, ultra-thin, will be designed to support maximum 25w on 12v.

So what your motherboard advertises is that basically, your pci-e slot is a STANDARD one, which will accept any video card. The listing probably rounded down to 60w to look nicer.

 

Video cards are not allowed to take more than 75w from the slot, so any card that's supposed to consume more will have an extra pci-e 6pin or 8pin connector, or several such connectors. 

 

All you have to do is make sure your power supply actually has the number of watts needed to power everything on 12v.  Look on the power supply label inside and make sure you have around 100 watts for the video card, and around 100w for the rest (processor, motherboard, hard drives) , so at least around 200w .. that's 200w / 12v = 16A or more.  

Your power supply should also have a 6pin or 8 pin pci-e connector, but if it doesn't (and it still can provide the amount of watts according to label), then you could use a molex or sata (hdd connector) to pci-e 6pin/8pin adapter to give more power to the card. 

Ohh so that means if i go with a PCIE cable it will work fine

[brammokeefe]

i cant give a definitive answer but heres a few things: 1. PCIe is specified to put out 75w at the slot, so if your mobo manual says 60, then its not within spec and i personally would find that sketchy.

2. you did not specify the motherboard model, so nobody here can even remotely asses the safety of doing this for your specific system

3. if you dont already own a 950, there are better options out there that dont require a power connector, use less power, perform the same if not better (1050-1050ti are all rated 75w) , and there are some ridiculously good ones on the way (7 nm rx 580 doesnt need any power connectors)

4. if you already own the gpu and dont have any other option, stick it in, start the system. DO NOT RUN A GAME OR PUT THE GPU UNDER STRESS YET. if it powers up and you get to windows no problem, install an OC too of your choice and reduce power limit and core, you shouldnt have to fiddle around with this too much to shave 15w off the consumption.

[.Apex.]

@Gamer1992

i believe all GTX 950's come with external power, so it doesn't matter if the PCIE slot only supports 60W.

 

[Gamer1992]

THANKS GUYS my problem is solved

[mariushm]

1 minute ago, brammokeefe said:

...

3. if you dont already own a 950, there are better options out there that dont require a power connector, use less power, perform the same if not better (1050-1050ti are all rated 75w) , and there are some ridiculously good ones on the way (7 nm rx 580 doesnt need any power connectors)

 

You're smoking something.  The 14nm RX580 consumes up to 225w , the 12nm RX 590 (updated RX580 and overclocked) goes to 250w.  If they every make a RX 580 on 7nm, it would still use around 150-175w provided they don't increase the frequencies (which they will)

 

For around 75w power consumption , you have GTX 1050 / 1050ti and RX 560

 

[brammokeefe]

12 minutes ago, mariushm said:

You're smoking something.  The 14nm RX580 consumes up to 225w , the 12nm RX 590 (updated RX580 and overclocked) goes to 250w.  If they every make a RX 580 on 7nm, it would still use around 150-175w provided they don't increase the frequencies (which they will)

 

For around 75w power consumption , you have GTX 1050 / 1050ti and RX 560

 

i saw it on either UFD tech or one of those other channels, of course i should have stated that this is rumored information and not confirmed, it did seem outlandish to me as well but who knows, maybe what they meant was rx 580 performance without power connector, not "shrunken 580 with no power connector"

edit: rx 560 is non option for OP as its a prebuilt and 560s require a 6pin. i have one, and yes ive tried it without the 6 pin, it doesnt power up.

[mariushm]

38 minutes ago, brammokeefe said:

i saw it on either UFD tech or one of those other channels, of course i should have stated that this is rumored information and not confirmed, it did seem outlandish to me as well but who knows, maybe what they meant was rx 580 performance without power connector, not "shrunken 580 with no power connector"

edit: rx 560 is non option for OP as its a prebuilt and 560s require a 6pin. i have one, and yes ive tried it without the 6 pin, it doesnt power up.

Just because it requires one, doesn't mean it actually uses it to the maximum.

 

Video cards can take power from the slot, or from pci-e connectors, or from BOTH. 

They're allowed to take up to 75w from slot and up to 75w from any pci-e 6 pin connector, and up to 150w from any pci-e 8 pin connector. If a card has one of those extra connectors doesn't mean the card takes the maximum from all sources.

For example, RX 560 cards will consume up to around 80w, depending on memory used and frequencies. It's possible to make one consume less than 75w but these sell at such low price that they don't bother. It's cheaper to add a pci-e 6pin connector on the card instead of placing two dc-dc converters on the board, one to convert 12v to gpu voltage, and a separate one to convert 3.3v to memory voltage for example.

 

So on a RX 560, you will find a 6pin pci-e connector, but in total the video card will still only consume up to around 80w, but it will most likely spread this across both connectors: it will take around 30-40w from the pci-e slot, and around 30-40 watts from the pci-e connector.  Molex/SATA to pci-e 6pin adapters can handle this amount of watts just fine.

 

The power supply will still "see" a 70-80w power consumption for the video card, it makes no difference that the power goes through motherboard into the pci-e slot, or it goes through a 6 pin cable, volts is volts. 

 

 

edit: and read again... here's how I see it: OP was confused by the "60w" number and maybe thought this could be a "special" pci-e connector, not compatible with some cards. He probably assumed a video card is powered completely from the pci-e slot and was afraid using a 90w video card would damage his motherboard.

OP seems to have a power supply powerful enough to run video cards that require additional power connectors so now that he knows his slot is standard, like any other slot, he can buy whatever video card he wants, as long as his power supply is powerful enough to power that card.