What does a GPU have to be balanced with???

[Ampm]

I was just wondering, if you were to get a graphics card, you would need to get certain parts to balance with its power. Would you just be able to get an equally powerful cpu to go with to gpu and it would all be fine?

[minibois]

Your system will really only be as good as your 'worst component' and what that entails depends on your use case.

Usually you would only see people talk about a balanced PC in terms of CPU and GPU, as those (in games) are the most important parts. You're not gonna gain (much) performance if your CPU is very bad and get a good GPU. In that sense; a balanced system with these two is good.

 

Of course other parts in the system should match too, like RAM (getting faster memory may improve performance on some CPU's nowadays), a good drive (for booting your system, not as much in multiplayer games. In single player games a faster drive can decrease load times).

Just like the other parts, your power supply should also match well with the rest of your system, you shouldn't go overkill because that is just a waste of money (money you could spend on a better other part of the system which might directly improve performance), but don't skimp out on a good PSU. One that delivers enough power to your system, but is also of high quality so it will last you a long time.

 

So yes, a CPU and GPU should be somewhat balanced (so you're not overspending on one or another, without having more performance), but other parts in the system should match as well.

[Ampm]

thanks this is really helpful, at the moment I have a 450w power supply, this is used for work only, would it have any trouble managing games with a gtx 1070?? thanks

[minibois]

11 minutes ago, Ampm said:

thanks this is really helpful, at the moment I have a 450w power supply, this is used for work only, would it have any trouble managing games with a gtx 1070?? thanks

Do you perhaps know the model of the power supply? There are high quality and low quality power supplies of the same wattage. 

A system with a GTX 1070 (assuming you don't have a Threadripper, i9 or other such high power usage CPU's), will use about 300-350W in full usage, which on some 450W units is a lot.

This is a list of power supplies models, ranked on how good they are (rank 1 being the best), if you PSU is on rank 1-3 of this list it would be good. If not, it would really depend on the unit, but might not be super trustworthy with a higher end PSU: 

 

 

[Ampm]

thanks, im also concerned that it came out in 2012, could that affect anything??

 

its a Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU

 

is that enough or would i have to buy a new one?

 

[billstelling]

It will get you going. Should do fine for you and I would only be concerned if you were maxing out with drives and other perfs. A 550 is the recommended usually but I can attest to running a pretty good system on a good 300 and had no issues with it. Also, if you have a 4 core or better cpu you should be just fine as well with just adding a new gpu. Some of the i3 cpus are quite good and have high clock rates.

Productivity is were you want a bunch of cores and hyperthreading to make a diff.

[minibois]

40 minutes ago, Ampm said:

its a Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU

Please us the quote button underneath someone's post, when replying to them. That makes the person you're replying to actually get a notification of it  

The second button from the left would be the quote button:

 

On topic however. I assume you have a Be Quiet PSU? 

https://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply

If it's a higher end model of them, it should be good. But I really need a full model name to accurately judge it (a picture of the label will also work, that way I know the specs right away).

[Ampm]

5 hours ago, Minibois said:

Please us the quote button underneath someone's post, when replying to them. That makes the person you're replying to actually get a notification of it  

The second button from the left would be the quote button:

 

On topic however. I assume you have a Be Quiet PSU? 

https://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply

If it's a higher end model of them, it should be good. But I really need a full model name to accurately judge it (a picture of the label will also work, that way I know the specs right away).

sorry, I'll see if i can find it