Do I need to upgrade my PSU?

lowspecmatsr · February 13, 2019

So my specs are a:

Xeon e3-1225 v3

Quadro K600

Good quality 290W Dell power supply

I want to upgrade to a gtx 1050 or rx 460 (both draw 75 W from the PCI express slot on the motherboard) and I need to know if i need to upgrade my PSU as well.

I have checked Cooler master's website for guidance and I don't know if I should be checking the maximum load consumption or the minimum PSU Wattage for my System.

Is it also feasable that I could just Underclock and Undervolt the Graphics Card if My PSU isn't enough - I know this would reduce performance but if it means I could still run the Card I would be happy

A GT 1030 would probably be a bit underpowered for me as well.

Any thoughts on what I should do?

Thanks in advance

This is my PSU sticker:

Stefan Payne · February 13, 2019

1 hour ago, lowspecmatsr said:

Any thoughts on what I should do?

Replace the Motherboard

replace the Case as well

All that for a new PSU.

And since its an old Haswell CPU, it makes little sense to invest anything into that System.

So I'd not recommend it...

Quote

This is my PSU sticker:

12V Standby with 1,67A - No Replace possible.

That equals 4,5A with a ~90% efficient Boost Converter.

Buttom line is:
You have to live with what you've got for now.
And that limits you to low end GPUs.

With that CPU and no OC, it would even be enough for a GPU that runs with a Single 6pin Connector.

Some RX470/480 and possibly 570 do that.

I've tried that with my Powercolor RX480 Red Devil and can confirm that the additional 2 pins are optional.

nephila · February 13, 2019

It will work fine, as long as u change the k600, that being said, if you ever need to undervolt to get ur psu working you are running extreme risks since most psu can go over wattage and u'll be running over max even if runs, but for a 1050 it will do

mariushm · February 13, 2019

You have a motherboard that's not standard ATX, and you have a power supply that's not standard ATX.

You can see on the label that it says 12vSB which is short for 12v stand-by voltage.

Regular ATX motherboards and regular ATX power supply use 5v for the stand-by voltage.

So you can't replace the power supply without replacing the motherboard as well.

The power supply has two 12v rails, one rated for 14A (168w) and the other for 16A (192w) but at the same time, it's not possible to use more than 290 watts ... So let's just say each rail has around 150 watts to play with.

My guess is that one rail is used to power the motherboard and the processor, and the other rail is used to power the pci-e slots and maybe SATA connectors.

A Xeon 1225 has a 95w TDP, so my guess it would probably peak at around 110w or so ... the motherboard will probably use around 20-30w. Let's just say 150w max for cpu+motherboard.

So that leaves you with around 290w - 150w = ~ 140w for hard drives, fans and video card.

The Quadro K600 has a maximum power consumption of 41 watts, so you definitely have room for a video card that doesn't require extra power, which can be powered strictly from the slot.

You could go for a GTX 1050ti or RX 460, these use up to around 80 watts.

You could even try to go for a 3 GB GTX 1060, which should peak at around 120 watts. If that's too much, you can play with the "power budget" slider and lower the power by 5-10%, which should drop the overall power consumption of the card by around 10-20 watts.

You could also try to downclock the processor a bit, and save 5-10 watts there, maybe more.

lowspecmatsr · February 13, 2019

Ok thanks for the replies,

I don't think my CPU draws as much power as 95W as I have undervolted it quite significantly and it dosn't run at any more than 60% during games.

I didn't know about the Power supply and motherboard coming as a pakage as I am a bit new to Computer hardware tinkering.

My CPU that I am runing is good for its time so I think its still got a few years in it yet.

I will probably go for a 1050 ti or somthing similar but I realise that I can't get anything with power input pins and have to limit myself to 75W from the PCI-e slot.

I probably won't overvolt the GPU as I have with the Quadro but keep it at stock voltage and mild overcloking

Thanks again