Preparation for switching GPU manufacturers?

Jack0f5pades · March 30, 2020

I currently run an old 4gb RX570 and try to keep up to date on driver installations. After the whole virus situation calms down I was planning on a complete upgrade to my system including a new CPU, Board, Case, and GPU (because despite having built my system only a year ago, it's made entirely with components from multiple generations ago and is starting to get on my nerves with how much I'm missing out on). The GPU I chose to upgrade to was the EVGA RTX 2070Super Black edition. As I understand it, It's normally a good idea to uninstall display drivers before switching out graphics cards, even of the same manufacturer. I heard some good things about DDU for this purpose? What I'm asking is whether there's any other preparation or aftercare I need to do in order to quickly and efficiently make the switch between GPUs, from measuring my whether my power supply will work to benchmarking to make sure my new card isn't underperforming, I wanna do everything I can do make the best transition possible. Thanks.

pstarlord · March 30, 2020

DDU seems to be the most popular choice for that, yes. You could always do a fresh install of Windows as well.

go to www.pcpartpicker.com and build a hypothetical setup that you'll be upgrading to, it'll calculate the wattage of the system for you. Then increase the wattage of the PSU by about 30 - 40% to make sure you have plenty of headroom to run the PSU more efficiently. Typically, I just go with 750 Watt PSU's for a lot of my builds.

Jack0f5pades · March 30, 2020

3 minutes ago, pstarlord said:

Then increase the wattage of the PSU by about 30 - 40% to make sure you have plenty of headroom to run the PSU more efficiently.

I see, thank you. I wasn't sure if my current 550w PSU would run a Ryzen 5 3600 and a 2070 Super but if there are tools to calculate how much I'll need, I'll definitely check it out.