Bought wrong PSU (for a 3070) lol - question about wattage and power using my old one?

[Mark Kaine]

So I bought a Gigabyte 3070 Vision OC...  and actually managed to buy the wrong PSU (long story short Seasonic connect, but it won't fit and I tried to change it but store already sent it out lol...) 

 

Now I was thinking what would happen if I used my old 500w (Bequiet) for the time being, but downclock the card as much as possible (and additionally under volt if necessary)?

 

Would this be enough to use my 500w psu, would it even boot up initially (guess no one knows that for sure) 

And also would the 3070 then even be an improvement over my 1070 in this case? 

 

Really no idea how to calculate this... but I think it would be a curious experiment...

 

 

I'll probably end up just buying another psu tomorrow ( supply might be an issue) but I'm really just curious, and would the 3070 still be an improvement downclocked and undervolted? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fasauceome]

The pure power 10 is not a bad power supply, it might work for your ryzen 5 3600 and 3070. I suggest you try it 

[bdk74]

What is the calc telling you for the power?

https://seasonic.com/wattage-calculator

 

sorry use this - https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator.

 

Based on my setup with your card (i have same PSU) it should work. (3600,3070,4fans,1hdd,1ssd,dvd comes to be around):

 

[Mark Kaine]

11 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

The pure power 10 is not a bad power supply, it might work for your ryzen 5 3600 and 3070. I suggest you try it 

yeah i thought of that too... I suppose it would at least boot... but I'm really a bit worried it wouldn't be enough for the game I'm playing (with all the bells and whistles) ...  well depends on the actual power draw I guess... 

 

I'm still curious how much downclocking would affect things, I think it should still be more powerful than my 1070... but not sure.  

 

 

5 minutes ago, bdk74 said:

What is the calc telling you for the power?

https://seasonic.com/wattage-calculator

 

 

[bdk74]

@Mark Kainebtw for your monitor 1070 is an overkill for you. 1080p@60hz...imho i wouldn't waste $ unless you will upgrade to higher end monitor in the future. I have 1080 evga running 34k ultra at 21:9 and this gpu still runs smooth on ultra everything...

[Fasauceome]

10 minutes ago, bdk74 said:

sorry use this - https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator.

Outervision is notoriously inaccurate. I've made my own power measurements from the wall and they're always significantly lower than outervision even under worst case, full artificial load scenarios.

 

2 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah i thought of that too... I suppose it would at least boot... but I'm really a bit worried it wouldn't be enough for the game I'm playing (with all the bells and whistles) ...  well depends on the actual power draw I guess... 

Well the pure power 10 isn't in the league of dying easily and taking stuff with it, worst that would happen is OCP gets tripped and you decide not to use it until your proper unit is in hand.

[bdk74]

Sorry since I have you the wrong url, I just copied what you have in the sig. It says 474W recommended +- with load of 424 so with this PSU you should be fine without any OCing of course.,

https://outervision.com/b/VhS9v7

[bdk74]

2 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Outervision is notoriously inaccurate. I've made my own power measurements from the wall and they're always significantly lower than outervision even under worst case, full artificial load scenarios.

They over estimate which is good to add x% so you don't get failure.

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, bdk74 said:

They over estimate which is good to add x% so you don't get failure.

it over estimates by an impractical amount, recommending pretty silly wattages. And there's a business motive for this too, trying to trick people into spending more on power supplies.

 

And I don't use any power supply calculators. I always recommend based on the measured power draw of the components in question, and based on the intended upgrade path of the computer.

[bdk74]

2 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

it over estimates by an impractical amount, recommending pretty silly wattages. And there's a business motive for this too, trying to trick people into spending more on power supplies.

 

And I don't use any power supply calculators. I always recommend based on the measured power draw of the components in question, and based on the intended upgrade path of the computer.

You don't want to go under either especially if you are spending so much on the h/w. Checking on the outlet might be to late - remember your psu needs to be able to hold any *spikes* - just because its boots up it doesn't mean it won't shut down when on heavy load. Its easy to overspend on psu especially. Also I wouldn't say they trick you, look at the recommended psus on nvidia website. i.e recommended for 3070 is 650 vs 470 based on the calc.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/graphics-cards/30-series/?nvid=nv-int-csfg-14125#cid=_nv-int-csfg_en-us

[Mark Kaine]

20 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

I've made my own power measurements from the wall and they're always significantly lower than outervision even under worst case, full artificial load scenarios.

yeah that Seasonic calculator is just off - recommended by gigabyte is 650w... 

 

20 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

Well the pure power 10 isn't in the league of dying easily and taking stuff with it, worst that would happen is OCP gets tripped and you decide not to use it until your proper unit is in hand.

I see, I guess you're right. (I think I'd still downclock the card though) 

 

Of course I could also just try using the Seasonic CONNECT... somehow... outside my case...

 

(temporarily) 

 

[bdk74]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

yeah that Seasonic calculator is just off - recommended by gigabyte is 650w... 

 

I see, I guess you're right. (I think I'd still downclock the card though) 

 

Of course I could also just try using the Seasonic CONNECT... somehow... outside my case...

 

 

 

you don't have to underclock. this card will run ok on your psu. if you have $ go with seasonic platinium - can't go wrong

[Mark Kaine]

 

 

I just checked this card has 300w peak power draw, do you still think it should (might) work...? what about those "spikes", aren't they much higher (well idk but I suppose so)? @Fasauceome

 

31 minutes ago, bdk74 said:

you don't have to underclock. this card will run ok on your psu. if you have $ go with seasonic platinium - can't go wrong

I think I'll underclock the hell out of this thing...! 

 

32 minutes ago, bdk74 said:

you don't have to underclock. this card will run ok on your psu.

you also have to keep in mind... it calculates based on default boost clocks, which will naturally be much higher on the average Nvidia card... I suspect like 2000 MHz instead of '1615Mhz'...

Spoiler

which is still the question btw, would it even perform better than the 1070 when underclocked...??? 

 

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

it over estimates by an impractical amount, recommending pretty silly wattages

it can't overestimate too much.. this really says 497w...

https://outervision.com/b/g4yaoO

 

Tho the whole thing is fishy... they had the 3600 at 7000mhz at default! lol... 

 

Edit:

I think I'll just try it with like - 25% core clock... that should be 'safe' and surely better than the 1070... 

 

Thanks everyone, I think I mostly know what I wanted to know (should work, is far from ideal though obviously) 

[Fasauceome]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

just checked this card has 300w peak power draw, do you still think it should (might) work...? what about those "spikes", aren't they much higher (well idk but I suppose so)? 

The power spikes tend to be their own animal.

 

Thing about quality power supplies, though, is that they can handle power spikes above their rated wattage just fine, because it's an extremely short period of time.

 

On the flip side, I don't think underclocking would actually help in a typical scenario.

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

Edit:

I think I'll just try it with like - 25% core clock... that should be 'safe' and surely better than the 1070... 

Perhaps, worth trying if you need to.

[Mark Kaine]

8 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

The power spikes tend to be their own animal.

 

Thing about quality power supplies, though, is that they can handle power spikes above their rated wattage just fine, because it's an extremely short period of time.

Ok yeah I figured that's how it is, you're still relaying on your PSU to work properly obviously. 

 

Tbh it would kind of suck of it resets my BIOS or something, it was sooo hard to set it up (especially the fancurves, this MSI / Ryzen 3000 BIOS is absolutely awful to use lol) 

 

8 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

On the flip side, I don't think underclocking would actually help in a typical scenario.

Hmm, I see, what about voltage limit?  I mean somehow it must be possible to lower the power usage... I mean even if the system is using 'only' ~500w this is damn close to the limit, so lowering power consumption a little would likely help. 

 

 

 

[Fasauceome]

4 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Hmm, I see, what about voltage limit?  I mean somehow it must be possible to lower the power usage... I mean even if the system is using 'only' ~500w this is damn close to the limit, so lowering power consumption a little would likely help. 

Well it's worth a shot if you run into issues, unless

 

4 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Tbh it would kind of suck of it resets my BIOS or something, it was sooo hard to set it up (especially the fancurves, this MSI / Ryzen 3000 BIOS is absolutely awful to use lol) 

If constant restarts are going to be a hassle then just try it once and see if it works for you

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

Well it's worth a shot if you run into issues, unless

 

2 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

If constant restarts are going to be a hassle then just try it once and see if it works for you

 

I mean I would really love to try but with how finicky PCs can be (and especially my bios) it's kinda scary, and I'm basically sure it would shut down sometimes (although I can't know obviously). 

 

Long story short, I ordered this now, since the Corsair RMX doesn't seem to be available anywhere... I mean I can wait a few days, I just want to test this GPU properly before the return window is closed, obviously. 

 

Quote

Seasonic PRIME GX-750 750W

 I hope this is an ok PSU, those names really confuse the hell out of me GX, PX, TX... RX... CX (it really seems purposefully uninformative, I know TVs etc also do this...) 

how is the average consumer to know the differences... 

 

Thanks for the info and suggestions however, I was really mostly curious... I think the idea of downclocking, undervolting, power limiting... due to inadequate PSU is *genius* (if I may say so) IF it then worked ... (you just can't really properly test hardware that way obviously) 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/29/2020 at 10:48 PM, Fasauceome said:

The pure power 10 is not a bad power supply, it might work for your ryzen 5 3600 and 3070. I suggest you try it 

... you won't believe how much bad luck I had... so today 3070, and both Seasonic PSUs came... 

 

Tested the GX-750 with the tester that was in the box... doesn't spin... makes small exploding noise like a fuse went... long story short the psu is completely dead lol...  didn't even try the other because I already know it's not gonna fit in my case (I checked, it doesn't...) 

 

 

So. I did what I had to do... installed my Bequiet again... *gasp*

 

 

Seems to work just fine...! 

 

I did under / clock / power limit it though... better safe than sorry : D

 

 

 

 

 

I probably should do an extreme run at least, but I'll mark this as the answer for now as it seems to be working fine... *knock on wood* 

 

 

Edit: worked no prob!  it actually clocked a little bit lower in this one... still above "boost clock" 

 

 

[Fasauceome]

52 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Tested the GX-750 with the tester that was in the box... doesn't spin... makes small exploding noise like a fuse went... long story short the psu is completely dead lol...  didn't even try the other because I already know it's not gonna fit in my case (I checked, it doesn't...) 

Hope a refund or something is possible for you. If you say you tested the power supply and it made a small popping noise, they'll get that thing through RMA stat, or you'll be eligible for a return (not sure how long ago you bought it)

 

Glad the be quiet PSU works, they make a lot of decent budget units so I'm not really surprised. Good prospects for my friend with a CX550, I was kinda using him as a guinea pig to see if reasonable budget PSUs could run a 3070 (if they couldn't it would be a bit of a disaster for Nvidia)

Edited December 31, 2020 by Fasauceome

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

Hope a refund or something is possible for you. If you say you tested the power supply and it made a small popping noise, they'll get that thing through RMA stat, or you'll be eligible for a return (not sure how long ago you bought it)

yes, thanks, I'll definitely give both back and keep the gpu im not going to buy another Seasonic product, seems really sketchy (I checked the other one visually as I said, and it didn't look good either, scratches everywhere, both PSUs make an extremely cheap impression, like some ali express shit lol (no offense to ali express lol ...) I technically bought them today... the delivery day is what counts here... 

 

I made tons of fotos too because it's all quite 'unbelievable' haha. 

 

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

Glad the be quiet PSU works, they make a lot of decent budget units so I'm not really surprised.

I mean everything runs really smooth and cool (OK the gpu gets a little hot, 67C, but it's actually not even loud, my EVGA ran hotter at default and much much louder (also a very disappointing experience even though the GPU itself was actually quite ok, but anyway)

 

 

And Happy New Year!