Should I Upgrade My Power Supply (Seasonic Core GC-650) Or Not?

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

Hello,

 

I have a Seasonic Core GC-650 power supply and I'm going to be buying an RTX 3080 TI soon. I wanted to know whether I need to upgrade the power supply or not when I have the following components already:

• Intel Core i5-11600k
• Two 4 TB 5400 RPM HDDs
• Two 4 TB 7200 RPM HDDs
• One 1 TB NVMe SSD

I know there are websites that have a "power supply calculator" but I don't really know how reliable they are.

 

Notes:

• I currently do not and in the future do not plan to overclock my CPU
• I have very good air cooling and my room has an air conditioner
• I do plan on doing some RTX and non-RTX gaming
• I do plan on doing some simple concept art rending using Blender
• I do clean my PC once every week

(The notes above might seem useless but they are there in case heat, dust, use, etc... affect the power consumption of the GPU)

Edited July 28, 2022 by Abdelfattah Radwan

[erika_123]

5 minutes ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

Hello,

 

I have a Seasonic Core GC-650 power supply and I'm going to be buying an RTX 3080 TI soon. I wanted to know whether I need to upgrade the power supply or not when I have the following components already:

• Intel Core i5-11600k
• Two 4 TB 5400 RPM HDDs
• Two 4 TB 7200 RPM HDDs
• One 1 TB NVMe SSD

I know there are websites that have a "power supply calculator" but I don't really know how reliable they are.

 

Notes:

• I currently do not and in the future do not plan to overclock my CPU
• I have very good air cooling and my room has an air conditioner
• I do plan on doing some RTX and non-RTX gaming
• I do plan on doing some simple concept art rending using Blender
• I do clean my PC once every week

(The notes above might seem useless but they are there in case heat, dust, use, etc... affect the power consumption of the GPU)

So the 3080 ti takes around 350w at its peak and the i5  around at its peak 203w and when you do some math it gets very very close to your 650w plus your hdds and ssd, I would recommend getting a 750w psu

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

2 minutes ago, erika_123 said:

So the 3080 ti takes around 350w at its peak and the i5  around at its peak 203w and when you do some math it gets very very close to your 650w plus your hdds and ssd, I would recommend getting a 750w psu

Oh, thanks for your reply! May I ask what are the consequences of not having enough power? Will the PC shutdown or will the GPU simply not run at full power?

[Ralf]

Obligatory it's a Seasonic so it's fine.

[Ryuikko]

I'd definitely recommend a quality 850 watt psu for a 3080ti.

5 minutes ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

Will the PC shutdown or will the GPU simply not run at full power?

With the 3000 series cards and their transient power spikes, the pc would probably just shut off under the load, not entirely bad per se, but you would probably lose whatever you're doing if you didn't save.

You can undervolt your gpu so have a little extra power headroom in case of those things and since it'll perfrom pretty similarly depending on what you do.

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

3 minutes ago, Ryuikko said:

I'd definitely recommend a quality 850 watt psu for a 3080ti.

With the 3000 series cards and their transient power spikes, the pc would probably just shut off under the load, not entirely bad per se, but you would probably lose whatever you're doing if you didn't save.

You can undervolt your gpu so have a little extra power headroom in case of those things and since it'll perfrom pretty similarly depending on what you do.

Thanks a lot for the info.

 

Will this power supply suffice?

 

Also, I'm going to see about undervolting as I have never done that before

[Ryuikko]

2 minutes ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

Will this power supply suffice?

Nothing wrong with the focus lineup, they just tend to be a bit pricy when  compared to other choices Like this

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

1 minute ago, Ryuikko said:

Nothing wrong with the focus lineup, they just tend to be a bit pricy when  compared to other choices Like this

Oh, thanks a lot for taking the time! I'm going to check that PSU out.

[Cifer]

5 hours ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

Oh, thanks a lot for taking the time! I'm going to check that PSU out.

I don't know how much you're willing to spend, but if you have 3080Ti money and still haven't bought the Seasonic rebrand, I think you have better options on that website :

- Best option (if budget isn't a limiting factor) : Corsair HX850 (4500EGP) very quiet, great performance, great build quality, multi-rail is an option
- Best bang for the buck : XPG Core Reactor 750w (2450EGP) : solid unit (better than Seasonic Focus), should be enough for a 3080Ti
- Other good option : MSI A850GF (3450EGP): solid unit, on the louder side, but since you're using hard drives it doesn't matter
- Cheapest good option, but with a catch : Bitfenix Whisper M 750W (2050EGP): solid unit, only problem is that you might run into shutdowns caused by the transient spikes (you can't disable multirail OCP on this unit)

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

13 hours ago, Cifer said:

I don't know how much you're willing to spend, but if you have 3080Ti money and still haven't bought the Seasonic rebrand, I think you have better options on that website :

- Best option (if budget isn't a limiting factor) : Corsair HX850 (4500EGP) very quiet, great performance, great build quality, multi-rail is an option
- Best bang for the buck : XPG Core Reactor 750w (2450EGP) : solid unit (better than Seasonic Focus), should be enough for a 3080Ti
- Other good option : MSI A850GF (3450EGP): solid unit, on the louder side, but since you're using hard drives it doesn't matter
- Cheapest good option, but with a catch : Bitfenix Whisper M 750W (2050EGP): solid unit, only problem is that you might run into shutdowns caused by the transient spikes (you can't disable multirail OCP on this unit)

Thanks for the info. I have exactly 30,000 EGP (≈1,585.95 USD) to spend. I will be getting this card which will leave me with exactly 3400 EGP (≈179.70 USD).

 

The XPG Core Reactor seems to be a good option. By "Best bang for the buck" do you mean that it won't suffer from shutdowns like the Bitfenix one?

 

Also, I could go for the MSI A850GF but you mentioned that it is on the "louder side". Will it be a lot louder than my current PSU (Seasonic Core GC-650)?

[Cifer]

4 hours ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

By "Best bang for the buck" do you mean that it won't suffer from shutdowns like the Bitfenix one?

Yes. It's single rail only, so no shutdowns.

4 hours ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

Will it be a lot louder than my current PSU (Seasonic Core GC-650)?

At very low loads, it would be louder because the fan in the Core GC doesn't spin when the PSU is cold, while the fan in the MSI A850GF is always spinning.
But it doesn't matter because your hard drives are a lot louder than the fan in the A850GF.
Don't use the Core GC to power your system, that PSU is mediocre and should never be used with something as expensive as a 3080Ti.

This being said :
Personally, if I were you, I would wait for the release of the next generation cards, because 3080s / 3080Tis / 3090s tend to die for no reason, and good luck getting your card replaced where you live.
It is suspected that they die like that because they use suspicious components. Next gen cards should not suffer from the same sudden death issues (apparently they fixed the issue with 3090Tis).
More details here in case you're curious : youtube video
 

If you really can't wait, based on these benchmarks, buying a 3080 12G would be a better deal (24500EGP instead of 26600EGP), since the performance is basically identical :

You would then be able to invest the extra cash in a superior PSU for example.

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

3 hours ago, Cifer said:

This being said :
Personally, if I were you, I would wait for the release of the next generation cards, because 3080s / 3080Tis / 3090s tend to die for no reason, and good luck getting your card replaced where you live.
It is suspected that they die like that because they use suspicious components. Next gen cards should not suffer from the same sudden death issues (apparently they fixed the issue with 3090Tis).
More details here in case you're curious : youtube video
 

If you really can't wait, based on these benchmarks, buying a 3080 12G would be a better deal (24500EGP instead of 26600EGP), since the performance is basically identical :

You would then be able to invest the extra cash in a superior PSU for example.

Man, that sure gave me a very rough stomach ache...

 

Problem is, getting this GPU at this price is a literal dream come true lol. During the shortage, a 3060 or even a 3050 were being sold for as high as 2000 USD.

 

Also, when the new 40 series cards come out, they are going to be 5 times the MSRP for 2-3 years because of the horrible import taxes.

 

So, I'm kinda lost now... On one hand, I'm in dire need for a new GPU (I currently have a 1050 TI and I'm f***ing done with horrible performance) on the other hand there are so many choices and so many variables to take into account that it is getting painful...

[Cifer]

41 minutes ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

Problem is, getting this GPU at this price is a literal dream come true lol. During the shortage, a 3060 or even a 3050 were being sold for as high as 2000 USD.

 

Also, when the new 40 series cards come out, they are going to be 5 times the MSRP for 2-3 years because of the horrible import taxes.

The crazy pricing isn't import taxes related. It's just scalper pricing. They import and sell low volumes, therefore to make max profit they increase the margins.
We have the same issue where I live (Morocco).
All sellers agree on scalping prices, this way every seller makes scalper profits.

Pricing has dropped significantly since the crypto crash because they (= the GPU manufacturers and distributors) can't sell the cards at ridiculous prices.
Which means as long as crypto doesn't bounce back in the near future, next gen cards should be a better investment.

I would personally wait, but I don't know the Egyptian market, and I can't predict the future ...

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

53 minutes ago, Cifer said:

The crazy pricing isn't import taxes related. It's just scalper pricing. They import and sell low volumes, therefore to make max profit they increase the margins.
We have the same issue where I live (Morocco).
All sellers agree on scalping prices, this way every seller makes scalper profits.

Pricing has dropped significantly since the crypto crash because they (= the GPU manufacturers and distributors) can't sell the cards at ridiculous prices.
Which means as long as crypto doesn't bounce back in the near future, next gen cards should be a better investment.

I would personally wait, but I don't know the Egyptian market, and I can't predict the future ...

I know it is related to crypto and stuff but trust me taxes also heavily affect the price heck even microphones are overpriced due to electronics import taxes lol

 

Anyways, I'm going to save a little bit more this week and get the better power supply and the 3080 TI

 

YOLO, I guess?

 

But seriously, thanks a lot for your tips and very helpful info

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

I ended up getting the Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti and the Seasonic PRIME TX-850, 850W 80+ Titanium.

[SavageNeo]

4 hours ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

I ended up getting the Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti and the Seasonic PRIME TX-850, 850W 80+ Titanium.

prime power supplies have problems with ampere gpus, i would test if the system works, might work with your particular cpu.

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

1 hour ago, SavageNeo said:

prime power supplies have problems with ampere gpus, i would test if the system works, might work with your particular cpu.

May I ask what kind of problems? Everything seems to be ok so far.

 

I can still replace the PSU btw

[seon123]

11 minutes ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

May I ask what kind of problems? Everything seems to be ok so far.

 

I can still replace the PSU btw

It can have issues where noise on the 12V sense line confuses the PSU and makes it shut down. If that doesn't happen for you, don't worry about it. There are various ways Seasonic has cut corners compared to similarly priced, or even cheaper PSUs, but it's fine.

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

2 minutes ago, seon123 said:

It can have issues where noise on the 12V sense line confuses the PSU and makes it shut down. If that doesn't happen for you, don't worry about it. There are various ways Seasonic has cut corners compared to similarly priced, or even cheaper PSUs, but it's fine.

Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know. I'd no choice really as this PSU was the only 850W 80+ Titanium rated PSU I could find.

[seon123]

5 hours ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

Oh, okay. Thanks for letting me know. I'd no choice really as this PSU was the only 850W 80+ Titanium rated PSU I could find.

Is there any reason you need the PSU to be 80+ Titanium rated? Are you running off grid solar and battery? The 80+ rating is just a very rudimentary and outdated rating for the efficiency, it says nothing about how good or bad a PSU is.

[Abdelfattah Radwan]

8 hours ago, seon123 said:

Is there any reason you need the PSU to be 80+ Titanium rated? Are you running off grid solar and battery? The 80+ rating is just a very rudimentary and outdated rating for the efficiency, it says nothing about how good or bad a PSU is.

I live in a newly constructed city in Egypt. Electricity is very unstable sometimes. I was under the impression that a better rated PSU = better overall quality and efficiency. I wanted to get something of very high-quality in order to protect my GPU from being fried.

[SavageNeo]

4 hours ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

better rated PSU = better overall quality

no

4 hours ago, Abdelfattah Radwan said:

and efficiency

in some cases yes, in some not.