180w graphics card search

[randomdellguy]

i have settled on a 1660 super thanks for helping

[natedoggie12]

i have a 180 watt power supply and wondering what is a decent GPU and my computer 

[infomsp]

On 10/7/2022 at 1:14 AM, randomdellguy said:

i have settled on a 1660 super thanks for helping

Hi, I have a HP Pavilion 590 (i5 - 8400) that has a 180W PSU. Currently I have GTX 1030 but would like to upgrade the GPU to one of the more powerful ones. My current PSU doesn't have any 6 or 8 pin connectors. How did you connect the 1660 Super's 8 pin connector to your PSU?. Did you upgrade the PSU too along with the GPU? Appreciate the insights.

[mariushm]

1660 super consumes a bit too much power to be safe to use, it goes up to around 100-120 watts. It's a bit risky.  But from a performance per dollar it's probably best you could do.

[randomdellguy]

On 12/16/2022 at 10:32 PM, infomsp said:

Hi, I have a HP Pavilion 590 (i5 - 8400) that has a 180W PSU. Currently I have GTX 1030 but would like to upgrade the GPU to one of the more powerful ones. My current PSU doesn't have any 6 or 8 pin connectors. How did you connect the 1660 Super's 8 pin connector to your PSU?. Did you upgrade the PSU too along with the GPU? Appreciate the insights.

sata to 6 or 8 pin its quite simple accually, sacrafice a hard drive for a gpu, there is also molex options

[randomdellguy]

On 12/16/2022 at 10:43 PM, mariushm said:

1660 super consumes a bit too much power to be safe to use, it goes up to around 100-120 watts. It's a bit risky.  But from a performance per dollar it's probably best you could do.

i have a i3 8100 which pulls around 65 watts, so i can basicly under volt the gpu otherwise its fine, 

[mariushm]

A sata connector is only rated for around 50 watts but the ones on cheap adapters I wouldn't trust with more than 35 watts. 

 

Keep in mind the 180w power supply you have in the system is 12v only.  On the motherboard, there's a 12v to 5v converter that powers the chipset, onboard audio, network, controllers for ram and cpu power, that adds up to around 10-15 watts.

The sata motherboard  connectors also provide 5v by using a dc-dc converter to convert 12v from power supply to 5v 

While the sata connector itself MAY be capable of nearly 50 watts, the dc-dc converter on the motherboard may only be designed for up to 20-25w on 5v  (a regular mechanical drive consumes around 6-8w from 5v, so 20-25w would be plenty for two mechanical drives)

 

Easiest would probably be to "tap" into the 12v wires coming from the power supply - get a 2xmolex -> pci-e 8 pin , cut the molex connectors, strip a bit of insulation off the power supply wires and solder (ideally) or wrap the wires around the existing wire and cover with electrical tape.

A nicer way would be to solder the wires on the circuit board inside the power supply.

 

[randomdellguy]

13 hours ago, mariushm said:

A sata connector is only rated for around 50 watts but the ones on cheap adapters I wouldn't trust with more than 35 watts. 

 

Keep in mind the 180w power supply you have in the system is 12v only.  On the motherboard, there's a 12v to 5v converter that powers the chipset, onboard audio, network, controllers for ram and cpu power, that adds up to around 10-15 watts.

The sata motherboard  connectors also provide 5v by using a dc-dc converter to convert 12v from power supply to 5v 

While the sata connector itself MAY be capable of nearly 50 watts, the dc-dc converter on the motherboard may only be designed for up to 20-25w on 5v  (a regular mechanical drive consumes around 6-8w from 5v, so 20-25w would be plenty for two mechanical drives)

 

Easiest would probably be to "tap" into the 12v wires coming from the power supply - get a 2xmolex -> pci-e 8 pin , cut the molex connectors, strip a bit of insulation off the power supply wires and solder (ideally) or wrap the wires around the existing wire and cover with electrical tape.

A nicer way would be to solder the wires on the circuit board inside the power supply.

 

i dont think so, mine is a hp pavilion, there are no soldering points, and dont forget the pcie slot is 75 wats

[mariushm]

Sigh ... I meant the wires INSIDE the power supply are soldered to the circuit board. So you can easily open the power supply and see where the 12v wires (yellow) go on the circuit board, and solder more wires to that point.

 

If your power supply cables are like in the pictures here -  https://www.ebay.com/itm/124162999139 - the yellow wires should be 12v, the black / brown wires will be ground - but you can use a multimeter to double check while the computer runs.

So you can open power supply, see where the 12v wires are soldered, and add more wires there.

The power supply has 2 4 pin connectors with 12v, one goes to the CPU and the other goes to power everything else (dc-dc converter to produce 5v  and 3.3v for chipset, onboard audio, network, usb ports, sata power ports on motherboard etc etc) and the pci-e slot.

The pci-e slot in theory has 10w on 3.3v and 65w on 12v - not all video cards use the full 10w from that 3.3v source, a lot only use 2-3w from there.

 

Some video cards will use much less than 65w from the slot because it makes the design simpler. For example, they may use 30w from slot to power the ram on the video card, and then use 60-70w from the 6 pin connector to power the gpu chip.

 

 

[randomdellguy]

2 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Sigh ... I meant the wires INSIDE the power supply are soldered to the circuit board. So you can easily open the power supply and see where the 12v wires (yellow) go on the circuit board, and solder more wires to that point.

 

If your power supply cables are like in the pictures here -  https://www.ebay.com/itm/124162999139 - the yellow wires should be 12v, the black / brown wires will be ground - but you can use a multimeter to double check while the computer runs.

So you can open power supply, see where the 12v wires are soldered, and add more wires there.

The power supply has 2 4 pin connectors with 12v, one goes to the CPU and the other goes to power everything else (dc-dc converter to produce 5v  and 3.3v for chipset, onboard audio, network, usb ports, sata power ports on motherboard etc etc) and the pci-e slot.

The pci-e slot in theory has 10w on 3.3v and 65w on 12v - not all video cards use the full 10w from that 3.3v source, a lot only use 2-3w from there.

 

Some video cards will use much less than 65w from the slot because it makes the design simpler. For example, they may use 30w from slot to power the ram on the video card, and then use 60-70w from the 6 pin connector to power the gpu chip.

 

 

i get it but i dont have a soldering iron, and even if i had one i still would not do it becuase im just benchmarking it. and if it didnt work i could just switch to a gtx 1650

[infomsp]

On 12/18/2022 at 6:19 PM, randomdellguy said:

sata to 6 or 8 pin its quite simple accually, sacrafice a hard drive for a gpu, there is also molex options

Thank you for the suggestion. How is the PC doing with the 1660 Super connected to the Sata to 8 PIN ? ...is the 180 W sufficient?

Unfortunately, the two SATA connections in my HP Pavilion are being used by a SSD and a Hard drive. I am thinking of adding a SATA Power Y Splitter Cable to get an extra SATA port and then use a SATA to 8 pin to connect to 1660 super. Below are links to the two cables that I'm thinking of:

 

https://www.amazon.com/WUDANGSHAN-Power-Splitter-Adapter-Female/dp/B094K3PLNL/ref=psdc_306629011_t2_B07ML447FG

https://www.amazon.com/8inch-15pin-Express-Power-Electronics/dp/B00ANAQFHY/ref=sr_1_16?crid=2UKFF060VROH5&keywords=sata+to+8+pin+pcie&qid=1671754231&s=electronics&sprefix=sata+to+8+pi%2Celectronics%2C157&sr=1-16

 

Please let me know if that would work to add some extra power to the GPU and your feedback on the 1660 super. Thank you.

[mariushm]

As I explained to you, if the sata power cables came from the power supply, such adapters would work.

 

BUT if your sata power connectors plug into the motherboard then you may damage the motherboard if you try to power the video card trough such splitter.

The pin in the connector on the motherboard is not capable of transferring more than 20-30 watts, which is enough for 2-3 mechanical drives, but not enough to also power a video card.

 

[infomsp]

That is a good point. I just noticed that my sata power is from the motherboard and not from the PSU! So I will have to try some other option like going for a GPU like GTX1650 which doesn't need external power...can't find too many of those GPUs that I can upgrade from my current GTX 1030.