Minimum watt requirements

[L-Vin]

I bought a Zotac GTX 1060 amp edition to put into my Alienware Graphics amplifier. But as read the box the minimum requirements for this card say 400 watt power supply. The graphics amp has 460 watt power supply but the label for "Graphics card support" says it can do cards with up 375 watts. Can I get away with a 25 watt deficit or should I return it and get something else? It's taking so much control not to tear open the package so any help you can provide would be great. 

[Randomguy1911]

The 400w Minimum rating on the GPU box is  the Minimum wattage PSU for a PC. 

The gpu itself only rated at 120W.

 

You could potentially power the card 3 times safly.

 

https://www.zotac.com/product/graphics_card/zotac-geforce-gtx-1060-amp-edition#spec

[Naeaes]

24 minutes ago, Randomguy1911 said:

You could potentially power the card 3 times safly.

That's not how ATX PSUs work. You see, the GPU uses one +12VDC rail, but the PSU has several of them and a +3.3VDC and a +5VDC rail and the optional -12VDC rail and a dedicated +5VDC stand-by power rail. All those add up to the wattage that the PSU is marketed at but only the one dedicated for PCI-E can be utilized for GPUs. With that said, it's not this exact. For instance there's no standard for how long the PSU should be able to sustain it's marketed value, at what temperature and so on. 

 

@OP, since there's no telling if 90% of that 400W is 5VDC (which the GPU can't use) or if 85% is 3.3VDC (which the GPU can't use either) and so on, it's really hard to say specifically what PSU can and what can't handle the GPU. That's why Zotac is just throwing 400W recommendation in the air but that does not mean that a quality 350W PSU can't handle the GPU and a cheap-o chinese 1000W PSU certainly will. 

 

You have two rules of thumb you can follow. Firstly and most simply, the PCI-E supplementary power connector is included in ATX specification. The 6-pin must provide a minimum of 75W at +12VDC (+/- 5%). Basically, if you have the 6-pin connector, it's powerful enough. (Maybe I should note that the PSU must also provide a minimum of 75W via the motherboard, totaling 150W) Your Card only needs 120W If on the other hand, you'd be required to combine cables or use adapters, it might not be. 

 

Secondly, the PSU should have a label with all those rails and the currents they each can provide. You can simply do the math. That's trickier and I'd like to re-iterate, if the PSU doesn't have the correct wire with the correct connector, it's not intended to be used with such a component.

 

I guess the most important thing to note is that the PSU is the only component with the capacity to break other components. If there's one component in your system you shouldn't take chances with, it's your PSU.

[vtecf20c]

graphics card watt requirements are a lot higher than what they really need, because there are cheap chinese psu with low 12v amp, so you need a 400w chinese psu for this card, but even 300w bronze plus is enough.. 

[Mick Naughty]

There's also amperage to consider but I doubt on such a weak card it would matter. Website prolly doesn't even show how much it needs on the rail. 

[Randomguy1911]

25 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

That's not how ATX PSUs work. You see, the GPU uses one +12VDC rail, but the PSU has several of them and a +3.3VDC and a +5VDC rail and the optional -12VDC rail and a dedicated +5VDC stand-by power rail. All those add up to the wattage that the PSU is marketed at but only the one dedicated for PCI-E can be utilized for GPUs. With that said, it's not this exact. For instance there's no standard for how long the PSU should be able to sustain it's marketed value, at what temperature and so on. 

 

@OP, since there's no telling if 90% of that 400W is 5VDC (which the GPU can't use) or if 85% is 3.3VDC (which the GPU can't use either) and so on, it's really hard to say specifically what PSU can and what can't handle the GPU. That's why Zotac is just throwing 400W recommendation in the air but that does not mean that a quality 350W PSU can't handle the GPU and a cheap-o chinese 1000W PSU certainly will. 

 

You have two rules of thumb you can follow. Firstly and most simply, the PCI-E supplementary power connector is included in ATX specification. The 6-pin must provide a minimum of 75W at +12VDC (+/- 5%). Basically, if you have the 6-pin connector, it's powerful enough. (Maybe I should note that the PSU must also provide a minimum of 75W via the motherboard, totaling 150W) Your Card only needs 120W If on the other hand, you'd be required to combine cables or use adapters, it might not be. 

 

Secondly, the PSU should have a label with all those rails and the currents they each can provide. You can simply do the math. That's trickier and I'd like to re-iterate, if the PSU doesn't have the correct wire with the correct connector, it's not intended to be used with such a component.

 

I guess the most important thing to note is that the PSU is the only component with the capacity to break other components. If there's one component in your system you shouldn't take chances with, it's your PSU.

 

 

All this text but even the Graphics Amplifier box says 460Watt PSU included , just for the GPU.

It's an external Gpu dock.

So you can put ANY Gpu in there that has up to 2 6+2 PCIe Connectors.

PCie x16 75Watt

2x Pin PCIe 150W each.

375 Max power draw for the Gpu only.

It's an external Gpu dock.

@L-Vin It will work with you card.

[Naeaes]

18 minutes ago, Randomguy1911 said:

-snip-

Time for bed, it seems. All along I thought this was an Alienware PC. But, yeah. You're 100% right.