290w enough?

[GeneralOxxy]

So i recently gave my brother my old optiplex with an i3-4160 2 500gb hard drives and 4gb of ram after 2 weeks he said that he cant get high frames in his games, so i got my old gt 730 but im not sure if the 290w 80 plus gold power supply is good enough do i need to upgrade the power supply?

[chckovsky]

I'm not gonna say anything about the adequacy of the PSU, but the problem here is definitely that the specs aren't that good.

[chckovsky]

What games is he playing?

[GeneralOxxy]

Just now, chckovsky said:

I'm not gonna say anything about the adequacy of the PSU, but the problem here is definitely that the specs aren't that good.

But he only plays minecraft and some cs:go and i thought the gt 730 would be perfect for him

[GeneralOxxy]

2 minutes ago, chckovsky said:

What games is he playing?

+ he doesnt have a 1080p monitor a 1366x768p

[chckovsky]

7 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

But he only plays minecraft and some cs:go and i thought the gt 730 would be perfect for him

5 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

+ he doesnt have a 1080p monitor a 1366x768p

Ok that should do ok. Have him run afterburner with OSD to see if it's the GPU or CPU that's holding him back.

 

[Christophe Corazza]

14 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

So i recently gave my brother my old optiplex with an i3-4160 2 500gb hard drives and 4gb of ram after 2 weeks he said that he cant get high frames in his games, so i got my old gt 730 but im not sure if the 290w 80 plus gold power supply is good enough do i need to upgrade the power supply?

 

The power supply should be sufficient for his computer.

 

15 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

after 2 weeks he said that he cant get high frames in his games

 

8 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

But he only plays minecraft

 

What is his definition of 'high frame rates' with a game like Minecraft?

[Spotty]

There's multiple versions of the GT 730 with different memory speeds. The max TDP across the models is 50W, so regardless of which model, 290W should be enough to power it and the rest of the system. The GT 730 does not require a 6 pin power connector so you don't have any concerns about the PSU requiring that connector if the PSU doesn't have it. Without knowing the make or model of the PSU I can't comment whether it's a good quality unit or not.

The GT 730 isn't a gaming card. It will likely be better than the integrated graphics, but not by much. At 768p should be able to get 60fps in those with the settings turned down low, but if playing Minecraft he will probably run in to some CPU bottlenecking on some of the bigger maps, but been a long time since I've used minecraft (beta testing days) so can't say how it runs these days.

[GeneralOxxy]

Just now, Christophe Corazza said:

 

The power supply should be sufficient for his computer.

 

 

 

What is his definition of 'high frame rates' with a game like Minecraft?

idk he says he wants 60 fps+ in minecraft

[GeneralOxxy]

I got him the gigabyte gt 730 gddr3

[Spotty]

Just now, wONKEyeYEs said:

gt 730 Power Consumption Operational 27 Watt

That's for the 2GB model. There's multiple versions of the GT 730.

 

Just now, GeneralOxxy said:

I got him the gigabyte gt 730 gddr3

The 1GB or 2GB model?

The 1GB DDR3 model 128bit bus width will use almost 50W.
https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-730/specifications

Either way, the i3 CPU doesn't use a lot of power (~55W) and other components won't make up much, with SSDs and HDDs likely using less than 10W under load each. A 290W PSU should be enough.

[GeneralOxxy]

Just now, Spotty said:

That's for the 2GB model. There's multiple versions of the GT 730.

 

The 1GB or 2GB model?

The 1GB DDR3 model 128bit bus width will use almost 50W.
https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-730/specifications

Either way, the i3 CPU doesn't use a lot of power (~55W) and other components won't make up much, with SSDs and HDDs likely using less than 10W under load each. A 290W PSU should be enough.

2gb

[Christophe Corazza]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

Either way, the i3 CPU doesn't use a lot of power (~55W) and other components won't make up much, with SSDs and HDDs likely using less than 10W under load each. A 290W PSU should be enough.

 

I would estimate something like 140-150 W for the CPU, 2 HDDs and the GPU. So a 290 W PSU should indeed be sufficient.

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, GeneralOxxy said:

2gb

2GB, as @wONKEyeYEs mentioned, uses less than 30W. The wattage of your PSU shouldn't be an issue.

[GeneralOxxy]

Thanks everyone!

[Spotty]

4 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

Thanks everyone!

No worries.

If you can report back and let us know what, if any, improvement there is with the GT 730 installed.

Games like Minecraft can be very CPU intensive, so you may not see a huge improvement, though I imagine having more RAM accessible to the system (a portion of the 4GB no longer being reserved for integrated graphics) you might see some improvements if you're relying on page file (HDD acting as RAM when you run out of available memory) less often.

[GeneralOxxy]

Just now, Spotty said:

No worries.

If you can report back and let us know what, if any, improvement there is with the GT 730 installed.

Games like Minecraft can be very CPU intensive, so you may not see a huge improvement, though I imagine having more RAM accessible to the system (a portion of the 4GB no longer being reserved for integrated graphics) you might see some improvements if you're relying on page file (HDD acting as RAM when you run out of available memory) less often.

Yea but the thing is i have a 2gb stick ddr3 that i want to put in his computer but the one in his pc is 1600mhz and the one i have is 1333mhz

[Christophe Corazza]

7 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

Yea but the thing is i have a 2gb stick ddr3 that i want to put in his computer but the one in his pc is 1600mhz and the one i have is 1333mhz

 

Then both RAM sticks will run at the slowest common speed. In this case that will be 1333 MHz.

 

[Spotty]

5 minutes ago, GeneralOxxy said:

Yea but the thing is i have a 2gb stick ddr3 that i want to put in his computer but the one in his pc is 1600mhz and the one i have is 1333mhz

That's fine, the 1600MHz stick will just downclock itself to run at 1333MHz to work with the other stick. If you're finding 4GB isn't enough (which is highly likely), then even upgrading to 6GB will be worth the slower speed on the memory.

If there isn't enough memory, the system will start using the HDD or SSD as RAM. Compared to RAM, SSDs and especially HDDs are incredibly slow. This is where your computer will freeze and lock up for a few seconds while you're trying to open a program or while gaming.
The slower RAM clock speed will only give a marginal difference in performance, and I would say in a system with an i3 41xx CPU and GT 730 will make no noticeable difference whatsoever between 1333MHz and 1600Mhz. So if you have to sacrifice a negligible difference in RAM speed in order to have enough RAM, then it's worth it.
TLDR; Put the other stick in.

[GeneralOxxy]

2 minutes ago, Christophe Corazza said:

 

Then both RAM sticks will run at the slowest common speed. In this case that will be 1333 MHz.

 

So i can just put the second ram stick and it will automatically put the first ram stick to 1333?

[GeneralOxxy]

Just now, Spotty said:

That's fine, the 1600MHz stick will just downclock itself to run at 1333MHz to work with the other stick. If you're finding 4GB isn't enough (which is highly likely), then even upgrading to 6GB will be worth the slower speed on the memory.

If there isn't enough memory, the system will start using the HDD or SSD as RAM. Compared to RAM, SSDs and especially HDDs are incredibly slow. This is where your computer will freeze and lock up for a few seconds while you're trying to open a program or while gaming.
The slower RAM clock speed will only give a marginal difference in performance, and I would say in a system with an i3 41xx CPU and GT 730 will make no noticeable difference whatsoever between 1333MHz and 1600Mhz. So if you have to sacrifice a negligible difference in RAM speed in order to have enough RAM, then it's worth it.
TLDR; Put the other stick in.

Ok thanks!

[Christophe Corazza]

1 minute ago, GeneralOxxy said:

So i can just put the second ram stick and it will automatically put the first ram stick to 1333?

 

It is really as simple as that. 

[GeneralOxxy]

Just now, Christophe Corazza said:

 

It is really as simple as that. 

Thanks!

[Christophe Corazza]

I noticed that you have 4 GB of RAM already in the system.

Although that is not a lot for today's standards, it should be enough to run Minecraft since it requires a minimum of 2 GB.

[Christophe Corazza]

1 minute ago, GeneralOxxy said:

Thanks!

 

You're welcome