Buying a new GPU, worried about power usage.

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Dropsonic

New Member
Greetings.

I've recently decided to throw my old 7900GS GPU out, and replace it with a brand new GPU. Now, i've been thinking about a Radeon HD 5870.

I'm just worried about my power supply.

I'm running my system with the following specs :

Asus P5Q SE motherboard

Intel Core2Dou E8400 CPU

2 GB's of ram

A 500GB samsung HDD

A 22 inch samsung screen ( Don't know if this matters )

A Antec 500 Watts power supply.


My question is : Do you guys think that my power supply will be able to handle a Radeon HD 5870 GPU, or do i have to buy a new power supply as well?

Also, would you guys maybe recommend some other card instead of the 5870?

Thanks!
 
this is a pretty good website that will try to calculate how many watts you'll use. try looking there and see what it says. also, a retailer will have the recommended wattage on their site. newegg says 500w MINIMUM.
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
i would consider maybe upgrading the psu. i know for the 5770 the recommended is 500w and like i said, the MINIMUM for the 5870 is 500w (although that might be exaggerated a bit). but, it never hurts to be safe.
 
I've heard that a pretty good system with a 5780 should have around 40 amps on the 12V rail to be on the safe side. 500W is the minimum recommended, but there are few 500W power supplies that have 40 amps. on the 12V rail/s. It would probably run it depending on your system but I would look into a better one.
 
Thanks guys.

I was going to buy i new PSU in the future anyways, but i'll buy the card first and see if it'll work properly.
If not, then i'm going to buy a new PSU with a little more " kick " in it :)
 
Dropsonic said:
Thanks guys.

I was going to buy i new PSU in the future anyways, but i'll buy the card first and see if it'll work properly.
If not, then i'm going to buy a new PSU with a little more " kick " in it :)
Click to expand...

Be careful running it on the limit of the PSU's capabilities. If it can't handle it, you could toast it, and bring a bunch of other things with it.
 
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