Could I plop a R9 280 or 290 on this and would it be wise?

Silent_Buddha said:
500 watt PSU should be fine if it's a half decent brand.

Friend of mine with overclocked i7 + 32 gig RAM + R9 290X + 10 mechanical HDDs + multiple fans still pulls less than 400 watts at the power socket. At 100% CPU load and 100% GPU load, he's pulling ~390-395 watts from the wall socket. So the PSU is providing less than that to the computer components.

Regards,
SB
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That's probably an average. There should be power spikes in that setup that could go well over 500W, and for some brands that's enough to blow up a 500W PSU.
 
I run an i5-3550 + HD7950 with a couple SSDs and an HDD from a 450W Silverstone SFF power supply with no problems at all. I think people waaaay overestimate how much power their PC draws.

TR's test rig only drew ~350W at load with an R9 290X.
http://techreport.com/review/25602/amd-radeon-r9-290-graphics-card-reviewed/8

The factory OCed 290Xes drew slightly less than 400W.
http://techreport.com/review/26092/custom-cooled-radeon-r9-290x-cards-from-asus-and-xfx-reviewed/3

A decent* 500W PSU can easily handle 400W sustained over long periods of time. And a decent 500W PSU can handle transient spikes well above 500W just fine.

*
The key word is decent. A $40 500W Coolmax special will blow the fuck up.
Only $10 more will get you a very solid 500W unit.
 
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Running a PSU at ~80% sounds like a recipe for mysterious random BSODs / reboots to me. Maybe lots of fan noise as well. Also need to take into account that the 12V power rating can vary wildly across PSUs.
 
With DX12 coming do you guys think budget gaming rigs will start using more APUs as the processor if its true about the API sees both GPUs as a single unit?
 
Almost all consumer-level processors are becoming APUs so yes, regardless of whatever DX12 brings to the table.
 
PSUs are standard design. The only time you need to worry is if your case doesn't take standard ATX size PSU, if the PSU is larger than ATX and if it will fit, and lastly if you have an enthusiast GPU does it have enough 6+2 connectors?
 
Does anyone know if a 450 psu could power both an nvidia 970 and an amd fx 8350? It's a choice between getting an amd 290+new psu or just the gtx 970 on its own providing the current psu can power it.
 
You should be ok... But you never mentioned what the power supply specs were. I thought you had a 500W too?
 
AlNets said:
You should be ok... But you never mentioned what the power supply specs were. I thought you had a 500W too?
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I thought I did too. I've been trying to remember what I chose when picking the parts. It was a choice between 500w without a brand and 450w Corsair and I think I chose the Corsair; because reliability.

So do you think I could get pair a 970 and fx 8350? The CPU is quite power consuming.
 
If it's a Corsair 450W then it should be fine. The 970 doesn't use that much power, so even with that absolute hog of a CPU you won't pull >350W. Wouldn't recommend overclocking that processor though.
 
I have one more question for everyone.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-720...081686&sr=8-2&keywords=harddrive+internal+3tb
I wanna upgrade my harddrive to this. Or better yet have this working alongside my current one. I'm assuming I have enough slots in my Zalman Z3. Do I need extra cables to get it to work or can I just slot it in? And another thing, my original HDD is a 5200rpm 1tb and this one is a 3tb 7200. Does the RPM need to be the same for both or doesn't it matter?
 
TomRL said:
I have one more question for everyone.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-720...081686&sr=8-2&keywords=harddrive+internal+3tb
I wanna upgrade my harddrive to this. Or better yet have this working alongside my current one. I'm assuming I have enough slots in my Zalman Z3. Do I need extra cables to get it to work or can I just slot it in? And another thing, my original HDD is a 5200rpm 1tb and this one is a 3tb 7200. Does the RPM need to be the same for both or doesn't it matter?
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Whether you want to replace or add a new HDD, size and RPM doesn't matter. But, IIRC, if you want to use HDD bigger than 2TB as boot drive, you need to initialize it using GPT (otherwise the OS can only use 2GB) and your must have UEFI mainboard instead of the standard BIOS. If you want to move your Windows installation to the new drive, then you need a cloning software (like clonezilla or something else). I don't know what kind of problem will arise when moving a Windows installation from MBR to GPT, but from what I read, it is doable.

As for cable, make sure you have the SATA data cable (usually it isn't included when buying a new HDD) and make sure the power supply have an unused sata power plug, otherwise you need to buy a splitter or molex to sata (if you have spare molex plug... the one with the 4 big 4 holes).
 
TomRL said:
Does it need to be a boot drive? Are there some important caveats to using it otherwise?
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Nope, the new drive doesn't have to be a boot drive. The new drive probably can boot faster, but if you're okay with your current boot speed, then just plug the new drive and use it for storage.
 
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