[SOLVED] A GT 1030 and a Power Supply dilema

[Vozenger]

Hi so, I've planned to treat myself and my little OEM pc with a GT 1030, just for that low/medium settings 720p gaming.

The problem here is, I don't know if my power supply can keep it up.

My PC specs are the following:

-Pentium G3250 3.2GHz
-8 GB DDR3 ram @1333MHz
-Intel HD graphics (obviously)
- A CD-RW thingy (I plan on disconnecting this)
-WD Blue 500GB 7200rpm HDD
-OEM motherboard so I really cannot give you an exact spec, but Speccy says it is from a company called Inspur.

By searching up my parts in PCPartPicker, the total TDP is around 152w (without the cd-rw lector), if you add the gt1030 the total TDP will be around 172w, which may look fine. The thing is that my power supply is rated only for 200W (either continuous or maximum, I really don't know) and I'm scared that while I game or do anything at all the whole system just shuts down because it runs out of power. I've thought of undervolting the gt1030 just so it can keep up, but I really don't know + I have little to no money to buy a new PSU. Please tell me what should I do

 

[Darkbreeze]

Probably it's fine. The GT 1030 is extremely low powered, requiring only slot power to operate. Knowing the model of the power supply would be the determining factor though.

Take the side panel off and take a look at the label on the side of the power supply. Take a picture of that and post it here if possible or at least note the model number and provide that here.

Your system is VERY low power, so the question isn't whether the PSU has enough capacity, only whether the PSU is actually ABLE to provide that capacity or not. Not all units can sustain or even provide their "listed" specifications.

 

[Vozenger]

Probably it's fine. The GT 1030 is extremely low powered, requiring only slot power to operate. Knowing the model of the power supply would be the determining factor though.

Take the side panel off and take a look at the label on the side of the power supply. Take a picture of that and post it here if possible or at least note the model number and provide that here.

Your system is VERY low power, so the question isn't whether the PSU has enough capacity, only whether the PSU is actually ABLE to provide that capacity or not. Not all units can sustain or even provide their "listed" specifications.

I'll try to post a picture later, I'm not that aware of PSU's specs and stuff

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you know the actual model of the whole prebuilt PC system, that could be helpful as well.

 

[Joseph_138]

The GT 1030 only draws either 30 or 45W. I'd have to search it to be sure. It should run even with a crappy power supply. Be sure you get one with GDDR5 memory. The DDR4 cards are horrible.

 

[Vozenger]

If you know the actual model of the whole prebuilt PC system, that could be helpful as well.

https://imgur.com/a/de7nuV0

Here's the picture of the power supply. I would give you the prebuilt model, but I lost that information and I tried searching up information in the past but all the links are down. The PC is from a national company run by the government here in my country it's not like a Dell Optiplex or anything like that,

 

[Vozenger]

The GT 1030 only draws either 30 or 45W. I'd have to search it to be sure. It should run even with a crappy power supply. Be sure you get one with GDDR5 memory. The DDR4 cards are horrible.

I know the DDR4 model is a complete scam, even a 730 with GDDR5 beats it.

 

[Karadjgne]

TDP is the max your pc will use, at very best you'll be only using @ 70% of the total available.

50w for cpu, 45w for gpu and @ 50w for everything else.

The only possible issue I see is with the 12v rail, 13A is not a lot, that's only 156w, and that has to power the cpu, gpu, fans. Storage/usb is 5v and the motherboard is 3.3v, so they aren't an issue.

 

[Vozenger]

TDP is the max your pc will use, at very best you'll be only using @ 70% of the total available.

50w for cpu, 45w for gpu and @ 50w for everything else.

The only possible issue I see is with the 12v rail, 13A is not a lot, that's only 156w, and that has to power the cpu, gpu, fans. Storage/usb is 5v and the motherboard is 3.3v, so they aren't an issue.

If I read correctly, the 12v rail has a total output of 13A which is equivalent to 156w, I don't have any extra fans in my PC only the CPU one, the total TDP of the CPU+Fan+GPU is around 93 watts (at least that's what pcpartpicker says when I leave alone these 3 components) so then, is it fine? maybe?

 

[Karadjgne]

I won't answer with a definitive yes. For several reasons. Although Great Wall is an OEM, it's common to see OEM house brands at a low quality, HEC/Compucase is s perfect example. So that 13A may not be totally accurate and dependable, may only be that number at a tested 25°C and get less as the temp goes up. The unit might be such low quality, it may be what some refer to as a Firestarter, a unit so junky that it goes up in smoke when pushed somewhere just beyond 50% rated capacity.

The unit says certain things, but delivery can often show the lie, and pushing 100w on a 156w (supposed) rail might very well end up with your pc getting toasted.

On paper it should work with no issues. Reality might be something different. There are no guarantees either way, it might just be good. Totally unknown.

 

[Vozenger]

I won't answer with a definitive yes. For several reasons. Although Great Wall is an OEM, it's common to see OEM house brands at a low quality, HEC/Compucase is s perfect example. So that 13A may not be totally accurate and dependable, may only be that number at a tested 25°C and get less as the temp goes up. The unit might be such low quality, it may be what some refer to as a Firestarter, a unit so junky that it goes up in smoke when pushed somewhere just beyond 50% rated capacity.

The unit says certain things, but delivery can often show the lie, and pushing 100w on a 156w (supposed) rail might very well end up with your pc getting toasted.

On paper it should work with no issues. Reality might be something different. There are no guarantees either way, it might just be good. Totally unknown.

Welp, either way, I'll eventually get to know the truth, thanks for the information. I'll give some updates if I actually get the card.

 

[Karadjgne]

Good luck, hopefully it all works out.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I absolutely would not trust that unit, regardless that Great wall DOES have some decent platforms out there (Almost all of which are for units from other companies), this one looks to be truly less than mediocre, right down in the probably pretty crappy range.

For just the basic system hardware it's likely fine, but I wouldn't use it if you add ANY discreet graphics card, at all. I would be inclined to not even try it out to be honest. Too much chance of some random magic smoke.

 

[Vozenger]

I know that it could definitely harm my system, if money wasn't a problem I've seen some "I-don't-want-a-fire-hazard" 80+ bronze units for a reasonable price. I had other PSUs in my house (all generic tho) but they are all burnt from a weird acting wall connector in my house and a suspicious motherboard, one of them was actually 550w which would've been enough just so it doesn't shut down or magic smoke starts appearing (I did the math and it says 216w in the 12V rail), in any case, it is completely dead and it actually smells burnt.

One of my ideas was that: if I got the system to post, I would try to undervolt the 1030 (as crazy as it sounds for a 30w GPU) so I don't stress the 12V rail.

I just remembered that a couple of years ago I put in the system a very old Radeon X300 SE, it is from an old system that I had lying around, it is rated for 45W of total power consumption and back then the system just posted as nothing ever happened. Back then I had 6GB of RAM still @1333 MHz but I don't think 1 stick of RAM can make that much of a difference.

 

[Darkbreeze]

The rest of the system is literally almost irrelevant in terms of power consumption, on this system, with that PSU. It's only the graphics card that will be a concern and underclocking it won't make any difference because it is going to generally draw full power during the startup routine, much like a CPU does. It isn't until the Windows drivers kick in or the tweaking utility is loaded into memory that any underclock will come into play. In fact, overclocking and fan profiles, as well as any adjustments to the power envelope or other tweaked settings, are generally not going to take any effect until you reach the desktop. This is known since you have to enable such settings from these utilities to "load when Windows starts", meaning they can't generally have any effect on the hard coded settings for the card until Windows loads that utility.

Even so, that card probably doesn't pull enough to be a problem with a power supply that could supply 200w. The problem is, yours can't.

What country are you in? Maybe we can find you an inexpensive power supply that you actually CAN afford to throw in there, that is worth trying.

 

[Vozenger]

The rest of the system is literally almost irrelevant in terms of power consumption, on this system, with that PSU. It's only the graphics card that will be a concern and underclocking it won't make any difference because it is going to generally draw full power during the startup routine, much like a CPU does. It isn't until the Windows drivers kick in or the tweaking utility is loaded into memory that any underclock will come into play. In fact, overclocking and fan profiles, as well as any adjustments to the power envelope or other tweaked settings, are generally not going to take any effect until you reach the desktop. This is known since you have to enable such settings from these utilities to "load when Windows starts", meaning they can't generally have any effect on the hard coded settings for the card until Windows loads that utility.

Even so, that card probably doesn't pull enough to be a problem with a power supply that could supply 200w. The problem is, yours can't.

What country are you in? Maybe we can find you an inexpensive power supply that you actually CAN afford to throw in there, that is worth trying.

I didn't know many of the things you said, thanks for the information. I currently live in Venezuela, you can get deals on generic PSU's for around 17$ and an 80+/ 80+ bronze unit will start at around 50$+

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yes, that is a difficult region for trying to obtain decent quality power supplies.

 

[Vozenger]

https://imgur.com/a/DbXZanm

this is the most trustworthy unit I could find for under 100$, I found an EVGA one but it was ridiculously overpriced. The specs are the following:

AC Input	4.5A, 47-53Hz
DC Output	+3.3V@20A, +5V@20A, +12V@41A, -12V@0.4A, +5VSB@2.5A
Total Output Power	550W

 

[Darkbreeze]

Azza isn't one of those brands that I'd normally recommend or even give a pass, but they do have some decent, usually overpriced units in the past built by Super Flower and then some real turds built by Andyson. I have no idea who they are having build units for them now but I'd guess that it's a fairly low end OEM considering that unit can only do 492w (58w less than it's rated capacity) based on it's specifications label which is probably far from accurate.

In this case though, considering the very low power requirement I think it will be ok. I would not however buy this unit with the belief that later you can use it with a graphics card or system that needs a quality 550w unit because that simply won't happen. It is a unit that PROBABLY will be ok with the demands of the system you have now, and not a lot more really, regardless of what the label and specifications say.

So that's an option. A better option would probably be trying to find an Antec VP-VP450 with the red switch on the back for setting voltage to either 110 or 220, or the VP450P which has active power factor correction. Both of those units are generally fairly inexpensive and are good enough quality to handle most any low power system while also being fairly reliable as well.