Bought pre-built PC, worried about PSU?

[Grawlixz]

I bought the following pre-built PC from HP through slickdeals (expired now). The price was just too good to pass up, since after rebate it'll end up being about $1,050. I'll probably end up getting the 3-year extended warranty, since it only comes with a baseline 1 year warranty. Also will have to get rid of all the bloatware (thanks HP), but for these parts and at this price, I don't mind.

I'm just worried about the PSU, mainly. Is it enough power? I don't plan on overclocking, but the comments on the site seem undecided, and I figured you guys would have a better idea.



HP ENVY 750xt Desktop PC
Product number: N0X13AV#ABA

•No Secondary HDD
•Microsoft Office Trial
•No Additional Security Software
•Home and Home Office Insert
•HP USB volume control Keyboard and USB Optical Mouse
•12GB DDR3-1600 DIMM (1x8GB+1x4GB) RAM
•7-in-1 Media Card Reader, 4 USB Ports (Top), Audio [Top 2USB2.0, 2USB3.0]
•Integrated Sound
•2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6G Hard Drive
•SuperMulti DVD Burner
•HP Wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 1x1 with Bluetooth M.2 NIC
•500W Power supply
•4th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K processor quad-core [4.0GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
•Windows 10 Home 64-bit OS
•6GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 980Ti [DL DVI-I, HDMI, DP, DP, DP]

 

[Jonathan Cave]

The system will be very fast and play every game on the market.

It does lack a 'SSD' and i'd reccomend you buy a 120GB for your C:\ just for windows and frequently accessed programes such as your web browser, however this would need some tinkering as HP will have a 'partition' for your OEM system restore should your PC need resetting.

In terms of overclocking you would first need an aftermarket HSF, so good decision not to, however you did buy a 'k' cpu and it would be a shame not to harness the extra speed for the sake of $30 and some time invested on these forums learning how to do it (its pretty easy )

What make / model is your PSU ? its likely to be rubbish to be frank, but report back and we'll take a look.

personally I wouldnt bother with the 3 year warranty - but thats personal choice.

 

[Karadjgne]

OEM gpus are usually a 'lite' version and have certain elements like bandwidth or buss lanes cut down due to failures or design. It'll still register as a 980ti, but generally perform like a high OC 980. Consequently, it also usually requires less power.

Unless specified in build, Chances are good that even though you have a 4970k, unlocked cpu, what you have for a motherboard is a B or H rated board, not a Z, so overclocking will not be possible.

IF you do happen to have a full blown, honest gtx980ti, and not a cut down LE, and IF you do have a fully capable Z rated, overclockable motherboard, I'd replace the psu before pushing it hard with any high cph/gpu usage. Most 3rd party OEM psus are ok for everyday usage, but a gaming rig really needs a better grade of psu, designed for the abuse a high power gpu/cpu can dish out.

For your system at stock ability, I'd be looking at a quality, Haswell certified, 550w psu. If by slim chance you are able to OC, I'd bump that to a 650w. Anything less and you risk damaging parts with under current draws.

 

[Grawlixz]

This is the motherboard: http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-ENVY-750-Desktop-PC-series/7779687/model/7805185/document/c04525350/?sdtid=8256759?jumpid=ba_r329_hhoaffiliate&aid=38293&pbid=lw9MynSeamY&aoid=35252&siteid=lw9MynSeamY-xnELipRGeiHZFNa77mVMoA

Don't have info on the power supply yet, as the unit won't be shipped until ~ Dec. 10ish.


Only reason I'm considering a warranty is because if I was to build my own PC, each part would have a ~3 year warranty or so, and I'm not sure if these parts are going to be as high-quality in the first place.

 

[timeconsumer]

That's a Z97 motherboard. But it depends if HPs BIOS even has overclocking options in it (probably not). Even if it does I wouldn't expect much, a 4-pin CPU power connector and one tiny heatsink for the chipset doesn't bode well for stable OCs. Agree with the above on PSUs. What's with the 8gb+4gb memory? That's weird.

 

[Grawlixz]

Yeah the memory is weird, didn't want to pay $60 more for 4gb more memory though, since I could get 2 new sticks for that.

 

[timeconsumer]

Yeah the memory is weird, didn't want to pay $60 more for 4gb more memory though, since I could get 2 new sticks for that.

I don't blame you. It will still be a solid performing system, even with stock CPU clocks and mismatched memory. But check out that PSU so you don't end up burning the GPU.

 

[mf2780]

Only reason I'm considering a warranty is because if I was to build my own PC, each part would have a ~3 year warranty or so, and I'm not sure if these parts are going to be as high-quality in the first place.

I would worry about replacing any of the main hardware like PSU if you plan on getting the extended warranty. It will be very easy for them not to honor the warranty if they can link it back to a device you had installed yourself.

That being said IMO the only reason to buy a Prebuilt system is for the warranty. I would keep the current hardware and just use the warranty if it does fail.

Call HP and try to talk the sales rep into giving you a discount on the warranty. It is possible to get a great deal on it. There are also other companies that does warranties that may be cheaper/better on the prebuilt if you shop around. Some may even have a local place to take it for repairs.

 

[Karadjgne]

With a 4Ghz cpu, that's 1-2 core capable with turbo of 4.4GHz you honestly don't need to OC. While that is a Z97, as said, it's on the very lowest end of ability, barely strong enough to handle the turbo settings of your cpu. Even with a good cpu cooler, going any higher than turbo would be mobo suicide, there's no heatsinks on the voltage regulatory circuitry surrounding the socket and will fry that mobo at anything higher than the stock settings.

 

[Grawlixz]

I would worry about replacing any of the main hardware like PSU if you plan on getting the extended warranty. It will be very easy for them not to honor the warranty if they can link it back to a device you had installed yourself.

That being said IMO the only reason to buy a Prebuilt system is for the warranty. I would keep the current hardware and just use the warranty if it does fail.

Call HP and try to talk the sales rep into giving you a discount on the warranty. It is possible to get a great deal on it. There are also other companies that does warranties that may be cheaper/better on the prebuilt if you shop around. Some may even have a local place to take it for repairs.

Yeah, this was my initial idea. I guess I'll see how the PC runs and just look into replacing parts (and overclocking, perhaps, if I replace the MOBO) in a few years, after the warranty is over.

 

[Grawlixz]

OEM gpus are usually a 'lite' version and have certain elements like bandwidth or buss lanes cut down due to failures or design. It'll still register as a 980ti, but generally perform like a high OC 980. Consequently, it also usually requires less power.

Unless specified in build, Chances are good that even though you have a 4970k, unlocked cpu, what you have for a motherboard is a B or H rated board, not a Z, so overclocking will not be possible.

IF you do happen to have a full blown, honest gtx980ti, and not a cut down LE, and IF you do have a fully capable Z rated, overclockable motherboard, I'd replace the psu before pushing it hard with any high cph/gpu usage. Most 3rd party OEM psus are ok for everyday usage, but a gaming rig really needs a better grade of psu, designed for the abuse a high power gpu/cpu can dish out.

For your system at stock ability, I'd be looking at a quality, Haswell certified, 550w psu. If by slim chance you are able to OC, I'd bump that to a 650w. Anything less and you risk damaging parts with under current draws.

Is there a way to know for sure what the quality of the GPU is? I've heard that OEM gpus often pack a little less heat, but I don't know how to check.

 

[Karadjgne]

HP is a huge 3rd party OEM, and uses various OEM suppliers, so your actual psu could come from anyone from Delta (really good psu) to FSP (mediocre) to logisys (pray you get lucky and not have this). The only way you'll know is a visual identification and Google the serial number. If that doesn't pan out, jump over to the psu tier list, and hit a post there, there's a couple guys there who know more about psus than is considered healthy, heh. Someone will find that psu OEM, but honestly, they'll tell you it's really pushing it at 500w and recommend you replace it. The psu is the most important component of any psu, its directly tied and responsible for everything else. Having that 3 yr warranty is fine, but a good quality psu will have a 5,7 or even 10 year warranty and have enough protection circuits that damages to other components are almost unheard of. A good 650w psu won't damage the mobo, cpu, gpu through underpowered over current.

 

[Grawlixz]

So I found Power Supply - IPS,ATX,Picolit,500W,EStarBronze,5Vsb/4A using the Parts Number (746177-002) from the image here: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware/HP-ENVY-750xt-Desktop-PC-500-W-PSU-isn-t-enough/m-p/5395409/highlight/true#M106865

The unit this person received was a Delta unit rated for 500W max. I'm assuming that I'm probably going to get the same unit in mine, since we both ordered the same PC. I take it that this is probably an ATX form power supply, then? Should I still be aiming for a 650W PSU?

https://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=06G-P4-4991-RX says the card requires 250w of power but recommends 600W minimum, so I'm not sure if I even need to replace the PSU? I intend to use the computer mainly for gaming (no overclocking, though).

 

[Karadjgne]

Manufacturers go by the Cover-Your-Ash standard. Because that 600w recommendation is a blanket statement, its not specific to any certain psu. Psu's are quite varied in power output and quality in any size, you can have an excellent 550w that outputs tons of power at 50°C and 100% load and still maintain its Gold efficiency rating, or have a 550w pos that burns out at 20°C and 75% load, never reaching 100% load. So, CYA and recommend big, that way if the gpu does overload the psu, its not Evga's fault, they recommended 600w, HP opted for 500w. Bye bye Evga warranty on anything other than the card itself.

An average system is cpu (100w for ease of math), motherboard, drives, ram etc (100w for ease of math) 75w for pcie slot and gpu (75w for 6pin,150w for 8pin). The reference 980ti uses 1x6pin and 1x8pin, so 225w max draw. Total for your build, maxed out everything running would be somewhere around 500w. But thats 100% load on everything at once, which never happens, most of the time you'll be in the 2-300w range, some heavy gaming /rendering reaching 400w or slightly more.

Just looked at the picture of that Delta unit, and it's decent, but a quad rail unit with such low amperage rails is a little worrisome, even if they are tied at a single output. Since power will be pulled evenly, you are basically limited by the lowest amperage rail, it'll trip protections first, so realistically that's a 32-34ish 12v amp unit or somewhere around 400w on 12v rail. For comparison, my Seasonic 520w outputs over 450w, so that Delta isn't too shabby, but it could be better.

Personally, its a judgement call, try it, it may work good, but it won't be hard to push the limits of that psu.

 

[Grawlixz]

Thanks for getting back to me. I guess I'll just go ahead and try it out!

I'll probably just hit up the extended warranty and upgrade the PSU after it ends (or if I start noticing some problems that could be related to the PSU)! Again, thanks for all the help.