[SOLVED] Do I need to upgrade my PSU for the RTX 3080?

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LrsLex

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Nov 17, 2016
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Hi y'all!

I've bought a Fractal Design Edison M 650W PSU (80 Plus Gold) just a couple of months ago. Here's my current setup:

Ryzen 5 3600
Asus Prime B350 Plus
2 x 8 GB Corsair DDR4 @ 3000 MHz
RTX 2070
Plus all the standard stuff, SSDs, HDD...

Now, the RTX 3080 is recommended to run on a PSU of 750 W minimum. nVidia reports its power draw to be 320 Watts.

PSU Calculator gives my system a power draw of 542 W (with the 3080) at 100 % power draw on everything and recommends a 650 W option.

I'm just wondering why the recommendation is 750 W when even at full load (on an average system like mine) the draw won't even go close to 650 W.

I'm considering buying the 3080, but if my current PSU isn't enough, the price just goes over my pain threshold. In that case I'll probably ride my 2070 for another year.

Thanks for your input!
 
Solution
It will be just fine. This is a decent PSU and you will even have some headroom left. And that is only provided you run your rig at 100% GPU and 100% CPU usage at the same time, all the time. Which you never will.
NVidia do not say 750w is the minimum, this is a misquote that I’ve seen a few times. That is what they recommend when running a 10900k, read the small print. They actually say smaller ratings may be an option on lower power setups or something to that effect.

GPU = 400w
CPU = 120w
Rest of system = 50w

These are my rough cautious estimates so your psu calculator figure seems reasonable. With that setup you should have >20% headroom and the psu is decent quality. I’d say it’s alright.
 
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Wolfshadw

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NVidia Geforce RTX 3080

If you note the specifications, it states:

Required System Power (W) (2)750

The (2) at the end is a footnote indicator. The footnote reads:

2 - Requirement is made based on PC configured with an Intel Core i9-10900K processor. A lower power rating may work depending on system configuration.

Note: The above specifications represent this GPU as incorporated into NVIDIA's reference graphics card design. Clock specifications apply while gaming with medium to full GPU utilization. Graphics card specifications may vary by add-in-card manufacturer. Please refer to the add-in-card manufacturers' website for actual shipping specifications

You should be fine with your current power supply.

-Wolf sends
 
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