Is my Alpine 700w PSU not able to power my R9 280x card?

[Dave Thompson]

Hello all,

I am 95% sure I need to get a new PSU, but just wanted confirmation and perhaps a recommendation.

My Radeon R9 270x died a few days ago, and I've just received a replacement second hand XFX R9 280x. Ran Furmark..... and instant shut down. It also did it after a few minutes of "Valley" on high settings (it looked like it was struggling a little).

This is why I feel almost certain it's my PSU:
My H81m DS2V mobo has an 8-pin socket for CPU (ATX 12v ?), but the PSU only supplies it with a 4-pin plug. There is also only 1 6-pin PCI plug for graphics, and the 3 molex plugs are all on the same line. I've used an adapter from 2 x molex to the extra 8-pin socket required on the card.
Also to mention, that since using my r9 270x over the past year, my external passport drive would often cut out when transferring files, yet didn't when the graphics card was unplugged. It's all leading me to believe the Furmark shutdown is due to lack of power, but before you call me an idiot, the PSU is "700w", and I was reading that even 600w PSU's can run these cards. However, the XFX website does recommend a 750w PSU. I would much rather the PSU was the culprit rather than my newly purchased 280x. I believe this is the PSU right here. https://microdream.co.uk/alpine-jsp-700p12n-700w-atx-psu-power-supply.html#product_tabs_additional_tabbed

The card was an unexpected cost, so now will be the PSU. I can see some PSU's on ebay for around £40 and appear to have all the appropriate connectors, but is there anything I should avoid? I have seen people saying the Alpine PSU's are rubbish, but it's served me quite well for the past 3.5 years.

Thanks for any suggestions and conclusions.

 

[madmatt30]

^ yes he can although its out of stock & considering his initial budget was £40 ive stuck as closely as possible.

There are a myriad of choices at a £60 , there is only one sensible one anywhere near £40

 

[jankerson]

^ yes he can although its out of stock & considering his initial budget was £40 ive stuck as closely as possible.

There are a myriad of choices at a £60 , there is only one sensible one anywhere near £40

Ah, just saw that. LOL

There is a big jump from junk to good ones over there....

I wouldn't touch anything in the £40 range or let any of them in the same room with any of my machines, but that's me.

 

[Dave Thompson]

[/quotemsg]

There are 2012 & 2016 variants of the vs series - the 2016 is unquestionably bettet but I still wouldnt buy it.

There are 2012 & 2016 variations of the corsair cx & 2012 & 2015 variations of the cxm.

The newer variations of the cx & cxm (which only come in 450/550/650w models) are good quality imo.

The psu I listed for £46 is both good enough quality & has more than enough power for your setup.

People will bleat about the low hold up time but it won't affect you in the slightest.

Youre in the uk , you won't be using a ups , secondary voltage filters or have terribly unstable mains power.

On a sub £50 budget there is currently no better psu on the market.

Corsair have given it a 5 year warranty for a reason.

madmatt30, I think I am going to go with your choice for me (CX550). £46 is a good price and should be enough for my set up then. Will it be OK for when I upgrade to an i5 or an i7 in the very near future? Perhaps a bit of OC'ing if I fancy trying it?
So if I had an i5 a little overclocked, and have the 280x a little overclocked, would it still supply enough power? Not that important really, as I'm not an overclocker, just inquiring.
Also, is that PSU going to be the same size as my Alpine 700w? I could look up the dimensions, but thought you might know.

I want to thank you all for your time and effort in replying to me, as I realise there is plenty of threads about this very issue, so thanks for being there to offer people fresh and personal advice

 

[Dave Thompson]

There is a big jump from junk to good ones over there....

There is a big jump from my allegedly junk Alpine 700w to the Corsair CX550 by the sounds of it!
I know Alpine are looked down upon, but my mum's pc (that she only uses for the internet and word processing) has a PSU that I replaced the fan in, but it's too loud. Would it be irresponsible to put my Alpine in her machine and make it a bit quieter for her? Mine has done quite well, so don't think it's just about catch fire or anything,

Learned a few things about PSU's today, thanks

 

[jankerson]

There is a big jump from junk to good ones over there....

There is a big jump from my allegedly junk Alpine 700w to the Corsair CX550 by the sounds of it!
I know Alpine are looked down upon, but my mum's pc (that she only uses for the internet and word processing) has a PSU that I replaced the fan in, but it's too loud. Would it be irresponsible to put my Alpine in her machine and make it a bit quieter for her? Mine has done quite well, so don't think it's just about catch fire or anything,

Learned a few things about PSU's today, thanks

Put that Alpine in the bin, that's were it needs to go.

Shouldn't go in anything that even looks like a computer.

You have been lucky so far with it, no need to push your luck anymore, junk it.

 

[DSzymborski]

There is a big jump from junk to good ones over there....

There is a big jump from my allegedly junk Alpine 700w to the Corsair CX550 by the sounds of it!
I know Alpine are looked down upon, but my mum's pc (that she only uses for the internet and word processing) has a PSU that I replaced the fan in, but it's too loud. Would it be irresponsible to put my Alpine in her machine and make it a bit quieter for her? Mine has done quite well, so don't think it's just about catch fire or anything,

Learned a few things about PSU's today, thanks

If you were my son and put an Alpine PSU in my rig, I'd change my will!

 

[Dave Thompson]

Just thought I'd update this thread.

After many hours of pondering and over-thinking, I decided to go for the TX650M. 550w just didn't sound enough when I considered this Alpine 700w is only outputting 450w, and I was having issues with a passport drive cutting out when the 270x was plugged in, Now I have a 280x, it requires 74w of extra power, so I reckoned 650w was the way to go. The CX650 was £65, and the CX650M was £70. Then I saw that the TX650M was also £70, so I snapped it up.

The unit will hopefully arrive by Friday, and I will return to conclude the shut-downs were PSU related.....or not! I really hope I will be happy.

 

[madmatt30]

^ the tx is a great unit.

The cx550 would have beennfine though mate in all honesty , I ran a pair of 280x crossfire on a decent 700w psu for 4 years.

 

[Dave Thompson]

^ the tx is a great unit.

The cx550 would have beennfine though mate in all honesty , I ran a pair of 280x crossfire on a decent 700w psu for 4 years.

Yes I am sure I would've been fine with the cx550, but my gut said "go for the next step up." Want to upgrade to an i5/i7 at some point, and there are some graphics cards out there that require more power than the 280x which I may end up getting in a couple of years. I just thought the 650 would give me a bit of headroom seeing as this unit should last some years, and it wasn't quite pandering to the XFX recommendation of a 750w. Middle of da road, and I was also reading too many negatives about the CX from them not working or developing coil-whining sounds, but that was probably the older CX versions. There are too many PSU's out there to choose from, but I will still defend my Alpine because it's done me well for 3.5 years of heavy use and hasn't "blown up" or given me a "fireworks show" or "broken out of the case and stabbed my family to death in the night!" Perhaps I have been lucky with it, but I won't like throwing away a working PSU in the bin.

 

[Dave Thompson]

^ the tx is a great unit.

The cx550 would have beennfine though mate in all honesty , I ran a pair of 280x crossfire on a decent 700w psu for 4 years.

Can you explain why people bother to cross-fire cards? I don't really understand. Why would you want all that extra heat in your case? Are mobos common with 2 PCI slots? Mine only has one. What games would benefit from cross-firing? Pretty sure with my 280x, and with an i5 or i7, I would get to play Doom on high settings, and that is a graphically demanding game right?

 

[jankerson]

^ the tx is a great unit.

The cx550 would have beennfine though mate in all honesty , I ran a pair of 280x crossfire on a decent 700w psu for 4 years.

Can you explain why people bother to cross-fire cards? I don't really understand. Why would you want all that extra heat in your case? Are mobos common with 2 PCI slots? Mine only has one. What games would benefit from cross-firing? Pretty sure with my 280x, and with an i5 or i7, I would get to play Doom on high settings, and that is a graphically demanding game right?

It used to be worth it when a lot of the games supported it, but that is less as time goes on.

Currently a Single GPU is the best solution overall.

 

[madmatt30]

^ the tx is a great unit.

The cx550 would have beennfine though mate in all honesty , I ran a pair of 280x crossfire on a decent 700w psu for 4 years.

Can you explain why people bother to cross-fire cards? I don't really understand. Why would you want all that extra heat in your case? Are mobos common with 2 PCI slots? Mine only has one. What games would benefit from cross-firing? Pretty sure with my 280x, and with an i5 or i7, I would get to play Doom on high settings, and that is a graphically demanding game right?

I got 2 x 280x cards for £80 each after the last bitcoin mining crash& already had the psu - thats pretty much the only reason I did it personally.

sold one of them this year for £120 & still own the other one so I got 3 years use & still made money out of it.

But yeah as Jankerson says ,waste of time nowadays, a single rx 580 or gtx 1060 performs about the same as a twin 2080x crossfire setup even in a best case scenario now & pulls less than half the power.

Back in the day though you got double the performance on Battlefied 3 & 4.

 

[Dave Thompson]

^ the tx is a great unit.

The cx550 would have beennfine though mate in all honesty , I ran a pair of 280x crossfire on a decent 700w psu for 4 years.

Can you explain why people bother to cross-fire cards? I don't really understand. Why would you want all that extra heat in your case? Are mobos common with 2 PCI slots? Mine only has one. What games would benefit from cross-firing? Pretty sure with my 280x, and with an i5 or i7, I would get to play Doom on high settings, and that is a graphically demanding game right?

I got 2 x 280x cards for £80 each after the last bitcoin mining crash& already had the psu - thats pretty much the only reason I did it personally.

sold one of them this year for £120 & still own the other one so I got 3 years use & still made money out of it.

But yeah as Jankerson says ,waste of time nowadays, a single rx 580 or gtx 1060 performs about the same as a twin 2080x crossfire setup even in a best case scenario now & pulls less than half the power.

Back in the day though you got double the performance on Battlefied 3 & 4.

Yeah, I noticed some of those RX cards use much less wattage, which is bizarre, but not if you know about electronics I suppose. I can see why you were saying the 550w was OK. So I guess the PCI connectors present on current PSU's are good for quite a while, as in no extra pins needed on upgrades. The XFX 280x cards seem to be going for about 100-130 at the moment. Got mine for £110 inc postage. If it behaves itself with this new TX PSU, I think I did OK. Stressful when your computer is broken!

 

[Dave Thompson]

Hi guys,

This post should be concluding the story, but sadly not. I ordered the TX650 3am Tuesday morning, and it got to Friday and there was still no dispatch. I contacted them about it, and I was told to contact them again if no dispatched email was received after 48 hours. Well, still no dispatch. I don't remember having a problem with Amazon free delivery before.

I really don't know when it will be arriving at this point, and it's driving me mad because I still don't know the 280x I got from ebay is perfect, or a tad faulty, and won't know until I get the damn PSU.
Yes, I know I should not be using the card with the Alpine PSU, but I am :-/
The shutdowns I was having from furmark and intense games that stopped happening when underclocking the card, to me, was good confirmation the PSU was to blame, but I do have graphics issues too. Assassins creed rogue and Shadow or mordor both seem to have very slight issues with shadows and texture/shade flickering/swiping, which seem to be remedied when I disable Ambient Occlusion, and even then I still feel they don't visually perform as well as my previous 270x. However, it is only happening with those two games (same graphics engine I believe). Alien Isolation, Sonic allstar racing, Portal 2 all perform very well. Even B.M. Arkham city still looks wonderful on very high settings. Just wanted to ask you guys what you think. You'll probably tell me "maybe....maybe not" and just to wait for the PSU to arrive. I "should" receive the PSU on Tuesday, and am dreading installing it and then hesitantly running furmark. A time for joy or sorrow....What would you be speculating in my shoes?

 

[Dave Thompson]

HI,

Just wanted to wrap up this thread. The PSU arrived yesterday and it solved the issue. Ran Furmark and it coped with it. I went with the Corsair TX650M (got it for £70), but I am sure the CX would've been OK too. It's nice and quiet!

Thanks to all those who replied with advice, and I picked the solution with the most information about the Alpine.

Cheers