Minimum power required

Darber

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Dec 7, 2015
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Greetings,

I have a 400W power supply in my PC. I use a Q6600 quad core 2,4GHz intel processor,and an AMD 6450 graphics card and I plan to upgrade to AMD radeon 7850.

What is the minimum required power for my PC(Watt) to be able to play games (eg.:witcher 3) on?

Is my 400W power supply enough?

also I have 6GB ram
 
Solution


"white and black sockets" does not say much since there are many such sockets.

If you system is an OEM one from Dell, HP, etc.. it may have a custom connection to the power supply.

This is a standard one along with a couple of connections which you may or may not have for additional power.

ATX_Power_connectors_24pin_8pin_4pin_Motherboard.jpg


If you will be replacing the power supply, which I suggest, Antec, EVGA, Seasonic, Rosewill are all good brand overall, really anything from them will run a system, I...

chilly2468

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Oct 27, 2015
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You may be able to use a 400w psu but I am pretty sure your cutting it close. If you have a cheap unreliable psu than I wouldn't even attempt it as it could be a fire hazard. And if it does work I wouldn't try overclocking.
 
First, why a 7850? It's a 3 year old card now, although the chip has been re-used in other models. If it's used, make sure you test it, if it's new, make sure you compare prices to new cards.

The 7850 recommended power supply is a 500 watt one, a 400 is a bit too small, although it may work if it's a very good quality one. Only issue is that if it works, it may crash on you at times or in the future which is not good. I would not risk it. To pair with a Q6600 you can get a lower power and likely cheaper card anyway. An nVidia 75o Ti would be a good pick and very safe to run on a 400 watter. A Q6600 will have issues with Witcher 3 and games like that anyway with maintaining smooth play.
 

Darber

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Dec 7, 2015
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Just checked,both my CPU and radeon 7850 dont use more than 100+100W(non overclocked) considering all(keyboard,motherboard,ram,etc.)at best I use 300W with this setup. Moreover I will be removing my DVD drive. I am quite sure 400w should work. Why not?
 

chilly2468

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Low quality psu's often don't actually supply the power they say they do. Also when a psu fails it can take out other components or even start a fire. Your best bet is to just get a decent 500w psu that will last several builds.
 


Your power supply is very poor quality, I would not run a gaming class video card on it, even the 750 Ti.

You did not answer the question about the video card, why the 7850 and not a newer card?

You can't just count the total power use of the system and power supply, the video card draws power from a certain rail on the PSU, that is what needs to be able to supply good power to the card. Your power supply is a bad quality one and has a much better than average chance of not being able to run the card properly.

And yes you can ruin your video card/motherboard/cpu if the power supply is not stable.
 

Darber

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Dec 7, 2015
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If my motherboard has both white and black sockets it supports all power supplies? Also I buy a radeon 7850 because where I live it's much cheaper than your 750 Ti
 


"white and black sockets" does not say much since there are many such sockets.

If you system is an OEM one from Dell, HP, etc.. it may have a custom connection to the power supply.

This is a standard one along with a couple of connections which you may or may not have for additional power.

ATX_Power_connectors_24pin_8pin_4pin_Motherboard.jpg


If you will be replacing the power supply, which I suggest, Antec, EVGA, Seasonic, Rosewill are all good brand overall, really anything from them will run a system, I suggest at least a 450 watt one though for the 7850.
 
Solution

Darber

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Dec 7, 2015
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http://www.coolermaster.com/powersupply/b-series/b500/

imgur.com/2hhZt2S

could work? notice how one of the pins in the black socket is missing

motherboard model:p35-DS3L
 
The Gigabyte motherboard you have will work just fine with a standard power supply. The CoolerMaster PSUs are not very high quality in general, they are good, but vary model to model. I'd rank them B- for a brand. A lot better than your current power supply though so would be an improvement