PSU requirement for PowerColor R9 280x

[koushick92]

Hi all,

I want to upgrade my AMD 7870 without having to buy a new psu. I want to purchase the PowerColor R9 280x over the Sapphire/XFX cards as those surprisingly require a much larger power supply (around 750w +). From what I understand, the PowerCOlor does not require that much power, but I still don't know the official psu requiremnt even after going on their website.

My spec:
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache Hard Drive
8GB (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
AMD HD 7870 2048MB GDDR5 Graphics Card
Intel i5 4670k
ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 LGA1150
EVGA 600W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0600-KR)

Does anyone know the official psu requirement?

 

[Suztera]

A decent 550W psu will be fine.
EVGA 600W is ok to use with a R9 280X.
The "recommended" watts is for low end psu.
A R9 280X can require an average 240 Watts

 

[koushick92]

A decent 550W psu will be fine.
EVGA 600W is ok to use with a R9 280X.
The "recommended" watts is for low end psu.
A R9 280X can require an average 240 Watts

I'm a bit confused, why does it say for the Sapphire and XFX versions of the 280x that I need 750w minimum then if all i need is 550w?

 

[Suztera]

A decent 550W psu will be fine.
EVGA 600W is ok to use with a R9 280X.
The "recommended" watts is for low end psu.
A R9 280X can require an average 240 Watts

I'm a bit confused, why does it say for the Sapphire and XFX versions of the 280x that I need 750w minimum then if all i need is 550w?

750W is for crappy quality psu. I would avoid them. A decent 550W psu will be fine as it is capable sustainable near 550W on the 12V rails which is the most important.

 

[koushick92]

A decent 550W psu will be fine.
EVGA 600W is ok to use with a R9 280X.
The "recommended" watts is for low end psu.
A R9 280X can require an average 240 Watts

I'm a bit confused, why does it say for the Sapphire and XFX versions of the 280x that I need 750w minimum then if all i need is 550w?

750W is for crappy quality psu. I would avoid them. A decent 550W psu will be fine as it is capable sustainable near 550W on the 12V rails which is the most important.

Hmmm, so higher watts entail bad quality PSUs? I'm not sure what rails my evga 600w psu has, is it really ok to keep using this for sapphire r9 280x dual x?

 

[Suztera]

A decent 550W psu will be fine.
EVGA 600W is ok to use with a R9 280X.
The "recommended" watts is for low end psu.
A R9 280X can require an average 240 Watts

I'm a bit confused, why does it say for the Sapphire and XFX versions of the 280x that I need 750w minimum then if all i need is 550w?

750W is for crappy quality psu. I would avoid them. A decent 550W psu will be fine as it is capable sustainable near 550W on the 12V rails which is the most important.

Hmmm, so higher watts entail bad quality PSUs? I'm not sure what rails my evga 600w psu has, is it really ok to keep using this for sapphire r9 280x dual x?

EVGA 600B has 49 Amps on the 12V rails equalling to 588 Watts usable. This is enough for a R9 280X build.
A bad quality psu will state it is a "750"W psu but on the 12V rails it will only offer maybe 400-500 Watts on the 12V rails.

 

[koushick92]

Thank you for your input. But isn't there a risk that I will be drawing too much power over the 12V rails (more than it could handle) and thus damage the power supply. I mean from what I head about the sapphire 280x, it's is very power hungry especially since it is factory overclocked.

Sorry, im not very literate when it comes to power supplies.

 

[Suztera]

Thank you for your input. But isn't there a risk that I will be drawing too much power over the 12V rails (more than it could handle) and thus damage the power supply. I mean from what I head about the sapphire 280x, it's is very power hungry especially since it is factory overclocked.

Sorry, im not very literate when it comes to power supplies.

No. The psu will handle a R9 280X with other components as well. It only consume average 240W. Overlocked is roughly 260 Watts or so. You won't draw over 588 watts with a single R9 280X.