Quick question how many watt power supply would be perfect for powering a GTX 970 2GB.

[Ultimate Ronin]

I'm looking to buy a Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 but I am wondering what power supply I should up grade to. I have a 400 watt right now.

 

[FreshPineApples]

A 550 watt psu would be good but it wont hurt to go higher in case of future upgrades check out this chart when picking a psu http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

 

[Blood Gulch]

There is no GTX 970 2GB, you're either talking about a GTX 960, which is 2GB, or you're talking about a 970 4GB. Either way, a 400 watt will do fine, though you should upgrade to a 500 watt just to be on the safe side.

 

[FreshPineApples]

Let's not confuse the guy by saying random numbers. Yes you can run it with a high quality 400 watt psu but I along with most people wont recommend it

 

[Blood Gulch]

Ok then yeah. Here's a tier list of PSUs. Tier 1 and 2 are the really high quality ones that would power a 970, but even so, you should still get a 500w to be safe. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html#15349669

 

[Bhuck]

get an 850 watt psu just incase u wanna sli in the future,get a gold certified psu

 

[Xtrem Ovrclakr]

Graphics card TDP is 145w and it needs minimum 500w Power Supply. And the main thing that we can't suggest a power supply without knowing the specifications. If he has FX 9590 which has TDP of 220w itself, then he will need at least 650w PSU. Without knowing the specifications, we can't suggest the minimum requirement of its PSU. And 400w will never power that GPU. Even if we get the lowest power consuming CPU and lesser peripherals the minimum power requirement will be around 340w and if we do some calculations, 80% of 400w is 320w. That PSU can offer maximum of 330w because no one has 100% efficiency. It goes to 84-85% at full load. So he needs at least 500w PSU but we still don't know, blwithout it's specs that how much power does that pc required.

 

[rhysiam]

Graphics card TDP is 145w and it needs minimum 500w Power Supply. And the main thing that we can't suggest a power supply without knowing the specifications. If he has FX 9590 which has TDP of 220w itself, then he will need at least 650w PSU. Without knowing the specifications, we can't suggest the minimum requirement of its PSU. And 400w will never power that GPU. Even if we get the lowest power consuming CPU and lesser peripherals the minimum power requirement will be around 340w and if we do some calculations, 80% of 400w is 320w. That PSU can offer maximum of 330w because no one has 100% efficiency. It goes to 84-85% at full load. So he needs at least 500w PSU but we still don't know, blwithout it's specs that how much power does that pc required.

With respect, I don't think you understand the efficiency metrics. A good quality 400W PSU will provide in the region of 400W on the 12V Rail. It will do that regardless of the efficiency. Efficiency effects what will be drawn from the wall, not the internal wattage. An 80 Plus Platinum PSU with 400W being drawn on the 12V Rail may draw 450W at the wall, with 50W wasted to heat. A very inefficient PSU may be drawing 500-550W at the wall, with 100-150W wasted to heat in the PSU itself, but both are still providing 400W on the 12V rail.

A 145W 970 + a 80W Intel CPU would actually, probably, be fine on a very good quality 400W unit. Intel burn test + furmark symultaneously might get 250-270W from CPU & GPU, leaving 100W for the rest of the system (more than enough in most cases!) to stay within spec. Any normal gaming/encoding load would likely be less.

As others have said though, a 970 + overclocked FX chip and you're in trouble.

Given OP has just laid out a solid chunk of cash for a good video card, spending a little extra on an XFX 550W or similar is a sensible option.

 

[Ultimate Ronin]

Graphics card TDP is 145w and it needs minimum 500w Power Supply. And the main thing that we can't suggest a power supply without knowing the specifications. If he has FX 9590 which has TDP of 220w itself, then he will need at least 650w PSU. Without knowing the specifications, we can't suggest the minimum requirement of its PSU. And 400w will never power that GPU. Even if we get the lowest power consuming CPU and lesser peripherals the minimum power requirement will be around 340w and if we do some calculations, 80% of 400w is 320w. That PSU can offer maximum of 330w because no one has 100% efficiency. It goes to 84-85% at full load. So he needs at least 500w PSU but we still don't know, blwithout it's specs that how much power does that pc required.

ok my specs are a AMD athlon x4 760k, 8 GB of RAM, 500 GB silver state drive. And my motherboard is a Asus A88XM-A

 

[TenacD]

That you have 400 watt doesn't say much. For example I bought my PSU when I knew nothing about them. It's theoretically 600 watt but it has two +12V rails with 18A each. So its 432 watt at maximum but the combined load is surely less than that so it could be something like 30A*12V=360W. And since most of the PC components use 12V rail u suddenly have a 360W advertised as 600W. Boom.

You need to pick something from this tier list:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html#15349669

Aim for tier one and two and more than 550w. I would recommend 650w just for your mind peace.