430W PSU and 9800 GTX

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mrbiggl3s

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I have a 430 W Rosewill PSU and I recently acquired a Nvidia 9800 GTX. The card specs require a 450W PSU. I only have one HD, one DVD-RW, and an E8500 (no OC'ing).

Do I need to get a new power supply? And if I don't, what might happen?
 
Honestly, it depends on the quality of the Rosewill, which is usually low. If it was a high quality psu, you'd be fine. If it is not, you may have problems. What's the 12V rail rated at? My guess would be that your system is pulling somewhere around 300W, so how well it will work will depend on how the rails are laid out.
 
Desdichado said:
Honestly, it depends on the quality of the Rosewill, which is usually low. If it was a high quality psu, you'd be fine. If it is not, you may have problems. What's the 12V rail rated at? My guess would be that your system is pulling somewhere around 300W, so how well it will work will depend on how the rails are laid out.
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does the Energy Efficiency label have anything to do with his power supply in this case?
That is.. if his current psu in case is or isnt 80 PLUS Certified / >80% effecient?
 
The energy efficiency relates to what percentage of the power coming from the wall is actually used to power stuff in the computer. What he is looking for is the large sticker on the side of most PSUs that says how many watts are available on each voltage rail. iirc, the power draw for a 9800 GTX is about 160W and most of that is on the 12V rail, which is 13.3A. Based on that, I wouldn't be comfortable running his system on a PSU with less than 20A on the 12V rail, and more would be better.

I guess my original estimate was high. Here's a link showing load power consumption of a system similar to his at about 230W. http://www.overclock.net/hardware-news/300236-expreview-9800-gtx-power-consumption.html
 
mrbiggl3s said:
Do I need to get a new power supply? And if I don't, what might happen?
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Which Rosewill 430W PSU do you have? Rosewill's PSU quality range from crap all the way to decent depending on the model.

If you don't replace and if that Rosewill PSU is crap, one of several things will happen
A) The PSU will die under the strain
B) The PSU might take out the rest of your system if it dies
C) The PSU will slowly kill your system over time as it is taken past its limits
D) All of the above.
 
mrbiggl3s said:
Thanks for the quick response. I have the RG430-2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182159).

From what I can see the combined 12V rail output is 33 amps. Individually I think they are rated at 20 amps. Is that OK?

I don't care to much about killing my PSU (seeing as though I have to buy a new one anyways) but I definitely don't want to damage the board or video card.
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The combined 12V rail is 31A, not 33A. The UL number lists Magnell as the OEM of that PSU. I have never heard of that company and a search here on the forums as well as over at Jonnyguru.com turned up nothing either.

So considering that the OEM is an unknown, the quality of that PSU is very very suspicious. No confirmation, either direct or indirect, that the PSU is actually capable of providing 31A on the +12V rail cleanly, reliably and safely. Considering Rosewill's track record, I do not recommend using that PSU. Too many unknowns and too many risks.
 
if you want a high quality PSU on the cheap, check out Antec's Earthwatt series. They tend to go on sale a lot (at least once a month) at newegg.

Bad power can cause full system failures so Power supplies should not be neglected.
 
Xclio is another decent company that I have found to produce reasonably priced, high quality psus.

Even though yours is theoretically rated at high enough handle your system, low quality psus often exagerate their specified amperage so as to gain a higher wattage rating. Therefore, while yours says it can handle 31A, there is a good chance that it would blow if you actually tried to pull 31A on it. High quality psus on the other hand are capable of providing their full rated amperage for extended periods of time.
 
Desdichado said:
The energy efficiency relates to what percentage of the power coming from the wall is actually used to power stuff in the computer. What he is looking for is the large sticker on the side of most PSUs that says how many watts are available on each voltage rail. iirc, the power draw for a 9800 GTX is about 160W and most of that is on the 12V rail, which is 13.3A. Based on that, I wouldn't be comfortable running his system on a PSU with less than 20A on the 12V rail, and more would be better.

I guess my original estimate was high. Here's a link showing load power consumption of a system similar to his at about 230W. http://www.overclock.net/hardware-news/300236-expreview-9800-gtx-power-consumption.html
Click to expand...

I have a question.

when u mention that the power draw is 160W for the 9800GTX, is that just the card? or the whole system plus the card?
 
blue-lynx said:
I have a question.

when u mention that the power draw is 160W for the 9800GTX, is that just the card? or the whole system plus the card?
Click to expand...

He's referring to just the card itself, not the entire system. 160W seems a bit of a high estimate for a 9800GTX though.
 
Zero82z said:
He's referring to just the card itself, not the entire system. 160W seems a bit of a high estimate for a 9800GTX though.
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"The GeForce 9800 GTX GPU itself is manufactured on a 65nm process and contains 754 million transistors, making it actually more complex than the G80. The video card as a whole is also rated at 156 watts TDP, which is 29 watts less than the GeForce 8800 GTX video card which weighs in at 185 watts."

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ4MSwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

That's where I was getting that.
 
Danny Bui said:
The combined 12V rail is 31A, not 33A. The UL number lists Magnell as the OEM of that PSU. I have never heard of that company and a search here on the forums as well as over at Jonnyguru.com turned up nothing either.

So considering that the OEM is an unknown, the quality of that PSU is very very suspicious. No confirmation, either direct or indirect, that the PSU is actually capable of providing 31A on the +12V rail cleanly, reliably and safely. Considering Rosewill's track record, I do not recommend using that PSU. Too many unknowns and too many risks.
Click to expand...

I just saw this and looked into it. Magnell Associate Inc is listed as being part of ABS/Newegg. http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_j52n4p
 
Zero82z said:
He's referring to just the card itself, not the entire system. 160W seems a bit of a high estimate for a 9800GTX though.
Click to expand...

Desdichado said:
"The GeForce 9800 GTX GPU itself is manufactured on a 65nm process and contains 754 million transistors, making it actually more complex than the G80. The video card as a whole is also rated at 156 watts TDP, which is 29 watts less than the GeForce 8800 GTX video card which weighs in at 185 watts."

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ4MSwsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

That's where I was getting that.
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yes the tdp for the 9800gtx is 160 watts but Nvidia cards usually get no where near as high as their tdp rating.
 
Try it. If your fine, then no harm. If your computer starts to reboot randomly, grab a better PSU like the VX 450 Corsair unit.;)
 
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