Is a 500W PSU good enough?

[everydaygamer]

So I'm considering upgrading from my RTX 2060 to the RTX 3070 but I'm concerned about whether or not a 500W PSU will be fine with that card. I have an i5-9600K CPU with no plans to overclock.

Should I be concerned about my current PSU or am I probably safe?

[Krimzin]

he official NVIDIA website states a 750W PSU is required for the RTX 3080 or 3090.

[phantomlink]

he official NVIDIA website states a 750W PSU is required for the RTX 3080 or 3090.

AMD recommends a 600w+ for the 5700xt, but I'm using a 550 just fine. Tech youtubers can get 550w to run a 2080ti system, I dont think 750 will be "required" for a 3000 series

[BeepBoo]

The 3070 is a pretty beefy card and nvidia recommends a 750w. I've run 500w with a 970 and a 3600k and didn't have any issues for that system's whole 5 year life (gpu was originally a 760) but I think it's pushing it with a 3070.

[Kagthul]

he official NVIDIA website states a 750W PSU is required for the RTX 3080 or 3090.

So.... the point of this post was?

Hes thinking of a 3070.

3070 is 220W TBP.

Unless the rest of the system draws 200W (seems unlikely), 500W will be fine, and leave plenty of overhead.

And, OP, you really should OC that 9600K. You're leaving tons of performance on the table. It should hit 5ghz no problemo. And probably at lower than stock voltages. My 8600K hits 5Ghz at 1.26v. the 9600k is literally the same chip.

[Shakadam]

What is the exact model of the PSU you have?

500W might be OK if it's a good quality PSU, but keep in mind that there are other things about a PSU that makes it good or bad than just the wattage.

Modern GPU's in particular tend to have rather high transient power peaks, which aren't always handled well by PSU's. That's why both AMD and Nvidia will recommend a PSU with much higher wattage than what is actually needed "on average". I.e. a 220W GPU could spike as high as ~400W for a few milliseconds when the load on the GPU changes which can result in crashes, reboots etc.

[Gamingsince1981]

Imo just get a psu higher than you need so if you upgrade things like the CPU you won't need to worry about it, I use a 650 w Silverstone with a 1660ti just incase I upgrade any time soonish.

[Krimzin]

Just make sure that whatever PSU you are going with has 3-6 Pin Connectors.
That is a requirement for the new cards.

[HypocR1sY]

personal opinion, don't use 500W PSU with 3070. i'm pretty sure you used that PSU for atleast one year or more. one thing about PSU is that power will degrade over time. in the end it will ruin your computer. i've been there and i've done that and i lost my main+rams+psu and VGA. take the safe bet and purchase a new PSU.

[Rustedsaint]

So.... the point of this post was?

Hes thinking of a 3070.

3070 is 220W

Unless the rest of the system draws 200W (seems unlikely), 500W will be fine, and leave plenty of overhead.

And, OP, you really should OC that 9600K. You're leaving tons of performance on the table. It should hit 5ghz no problemo. And probably at lower than stock voltages. My 8600K hits 5Ghz at 1.26v. the 9600k is literally the same chip.

From what I read online the 3070 is actually 250 watts and nividia recommends a 650 for it.
Personally I would upgrade to a 650 just incase

[everydaygamer]

So it looks like I should replace my PSU. This is a problem because I didn't build this PC so replacing the PSU might be more trouble than it's worth, maybe I should just wait for the 3060.

[DeltrusDisc]

he official NVIDIA website states a 750W PSU is required for the RTX 3080 or 3090.

The 3070 is a pretty beefy card and nvidia recommends a 750w. I've run 500w with a 970 and a 3600k and didn't have any issues for that system's whole 5 year life (gpu was originally a 760) but I think it's pushing it with a 3070.

Just make sure that whatever PSU you are going with has 3-6 Pin Connectors.
That is a requirement for the new cards.

Lots of misinformation/people not reading in this thread what the OP wants.

The OP clearly stated he is getting an RTX 3070. The 3070 is not the 3080 or 3090.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce...ries/rtx-3070/

NVidia clearly states this card requires a 650 watt power supply.

NVidia also clearly states on the full spec sheet that the card uses 1, yes ONE, 8 pin power connector. Which means:

A graphics card with one 8-pin power connector can get a maximum of 225W of power, 75W from PCI Express x16 slot and 150W from the 8-pin connector from the power supply.

Thanks to the following website for that information.

https://graphicscardhub.com/graphics...power%20supply.

@everydaygamer don't listen to these people when they don't even have the care to read your question nor double check their sources.

Your 500w is on the lower end, but if it is a quality PSU like a SeaSonic, it should be fine, but I would make an effort to replace it soon. Your total system load is very likely under 500w, unless you have like 10 hard drives and 15 fans in there, however, so don't freak out.

[Kagthul]

well a 9600K isn't exactly sucking down lots of juice, particularly if it isn't OCed.

The entire rest of the system is probably drawing ~125W or less. so even if you go balls-out and the GPU is drawing every bit of juice it can (225), you're still at 350W - plenty of headroom.

My rig is:

8600K @ 5.0Ghz (4.8 during the summer because no AC and tiny mITX case)
Z490 iTX motherobard (ASUS STRIX)
16GB of DDR-3200
1 1tb M.2 NVMe drive
1 1tb SATAIII SSD
GTX 1080Ti FTW3 (EVGA)
Coolermaster AIO for the CPU
3 fans + 3 Phanteks Halos rings
RGB strip

and the whole thing, under simultaneous stress loads (Furmark + Prime95) pulls ~425 at the wall.

The 3070 sucks less power than my 1080Ti, so you should be absolutely fine.

[Neuroticaine]

So it looks like I should replace my PSU. This is a problem because I didn't build this PC so replacing the PSU might be more trouble than it's worth, maybe I should just wait for the 3060.

Power supply honestly isn't too bad to switch out unless you've got some crazy cable management going on that would be a pain in the ass to undo (my case has a special shrouded channel for cable management that's such a tight fit it requires a second person to hold the shroud in place while another screws it down, lol). Especially if you get a modular power supply and use only what you need. Just make note of what your power supply is plugged into to help remember what to plug back in with a new one.

[StillMcfuu]

"Could" it work? Absolutely, you might be ok.

The new 3070 has a draw of 220w. Which is a fair amount. Nvidia suggests 650w. As it was stated, all PSU's are not created equal... safest bet is to grab a quality 650w psu and be safe with upgrades for multiple years to come.

[Kagthul]

"Could" it work? Absolutely, you might be ok.

The new 3070 has a draw of 220w. Which is a fair amount. Nvidia suggests 650w. As it was stated, all PSU's are not created equal... safest bet is to grab a quality 650w psu and be safe with upgrades for multiple years to come.

Nvidia suggests 650 because they assume you have a POS firecracker PSU. It's just to cover their ass. Like I showed above, even with a system - wide torture test (Prime 95 AND Furmark running balls out, a highly unrealistic situation IRL) doesn't even draw 500W from the wall. And my GPU is 280-300W TBP, not 220W. Unless his PSU is old (5+ years) or a total firecracker, hell be absolutely fine with 500W and doesn't need to waste money "upgrading". Even under torture test, he won't clear 400W at the wall, and those situations are not realistic gaming issues.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, to the op:

Undervolt, undervolt, undervolt.

My 1080Ti FTW3 was 1.15v stock (which is what i used to run the above test).

It was producing too much heat (not an issue with the card - i use a very small mITX case with constrained airflow, so its expected) so i experimented with undervolting. nVidia cards are usually quite good at it, at least from the 9-series onwards. I got my FTW3 down to .840v without a single hit to performance at all.

The 3070 will likely undervolt like a champ. Maybe not down to .8xx volts, but almost assuredly below 1v.

Same on your CPU. The 8600K i use (and the 9600K, which is literally the same silicon) ships at 1.35v. I got mine down to 1.25v stable with a 5Ghz Overclock. You could probably run that thing at 1.2v on stock settings if you dont intend to OC (but you should OC. You're leaving 700Mhz+ on the table by not OCing)