GTX 970 on 550W PSU

Meesared

Hey everyone! So I am currently thinking of getting a GTX 970 but im not sure about my PSU's capability for it, I have an OCZ ZS 550W. Does anyone have any advice or experience on running a big card like that on a similar GPU?

ShadowHearth

That psu should run it fine. 970 is a cracker of a card when it comes to power efficiency.

jaffusmax

Meesared wrote: »

Hey everyone! So I am currently thinking of getting a GTX 970 but im not sure about my PSU's capability for it, I have an OCZ ZS 550W. Does anyone have any advice or experience on running a big card like that on a similar GPU?

Min PSU for a 970 is 500W

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-970/specifications

TerrorFirmer

It's more than enough. A good 400w PSU would run a normal GTX970 or GTX980 system. They are very power efficient cards.

Luck100

For some 970's you will need to have two power connectors on your PSU. For example, the Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 970 needs an 8-pin and a 6-pin power connector.

TheDoc

Luck100 wrote: »

For some 970's you will need to have two power connectors on your PSU. For example, the Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 970 needs an 8-pin and a 6-pin power connector.

Didn't know this, and this was the model of card I'm planning on getting. Thanks for the heads up, will check my PSU connections when installing my other bits over the weekend

Meesared

TheDoc wrote: »

Didn't know this, and this was the model of card I'm planning on getting. Thanks for the heads up, will check my PSU connections when installing my other bits over the weekend

My PSU has a 6 pin and another 6 + 2 pin would that work ok?

jaffusmax

TerrorFirmer

It's very unusual for a 970 to need a 6 and 8 pin, which would go way, way beyond reference power consumption.

Most need either 2 6pins or a single 8pin (and have plenty of that power to spare).

Serephucus

The ones with the big ****-off coolers on them use 6+8 for some odd reason.

OP, your PSU will work 6+(6+2) is the same as 6+8.

TerrorFirmer

Just seems strange to me, the cards TDP is about 150w, so even if you were OC'ing it to death, between the lane and the 150w provided by 2 6 pin's, why would you need a 6 and 8 pin? That's the same as the R9 290...can see why that card would need it alright but the reference is way, way higher than the 970!

Luck100

Apparently the Gigabyte G1 card allows for 250w with the 100% power limit and 280w with the power limit set to 112%. That's out-of-the-box without any BIOS mods. Those numbers aren't publicized but they can be determined by reading the BIOS.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1516121/gtx-970-comparison-strix-vs-msi-gaming-vs-gigabyte-g1

TerrorFirmer

You'd want to be achieving some ridiculously monsterous overclocks!

Meesared

Luck100 wrote: »

Apparently the Gigabyte G1 card allows for 250w with the 100% power limit and 280w with the power limit set to 112%. That's out-of-the-box without any BIOS mods. Those numbers aren't publicized but they can be determined by reading the BIOS.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1516121/gtx-970-comparison-strix-vs-msi-gaming-vs-gigabyte-g1

Sorry if im sounding stupid, but what does that mean?

Serephucus

It just means the card won't be as limited by how much power it can draw if you're overclocking it. It probably won't make a huge amount of difference either way, unless you're going for record-breaking speeds or something.

Luck100

Serephucus wrote: »

It just means the card won't be as limited by how much power it can draw if you're overclocking it. It probably won't make a huge amount of difference either way, unless you're going for record-breaking speeds or something.

Even overclocked to 1550 MHz I'm only pulling 73% of the power limit (183 watts).