Corsair 520W enough for GTX460?

[CERO]

Hi there,

I want to do a minor upgrade ( Graphic card), for my Q6600 4GB 27 inch screen ( 1920x1200) setup. My current Graphic card a 8800GTS 640, cant play smooth on 1920x1200 in Starcraft II. So I thought about the GTX460 1GB. Would my Corsair 520W runs fine with the new card? I got 3 HDDs and 1 SSD connected aswell. I know it will be tight or no go. I thought about leaving the cpu on stock speed 2.4ghz.

[Ket]

It says 620w in your sig. Which is it

[CERO]

It says 620w in your sig. Which is it

Ah yea, it is 520W, I got 2 setups. The other one contains a 650W, yea mine 620W burned done, because the 620W was discontinued Corsair send me a 650W, great service

[Ket]

Ok, in that case its down to how many amps is on your 12v rail. I doubt its going to be less than 40amps, you should be fine. Check the sticker on your PSU and it will tell you how many amps your 12v rail has.

[CERO]

Hey ket thnx for your reply. The 520W was one of corsairs first models, it is however Multi rail if I am correct, 3 x 12v 18A each

[Ket]

Yeah you should be ok, just make sure only the GTX460 is on at least one of those rails

[Frag Maniac]

If you mean the Corsair HX520 it's plenty for one 460 at a combined 12v amperage of 40A. you only need 24A for one. It might even run two, but I'd go more wattage for that, at least 700.

HX520W ~40A

Source: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=205763

[CERO]

Yeah you should be ok, just make sure only the GTX460 is on at least one of those rails

how to find out on which rail it is on?

@ Frag

Yea its the HX520, the thing is would I have room for Overclocking the card, and maybe for the CPU aswell, lets say 3.6ghz ?

And is the GTX460 actually considered as a good choice ( GTX465/470)? Or is a equivalent from ATI a better choice? I havent been really up to date for the past 2 years.

[Ket]

Little tricky without the right tools. Just free one 12v rail up, any one will do, and use it exclusively for the 460, less load balancing will happen them so shouldnt stress the PSU as much.

[CERO]

Little tricky without the right tools. Just free one 12v rail up, any one will do, and use it exclusively for the 460, less load balancing will happen them so shouldnt stress the PSU as much.

I am not so Into Tech, but according to these pictures there is already 1 12V rail dedicated to Each PCI-E slot?

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...=Story&reid=18

[Ket]

Ok, to simplify things, for at least one of the cables that have the PCI-E connection on, make sure nothing else is connected on that wire except the 460 and you will be fine

[CERO]

yea I understand, but will I got headroom to O/c the card, and the CPU?

Another note, woudnt it be pointless for me to upgrade? Since the Q6600 seems really to bottleneck these cards in Starcraft II ? http://www.techspot.com/review/305-s...ce/page13.html

[Ket]

You will have enough room in your PSU to keep your system OC'd, probably not enough to OC the 460 as well though. Typically, any CPU will bottleneck a sufficiently powerful GPU, but that bottleneck disappears with the magic of OCing

[prava]

Hey ket thnx for your reply. The 520W was one of corsairs first models, it is however Multi rail if I am correct, 3 x 12v 18A each

Its a single rail unit, so you don't need to worry at all.

[Ket]

No, its not. Look at the jhonnyguru link. Its 3x 12v rails @ 18A each.

[CERO]

Hmm I see..... I wonder if I could better spare some more money and upgrade to either i5 and i7 and buy another PSU aswell, at my current state I could only afford a graphic card.

[Ket]

You don't need i5 or i7. Clock for clock theres only a 15% difference at best. Grab a good 750w PSU as well as the 460 if you can, OC the entire system and you won't have any bottlenecks.

[prava]

No, its not. Look at the jhonnyguru link. Its 3x 12v rails @ 18A each.

You are wrong. Although every single sticky they have (both HX620 and HX520) talks about triple rails they are both single rail units. That is confirmed by Corsair stuff on a well known forum (gonna try to find a link).

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...su-review.html (comment #7).

There are plenty of other comments including one from the Corsair forum but, somehow, my IP is banned from there (and I wonder why because I don't think I have ever visited it...).

http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?p=330541

[Ket]

I question that. You forget companies often send out engineering samples that do not represent the final product. Without asking CERO to open up his PSU and look for OCP its safe to say the sticker is probably right

[CERO]

Hmm, I got another option.... My other rig contains a E8400 @ 4.3 ghz / a watercooling setup ( pump), 1 HDD, and a 8800GTS 512MB ( O/ced), powered by a HX650W, this is my primary setup, however just a 19inch monitor is used. Since I play most games 1280-1600 resolution the card is doing fine there.
So I wonder would the HX 520W hold this O/ced system, if it does I can move the HX650W to the Q6600 setup pairing the GTX460

[Frag Maniac]

The HX520 is easily enough to run the 460 with the GPU and the CPU OCed. A better setup if you don't mind having just one solid gaming rig would be using the HX650 and running the 460 as the main GPU and the 8800GTS as a PhysX card, sell the rest, then use it toward a 470 to replace the 460.

[prava]

I question that. You forget companies often send out engineering samples that do not represent the final product. Without asking CERO to open up his PSU and look for OCP its safe to say the sticker is probably right

No, its not. You see, the HX520 and HX620 products were in development when they were going to forbid the use of single-rail units as per standard. So, as that standard was finally not aproved but Corsair had all their boxes already done, they simply did not put an OCP per rail so its indeed a single rail unit. The unit SKYMTL tested confirms this (he even mentions it in his review) and its also confirmed by Corsair staff.

EDIT: comment by Jonnyguru on his own forum:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/show...16&postcount=7

[jonnyGURU]

The HX520 and HX620 are actually single +12V rail units. This was done by Seasonic without Corsair's knowledge.

For the record... It wouldn't matter either way. Any modern PSU, even with multiple +12V rails, would make sure you have ample overhead for the PCIe connectors. They either limit two PCIe connectors to a +12V rail or they'll crank the OCP way up high to accommodate more connectors. Non-issue.

[Ket]

Hmm, I got another option.... My other rig contains a E8400 @ 4.3 ghz / a watercooling setup ( pump), 1 HDD, and a 8800GTS 512MB ( O/ced), powered by a HX650W, this is my primary setup, however just a 19inch monitor is used. Since I play most games 1280-1600 resolution the card is doing fine there.
So I wonder would the HX 520W hold this O/ced system, if it does I can move the HX650W to the Q6600 setup pairing the GTX460

Nomatter what system you put that 520 in its going to be borderlining. Its more a issue of which system do you value more Whichever one that is, put the better PSU there.

[@lex]

I can't say for sure about the particular PSU being discussed, but most (more than 90%, I guess) modern PSUs have virtual 12V lines, meaning there's only one voltage converter, one 12V power source, which powers several lines. Every line has current limiter for safety reasons as ATX specification demands (usual number is 18A, no more than 20A to comply with ATX). The point is there are usually no different power lines, the power comes from the same source. Such a design is significantly cheaper, and obviously doesn't require load balancing.