• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Upgrading PC Power Supply

CMPancake

No gods, no masters.
DP Veteran
Joined
Oct 13, 2014
Messages
6,250
Reaction score
6,257
Location
Tacoma
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Socialist
Hey ladies and gents,

I'm fixing up my PC and so I bought a new video card. Problem is, now I need to juice up my power supply to something along the lines of 600-800 watts. My only concern is accidentally nuking my motherboard with a new power supply. Is there a certain power supply that would prevent that from happening? Should I just get a new motherboard all together? (the computer is a HP Pavilion HPE 500F) Or am I just scaring myself?
 
I'm a bit of a newbie if you will but if having a higher power supply could make your motherboard explode then desktop computers would already be a thing of the past.
 
Hey ladies and gents,

I'm fixing up my PC and so I bought a new video card. Problem is, now I need to juice up my power supply to something along the lines of 600-800 watts. My only concern is accidentally nuking my motherboard with a new power supply. Is there a certain power supply that would prevent that from happening? Should I just get a new motherboard all together? (the computer is a HP Pavilion HPE 500F) Or am I just scaring myself?
I don't think power supplies fry motherboards that often unless they're really ****ty ones. Stick with better known brands with an 80+ rating. Also maybe head to r/buildapc and ask some people there
 
After a couple of minutes to think about it (also few beers and some jacks) if I were you I'd be more worried about compatibility.

If your GPU is that much newer than your motherboard to the point youre worried a bigger power supply ****ing it up (which is extremely unlikely) id check whether it'll work at all.
 
I did the same thing last year and I doubled my wattage, my motherboard was fine and it was a good 4 years old at that point.
 
Hey ladies and gents,

I'm fixing up my PC and so I bought a new video card. Problem is, now I need to juice up my power supply to something along the lines of 600-800 watts. My only concern is accidentally nuking my motherboard with a new power supply. Is there a certain power supply that would prevent that from happening? Should I just get a new motherboard all together? (the computer is a HP Pavilion HPE 500F) Or am I just scaring myself?

If I read the specs right you are running an AMD Processor, 8 GB Mem, and AMD Radeon HD 6450 1 GB on 300W power supply now.

What video card did you buy?
 
If I read the specs right you are running an AMD Processor, 8 GB Mem, and AMD Radeon HD 6450 1 GB on 300W power supply now.

What video card did you buy?


I bought a AMD Radeon HD 6770 which needs a 400 watt power supply.
 
I bought a AMD Radeon HD 6770 which needs a 400 watt power supply.

Actually. The base requirements are a 450 Watt Power Supply, and a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector. The reason I bring that up is that becomes a requirement for the better power supply. In this case just about any 500 Watt up to 700 Watt will be plenty.

You can get a well rated Thermaltake TR-500 TR2 ATX Power Supply (500 Watt) for less than $50 and will have all the components to handle not only the motherboard and peripherals requirements but also have plenty for the video card.

Or, you can always get a higher end power supply if you added additional drives and DVD bays. Like an equally high rated Thermaltake TR-600 TR2 ATX Power Supply (600 Watt) that I believe comes with a cable management set up... IE cables plug in at both the power supply side and the device side. (Meaning, only use the cables actually going somewhere and all others stay in the box. Less to bind up in some manner.) This one I think is less than $60 off NewEgg or TigerDirect.

And to answer your OP question, no the motherboard will not fry with these higher power supplies. Regulation is still handled by the motherboard and it will do what is necessary to ensure a constant clean pulse of power from the power supply no matter if you run a 400 Watt or up to 700 Watt.
 
Actually. The base requirements are a 450 Watt Power Supply, and a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector. The reason I bring that up is that becomes a requirement for the better power supply. In this case just about any 500 Watt up to 700 Watt will be plenty.

You can get a well rated Thermaltake TR-500 TR2 ATX Power Supply (500 Watt) for less than $50 and will have all the components to handle not only the motherboard and peripherals requirements but also have plenty for the video card.

Or, you can always get a higher end power supply if you added additional drives and DVD bays. Like an equally high rated Thermaltake TR-600 TR2 ATX Power Supply (600 Watt) that I believe comes with a cable management set up... IE cables plug in at both the power supply side and the device side. (Meaning, only use the cables actually going somewhere and all others stay in the box. Less to bind up in some manner.) This one I think is less than $60 off NewEgg or TigerDirect.

And to answer your OP question, no the motherboard will not fry with these higher power supplies. Regulation is still handled by the motherboard and it will do what is necessary to ensure a constant clean pulse of power from the power supply no matter if you run a 400 Watt or up to 700 Watt.

Good advice! When I upgraded mine I didn't have enough cables for the new card and everything else.

I also couldn't figure out where a few spare parts went. The guy at the shop on the corner looked at me funny when I brought it in.:lol:
 
Hey buddy, as long as it's compatible with your mobo you don't really have to worry. I have way more wattage than I need, but that's only the max, not what it will give you all the time. As far as brands go I HIGHLY recommend Corsair. Amazing brand and the quality will make you shed a tear of joy.
 
Good advice! When I upgraded mine I didn't have enough cables for the new card and everything else.

I also couldn't figure out where a few spare parts went. The guy at the shop on the corner looked at me funny when I brought it in.:lol:

I bet he did.

I ran into this a little myself the last time I spec'ed out a gaming rig.

At the moment it is set up with a Intel i7 2600K @ 3.40GHz, 16 GM, and a single NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2 GB. I keep it running cool with 3 large case fans, and a CPU / Mem cooling system.

But I decided at the time to go with a Thermaltake 1000 Watt on the off chance I purchase duel video card set up down the road. May or may not happen but I did not notice, and shouldn't have, any difference between the old 850 Watt I pulled out and the 1000 Watt I put in.

For now though I can run Battlefield 4, Hardline, and plenty of other high CPU / Video card using FPS games all on ultra graphics settings on max resolution and still get better than 70 fps (usually higher, sometimes up in the 90 fps range.)
 
Last edited:
Great advice all round, thank you very much guys!
 
One area that you should never be skimpy is a power supply. Low quality power supplies have a much higher risk of failure and the potential to take any number of PC components out with it. A person should stay in the top two tiers The Power Supply Unit tier list Discussion thread - Hardware - Components.

As far as what wattage you need, here is a calculator Newegg.com - Recommended Power Supply Calculator.. Anything over what you need is fine and will not harm anything, in fact most PSU are more efficient while only under partial capacity and it can actually save a little energy going more wattage than you need. It also allows room for upgrades and expansions later.
 
Hey ladies and gents,

I'm fixing up my PC and so I bought a new video card. Problem is, now I need to juice up my power supply to something along the lines of 600-800 watts. My only concern is accidentally nuking my motherboard with a new power supply. Is there a certain power supply that would prevent that from happening? Should I just get a new motherboard all together? (the computer is a HP Pavilion HPE 500F) Or am I just scaring myself?

Not much I can add to the good advice you've gotten already except to tell you that I don't think you need a new MB right now. If you want to seriously upgrade your machine at some point, then would be the time to worry about it.
 
I just upgraded video card from a 650 to a 750 TI OC, pleasantly surprised that the new one didn't need a secondary power plug. I've upgraded power supplies before, your m/b will be fine, I'm running a 600w
 
Look at it with a basic view of electricity. A power supply that provides up to x amount of watts, will only give the machine said amount when the machine draws the current. If you're not upgrading much else, P = I x V (power =current x voltage ) will be the same as before. Hope I haven't made it more confusing :)
 
Back
Top Bottom