6900XT on 750W?

[Tropick]

Thinking of scooping up a Powercolor Red Devil 6900XT for $699 but want to make sure I have a decent enough PSU to handle the transient spikes.

Got a Seasonic FOCUS GX-750 (fan stop disabled) running an R5 5600X (PBO2 +200MHz), 32GB DDR4-3600, 1TB PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD, Corsair H150i RGB PRO XT AIO, and 6 120mm fans.

I know this topic has been beaten to death but there's so much conflicting information I just wanted to be sure, I've seen anything from "650w Titanium PSU will do" to "1000W or go home". Seasonic lists their GX-750 as one of the recommended options for the 6900XT but I know those calculators can be pretty unreliable. What do you all think?

 

[P4-630]

Use this calculator:

Power Supply calculator - calc for silent PSUs from be quiet!

be quiet! is a premium brand manufacturer of power supplies, cases and cooling solutions for your desktop PC.

www.bequiet.com

Doesn't mean you need to buy a be quiet PSU but it's a good calculator.

 

[dirtyferret]

Thinking of scooping up a Powercolor Red Devil 6900XT for $699 but want to make sure I have a decent enough PSU to handle the transient spikes.

Got a Seasonic FOCUS GX-750 (fan stop disabled) running an R5 5600X (PBO2 +200MHz), 32GB DDR4-3600, 1TB PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD, Corsair H150i RGB PRO XT AIO, and 6 120mm fans.

I know this topic has been beaten to death but there's so much conflicting information I just wanted to be sure, I've seen anything from "650w Titanium PSU will do" to "1000W or go home". Seasonic lists their GX-750 as one of the recommended options for the 6900XT but I know those calculators can be pretty unreliable. What do you all think?

In theory you should be fine doing around 450-475ww total system power while gaming and since you already own the PSU, you may as well use it. Some "older" seasonic units do get their OCP tripped with some of the latest top tier video cards so you may want to contact Seasonic directly with your model and serial just to double check (heck you may get a new PSU out of it if you tell them it's happening to you).

 

[cvaldes]

While you might be inclined to discount their opinion, the card manufacturer's website

Red Devil AMD Radeon™ RX 6900 XT 16GB GDDR6 - PowerColor

www.powercolor.com

publishes a 900W PSU as a minimum for this card. More than a handful of TPU participants routinely ignore the manufacturer's power recommendation for graphics cards.

Take their advice or leave it.

I don't know what sort of sources you are referring to but a 650W PSU for a three 8-pin cable halo product seems to be a little farfetched. But lots of stuff that people spout off on the Internet isn't really based on fact or even common sense.

 

[skizzo]

I've got an OC'd i9-9900K and RX 6900 XT setup, also OC'd for some games. I use a 850W PSU and this works well so you should be good with at least 850W+

I gave some poor advice in a separate thread after say maybe a month or two of getting the RX 6900 XT. I was getting some restarts and upon resuming into Windows I'd get the AMD Radeon Settings warning about "settings returned to default due to an unexpected system failure"....The problem was I was not OCing my GPU then, settings were already default. I had no idea wtf was going on for a moment. I thought the error message was about the GPU....it was about the system aka the CPU. Turns out it was actually poor CPU OC settings! I been using same CPU OC settings for several years and only started noticing an issue once I started playing Hitman 3 which has a boat load of AI in it and I bet puts a good load on the CPU. My point being I was telling folks I am not sure if 850W is really sufficient....it is....as long as you don't shoot yourself in your foot with less than ideal settings.

If it were me, I'd put the new GPU in and see how it goes before upgrading to a higher wattage model. Give it a chance before dropping the cash for a new one. Since this sounds like it would be the only change to your system it is easy to troubleshoot. If a new higher power GPU goes in and you get BSODs and restarts, freezes etc then you already know what the culprit is and how to resolve it too....get yourself a more powerful PSU

 

[lowrider_05]

Im running a 750 Watt seasonic psu with my 6900 xt (with no powerlimit thru MPT) and the System runs fine but you'll need a good psu.

 

[Tropick]

While you might be inclined to discount their opinion, the card manufacturer's website

Red Devil AMD Radeon™ RX 6900 XT 16GB GDDR6 - PowerColor

www.powercolor.com

publishes a 900W PSU as a minimum for this card. More than a handful of TPU participants routinely ignore the manufacturer's power recommendation for graphics cards.

Take their advice or leave it.

I don't know what sort of sources you are referring to but a 650W PSU for a three 8-pin cable halo card seems to be a little farfetched. But lots of stuff that people spout off on the Internet isn't really based on fact or even common sense.

Gotcha, yeah that number is probably what I should be using for reference. Also the 650w "recommendation" was from a genius on the LTT forums who thought more 80plus = more better. I'll disable PBO on 5600X, try my hand at curve optimizer, and see if I can get by on the 750w. As skizzo mentioned, if I start getting BSODs/freezes/WHEA I'll immediately know what the culprit is and run a higher wattage PSU.

 

[P4-630]

I only say, better safe than sorry...

GL.

 

[ARF]

If you undervolt the GPU, yes. Otherwise, better go for at least 850-watt as is recommended even for the lower-specced Radeon RX 6800 XT.
These cards use a lot of power and have some power spikes.

 

[GerKNG]

I tripped a hx1000 with a 6900XT @350W
Transients on RDNA2 are insanely high.

 

[cvaldes]

Gotcha, yeah that number is probably what I should be using for reference. Also the 650w "recommendation" was from a genius on the LTT forums who thought more 80plus = more better. I'll disable PBO on 5600X, try my hand at curve optimizer, and see if I can get by on the 750w. As skizzo mentioned, if I start getting BSODs/freezes/WHEA I'll immediately know what the culprit is and run a higher wattage PSU.

Use whatever number you want as a departure point. I've read a lot of similar inquiries here at TPU (and similar sites) and many people don't look at the manufacturer's website for an authoritative recommendation for reasons that remain a mystery to me. I find that odd since the people who design the card should understand it the best, right? I guess a lot of people don't believe that.

Again, don't believe everything you read on the Internet, especially the stuff random commenters at a places like LTT, GamersNexus, etc. Many of these people have meager amounts of common sense.

Remember that every time you quote a brainless idiot, there are probably two more taking your reference as gospel. So somewhere on the Internet, someone is writing that they read on TPU that 650W was enough for a 6900 XT.

 

[Tropick]

Use this calculator:

Power Supply calculator - calc for silent PSUs from be quiet!

be quiet! is a premium brand manufacturer of power supplies, cases and cooling solutions for your desktop PC.

www.bequiet.com

Doesn't mean you need to buy a be quiet PSU but it's a good calculator.

Ran my equipment through the calculator and got some Dark/Pure power 750w units come back as recommended. but it was the absolute minimum. If I disabled PBO and ran the 6900XT undervolted I could probably get by... But honestly reading my own posts it's starting to sound like I'm rationalizing and should probably just upgrade.

 

[ARF]

Try to use Platinum and Titanium specced supplies.

 

[cvaldes]

Ran my equipment through the calculator and got some Dark/Pure power 750w units come back as recommended. but it was the absolute minimum. If I disabled PBO and ran the 6900XT undervolted I could probably get by... But honestly reading my own posts it's starting to sound like I'm rationalizing and should probably just upgrade.

Rationalizing? Maybe a little bit.

Disabling PBO on a 5600X isn't going to save you 100 watts. It's a 65W TDP part. You'd just be further crippling performance on a build that's CPU-constrained anyhow.

Hell, about the only way you can save 100 watts on a 5600X is to send it to sleep.

 

[Kapone33]

I have a 5950X and 6800XT. There was a driver I think in January that allowed the 6800XT to pull up to 300 Watts. If you are getting a 750W make sure it is the best quality your money can buy. The next thing to consider would be decent 1000 Watt or higher PSU so that you don't have to buy one again when you upgarde I bought my current PSU in 2015 and it works in HWinfo64 too. The next thing to consider is efficiency as a 1200 W PSU pulling 600 Watts will be more efficient than a 750 Watt doing the same.

 

[dirtyferret]

So somewhere on the Internet, someone is writing that they read on TPU that 650W was enough for a 6900 XT.

The problem with power supplies is 650w* is a meaningless number for anything outside of marketing positioning, somewhat similar to the 80 plus rating that we have harped about on other threads.

is it 650w rated @ 25c, 30c, 40c, or 50c
is it 650w peak or 650w continuous?
will it stay within spec at 650w, if not when does it go out of spec?
is it a modern DC-DC design or an older group design with a lot of power on rails you won't really need to push?
is the OCP sensitive and gets triggered by high end video cards
is it pure marketing BS by the brand

*or any other stated wattage

 

[cvaldes]

The problem with power supplies is 650w* is a meaningless number for anything outside of marketing positioning, somewhat similar to the 80 plus rating that we have harped about on other threads.

is it 650w rated @ 25c, 30c, 40c, or 50c
is it 650w peak or 650w continuous?
will it stay within spec at 650w, if not when does it go out of spec?
is it a modern DC-DC design or an older group design with a lot of power on rails you won't really need to push?
is the OCP sensitive and gets triggered by high end video cards
is it pure marketing BS by the brand

*or any other stated wattage

This is mostly pedantic blathering. Joe Consumer isn't going to know the answer of any of those questions.

That's why AIB manufacturers have recommended minimum power supplies that just list the wattage. In this case, Powercolor recommends a 900W PSU for the graphics card SKU that the OP mentioned.

Most people who build PCs for fun don't have electrical engineering degrees. In a similar way, I don't need to go to culinary school to buy a stand mixer.

Yes, more knowledge might aid in making a more informed decision but OP didn't even bother to initially consult the manufacturer's corporate website.

For Joe Consumer if they see that PSU A is 650W rated at 25c and PSU B is rated at 650W at 50c, which one is better? You know the answer but Joe Consumer doesn't. And Joe Consumer has no idea that the wattage on the box in big letters is all the rails summed up.

Somewhere on the Internet, there's a spreadsheet that rates PSU SKUs from the various manufacturers. That's a more useful guide to the PC builder/enthusiast than knowing all of the statistical details of fifty different PSU models.


And guess what? Let's say there are ten 900W PSUs on the table. You research all of them and you determine that one is the best. Does that mean the other nine won't work? NO.

Being armchair electrical engineer is fine and dandy, this guy is clearly just trying to figure out the least expensive way to power his desired graphics card.

 

[ARF]

is it 650w peak or 650w continuous?

It is always peak, unsustainable.
The continuous is some percentage of that rated number - 90% or higher.

 

[dirtyferret]

This is mostly pedantic blathering. Joe Consumer isn't going to know the answer of any of those questions.

That's why AIB manufacturers have recommended minimum power supplies that just list the wattage. In this case, Powercolor recommends a 900W PSU for the graphics card SKU that the OP mentioned.

Most people who build PCs for fun don't have electrical engineering degrees. In a similar way, I don't need to go to culinary school to buy a stand mixer.

Yes, more knowledge might aid in making a more informed decision but OP didn't even bother to initially consult the manufacturer's corporate website.

And for Joe Consumer if they see that PSU A is 650W rated at 25c and PSU B is rated at 650W at 50c, which one is better? You know the answer but Joe Consumer doesn't.

Somewhere on the Internet, there's a spreadsheet that rates PSU SKUs from the various manufacturers. That's a more useful guide to the PC builder/enthusiast than knowing all of the statistical details of fifty different PSU models.

Sure, with your in-depth knowledge of PSUs, you might make a better purchase decision than some random TPU commenter but not everyone has your specific knowledge. And guess what? Let's say there are ten 900W PSUs on the table. You research all of them and you determine that one is the best. Does that mean the other nine won't work? NO.

you totally missed my point

if by using your own words "somewhere on the Internet, someone is writing that they read on TPU that 650W was enough for a 6900 XT"

than

someone is reading that statement and doing a search on amazon or newegg for 650w power supplies and going "huh, that one is $100 but this one is $40 and they say 650w is enough plus I get to save $60"

Somewhere on the Internet, there's a spreadsheet that rates PSU SKUs from the various manufacturers. That's a more useful guide to the PC builder/enthusiast than knowing all of the statistical details of fifty different PSU models.

Personally I would say knowing why those PSU are rated as such would be more useful but that's my opinion.

 

[cvaldes]

someone is reading that statement and doing a search on amazon or newegg for 650w power supplies and going "huh, that one is $100 but this one is $40 and they say 650w is enough plus I get to save $60"

That's right. That's how Joe Consumer's mind works which I'm sure will come as a big surprise to you.

Personally I would say knowing why those PSU are rated as such would be more useful but that's my opinion.

Again, READ the original post. This person -- like most consumers -- isn't going to spend the time to learn why one PSU's characteristics are better than another. Yes, knowing why is useful but some people don't care.

What type of all-purpose flour do you buy? Do you buy what's cheap? Whatever is on sale? (j/k flour rarely goes on sale) What your mom bought while you were growing up? Or do you know why?

Or let's say you want to bake an apple pie? Which apple would you buy?

 

[dirtyferret]

It is always peak, unsustainable.
The continuous is some percentage of that rated number - 90% or higher.

@EarthDog , can i join you in retirement?

 

[ARF]

Before you go, explain to the public how on Earth a 350-watt graphics plus a 125-watt CPU plus some peripherals all of a sudden requires an 850-watt PSU?

You know, 350 plus 125 plus max 100 equals 575-watt, nowhere near the required 850!

 

[dirtyferret]

Before you go

I assume you are talking to me

xplain to the public how on Earth a 350-watt graphics plus a 125-watt CPU plus some peripherals all of a sudden requires an 850-watt PSU?

I did not mention any 850w unit nor did I mention any requirements. I said the following verbatim

In theory you should be fine doing around 450-475ww total system power while gaming and since you already own the PSU, you may as well use it. Some "older" seasonic units do get their OCP tripped with some of the latest top tier video cards so you may want to contact Seasonic directly with your model and serial just to double check (heck you may get a new PSU out of it if you tell them it's happening to you).

 

[Voluman]

I saw a couple of topic where 6900xt never exceed 300W during gaming, especially if you are using vsync or limited fps. In Furmark or other heavy, gpukiller application it can probably soak up that more power.
Recently got a Sapphire 6800 Pulse (2x 8pin) and it is totally fine with my 500W Silverstone SX500-G (single rail) and a Ryzen 7 2700. Max gpu consumption was 220W in Superposition, measured by software, not hardware though. So far there isn't any anomaly, i guess it just fine.

Soo, in the end, if you know your user behaviour and probably rarely will meet the card with furmark like load, i tend to the opinion your 750W should be fine.