Will a 250w PSU cope with new graphics card?

I'm getting a new graphics cards, more specifically the ATI Radeon HD 6570 so I can play better games on my PC.

It's going to be installed in a HP business computer (small case system) with a crappy 250W PSU.

Will the PSU be able to deal with the new graphics cards, and if so, would I be required to install additional cooling?

 

i dont think so. you will need more power for newest video cards.

 

Not entirely true. I have done some more research and it seems the HD 6450 / HD 5570 will work on 250w PSU's.

I think I will get one of those cards instead since they have lower power consumption and I want to use the stock PSU.

 

No, get 500+ at least

 

For sure you'll need more at least 450w, since you're a gamer and assuming you'l be playing decent games, both the video card and the CPU will be under stress during these times so better to have some extra fuel for an overclock also etc.

 

The total system draw for a 5770 is about 165 Watts. Considering how HP has been running the past few years, I wouldn't trust their "250 Watt" power supply to run well for too long that way. Figure that you either go with a plain old vanilla video card or you get a decent power supply. (Or you do it your way and hope that the only thing the power supply takes out when it goes is itself - although they usually take the CPU with them.)

 

Got the HD 6450 which uses significantly less power then the HD 6570 and it didn't work.

Well it did briefly once I installed the drivers until you restart the computer, then it seemed like the PC was shitting itself and CPU Usage was clocked at 100%.

Flashed to the latest BIOS in case that was the issue but that didn't do anything.

So it's back to the drawing board. I was pretty much just looking for something which is better then the on-board graphics card to play some of the older games.

 

Try an nVidia 8400. Not only is the power requirement much lower, if you don't like it you haven't wasted much money. http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0378233 (That's 8 bucks.)

 

Absolutely no way, you need at least at least a 450 watt power supply to run the system trouble free.
A GT8600 card may work, but cant say under load.

 

Are you out of your mind? 500+ PSU for HD6570?


To OP: There are two primary questions you need to answer before we can give you any opinion.

1) What is the TDP of your CPU? is it 65 watts, 95 watts or 125 watts?
2) What is the quality of your current PSU?

If your CPU has a high TDP, 250 watts PSU is not a good choice.
If your PSU is a shitty one, it's not a good choice to use it at all.

There should be enough headroom available between your average consumption and the PSU specification. Cheap quality PSU often state numbers like 250, 300 or 400 on them, but they are misleading.. That does not represent the watt output they support. Most of the cheap PSU fail well before 60-70% load.

If your PSU is a 80+ certified PSU, then you will need to consider the TDP of your CPU and consumption of your Graphics card, if total consumption stays about 200 watts, then your PSU should work.
If your PSU is not 80+ certified, I'd suggest you to get a 300 or 350 watt PSU.

 

PSUs aren't that expensive these days. Atleast a 600w in my opinion, models such as Corsair or OCZ.

 

Well this has been a learning process. I checked the PSU and it stats there is a max of 18 amps on the 12 volt line. So I think that means I can safely use 216w with the 250w PSU. To be on the safe side I think I would want to use 180w but even with this limitation it should be plenty. There is conflicting information about my CPU power consumption. I have the AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8GHz processor. At wiki it says the TDP is 67w whereas here is says the TDP of the Winchester chipset which is what I have is 40w. Either way it seems to be a fairly efficient CPU compared to Intel chipsets. The other components include a DVD burner and 160gb HD. I'm kinda surprised the HD 6450 didn't seem to have enough power, but at least it didn't kill my computer. I think I will try an older PCI express card that was released around the same time as the computer and see how I go.