Need some PSU advice

So my girlfriend’s running this little setup with an EVGA 450 W unit, an AMD FX-6300, an SSD, and a standard 7200 RPM hard drive. Her motherboard is an ASUS M5A97 Rev2. I just picked up her a PowerColor R9 380 4GB, but now I'm sweating a bit. Looking at the online calculators, it seems like she might be right on the edge of what that power supply can handle. Should I let her risk it, or should I just be a good guy and hand over my 520W Corsair?

If the power supply isn't tripping the breaker, you should be fine, but just watch out if it's been running for more than five or six years.

Alexander Moore67 said:As long as that power supply isn't acting wonky, you should be fine, but definitely watch out if it's been sitting in your rig for more than 5 or 6 years.

Thanks, man!

In theory, you're looking at a total draw of about 350W, and even then, that assumes both the CPU and GPU are pinned at full load—which rarely happens during actual gaming; you'll usually see it dip below 300W. Since that EVGA 450 W unit provides 408W on the +12V rail, you should be perfectly fine.

Sweet, means I don't have to part with my beloved Corsair power supply. Thanks a million, you guys!

That EVGA unit uses a Corsair platform anyway, so you shouldn't have much to worry about. I guess the only real headache will be having to deal with those crappy Molex adapters on the PCIe connectors.

fadedorca66 said:Plus, that EVGA unit uses a Corsair platform, so you shouldn't have any issues. Your only problem will be having to rely on those crappy Molex-to-PCIe adapters.

It depends. From what I gather, older versions of the EVGA 450 W had two 6-pin connectors, while the newer ones only come with one. I have two buddies with builds that were almost identical using an EVGA 450 W; one of them actually fried his rig during a lightning storm after about two years, so he bought the exact same PSU again, but this time it only came with a single 6-pin connector. So, if the power supply you're looking at has been around for a few years, there's a chance it might have the 2x6-pin setup, which would let you avoid those crappy Molex adapters.

So, I grabbed an NVIDIA RTX 4060 power supply about 8 or 9 months back. The GPU is all hooked up now and it's absolutely crushing Fallout 4 on Ultra settings. It’s running off those two 6-pin connectors this unit provides—it's got the 2x 6/8 pin setup. Thanks a ton for the help, guys! 👍