650w psu for a nvidia 3070ti?

[EASY PETE]

Would that be enough?

[Omega]

Unless the rest of your system is something insane it will be plenty.

[_I_]

depends more on brand/model than labeled wattage

seasonic 650w yes, chinatek 2000w no

[SoldierScar]

Yes it will if it's at least a decent quality unit, a 3070 ti will eat around 280-290w max.

[EASY PETE]

Oh ok good

[xSOSxHawkens]

I guess I will be the odd one out and say no, but I will also try to offer some input on why...

First, its not good to run a PSU at or near max. Ideally you want to stick under 100% of the load at all times, though most PSU's have a bit of headroom, and under 80-85% most of the time, with heavier loads pushing the 60-80% range and ideal loading being at 40-50% load for best efficiency. Simply put, if you want the best case for the PSU to live the longest and do its job the best with least chance of failure the 40-60% loading range under normal use is ideal, but you also dont want to outright double what you need, its an odd ballance.

See these sources:

Originally posted by PCGamer:

...you should keep in mind that the sweet efficiency spot is usually around 40-50% of the PSU's max-rated capacity. That and the closest a given power supply is to its max load output, the lowest the efficiency.

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-choose-a-power-supply/

Originally posted by TomsHardware:

...the PSU reaches its peak efficiency at about 50% of its nominal capacity.

Now, a clever observer would suggest that simply making the PSU twice as powerful should solve the problem. While this is correct in principle, our helpful friend would be forgetting something: the idle state. And this is where modern switching power supplies run into trouble. If their load drops to below 10%, efficiency plummets to 50 or 60%, possibly even less.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/psu-buying-guide,2916-3.html

Originally posted by Steve from Gamers Nexus (speaking on Gigabytes recent PSU snafu):

...60% is not a heavy load, its a very normal workload for most computers to be under, at least in our space...60% load is easy to achieve on a 750w PSU with a hign end GPU/CPU playing a game...

https://youtu.be/aACtT_rzToI?t=1301

(21:41) My emphasis added.

And then we have the random web-result that Google has chosen as the top answer to "What load should you run a PSU at"

Originally posted by Math Geek via Toms Hardware Forums:

heat is the enemy of a psu and high loads equals higher heat. generally you want to shoot for no more than 80-85% of the psu's power ratings at full load. more than that and you will shorten it's lifespan.Nov 15, 2016

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/does-psu-load-affect-its-lifespan.2860712/#:~:text=heat%20is%20the%20enemy%20of,you%20will%20shorten%20it's%20lifespan.

_________________

So, with all that in mind, what does the 3070ti actually pull under load?

Originally posted by SoldierScar:

...280-290w max.

Yup, just about right... Though its a bit closer to 290-300

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-ti-founders-edition/34.html

__________________

So where does this leave you OP? Well, on one hand *can* you run a 3070ti on a 650W? If it is a quality unit up to the task of being pushed near 80-100% draw on a daily basis, sure, you *can*, but you will be (best case) pushing the backbone of your PSU to its limit any time you stress your machine, all at the expense of more heat and more power draw. We know this is the case due to the GPU alone pushing you past 50% load any time its pushing a game. Add in the rest of the build and you are hitting pretty high loading. A good PSU is built to handle that, but its still not ideal.

I would suggest a decent 750-850 if you can afford one, that would put you in a much better situation on power draw on the PSU vs max ability, and would result in a cooler PSU, longer lasting PSU, and possibly better stability depending on how borderline the other PSU of choice might have been.

Bear in mind though, that as stated, a brand name quality seasonic 650w is better than a no-name 850w. Price and weight matter in the PSU world. If its too much power for the price, or if you get it in hand and it feels like a feather, its a problem. Good quality PSU's generally have cost associated with that quality (though there are some great budget examples out there, just research your units). Likewise that quality generally brings physically heavier components resulting in cheap PSU's being quite light in weight more often than not.

I will concede that I tend to recomend a bit more heavy PSU's than others here, and I also concede that the official PSU requirments are similar to whats been suggested, but those have been wrong in the past too haha. In the end I think you will be OK, but if you can, get something a couple hundred watts more.

[EASY PETE]

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

I guess I will be the odd one out and say no, but I will also try to offer some input on why...

First, its not good to run a PSU at or near max. Ideally you want to stick under 100% of the load at all times, though most PSU's have a bit of headroom, and under 80-85% most of the time, with heavier loads pushing the 60-80% range and ideal loading being at 40-50% load for best efficiency. Simply put, if you want the best case for the PSU to live the longest and do its job the best with least chance of failure the 40-60% loading range under normal use is ideal, but you also dont want to outright double what you need, its an odd ballance.

See these sources:

Originally posted by PCGamer:

...you should keep in mind that the sweet efficiency spot is usually around 40-50% of the PSU's max-rated capacity. That and the closest a given power supply is to its max load output, the lowest the efficiency.

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-choose-a-power-supply/

Originally posted by TomsHardware:

...the PSU reaches its peak efficiency at about 50% of its nominal capacity.

Now, a clever observer would suggest that simply making the PSU twice as powerful should solve the problem. While this is correct in principle, our helpful friend would be forgetting something: the idle state. And this is where modern switching power supplies run into trouble. If their load drops to below 10%, efficiency plummets to 50 or 60%, possibly even less.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/psu-buying-guide,2916-3.html

Originally posted by Steve from Gamers Nexus (speaking on Gigabytes recent PSU snafu):

...60% is not a heavy load, its a very normal workload for most computers to be under, at least in our space...60% load is easy to achieve on a 750w PSU with a hign end GPU/CPU playing a game...

https://youtu.be/aACtT_rzToI?t=1301

(21:41) My emphasis added.

And then we have the random web-result that Google has chosen as the top answer to "What load should you run a PSU at"

Originally posted by Math Geek via Toms Hardware Forums:

heat is the enemy of a psu and high loads equals higher heat. generally you want to shoot for no more than 80-85% of the psu's power ratings at full load. more than that and you will shorten it's lifespan.Nov 15, 2016

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/does-psu-load-affect-its-lifespan.2860712/#:~:text=heat%20is%20the%20enemy%20of,you%20will%20shorten%20it's%20lifespan.

_________________

So, with all that in mind, what does the 3070ti actually pull under load?

Originally posted by SoldierScar:

...280-290w max.

Yup, just about right... Though its a bit closer to 290-300

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-ti-founders-edition/34.html

__________________

So where does this leave you OP? Well, on one hand *can* you run a 3070ti on a 650W? If it is a quality unit up to the task of being pushed near 80-100% draw on a daily basis, sure, you *can*, but you will be (best case) pushing the backbone of your PSU to its limit any time you stress your machine, all at the expense of more heat and more power draw. We know this is the case due to the GPU alone pushing you past 50% load any time its pushing a game. Add in the rest of the build and you are hitting pretty high loading. A good PSU is built to handle that, but its still not ideal.

I would suggest a decent 750-850 if you can afford one, that would put you in a much better situation on power draw on the PSU vs max ability, and would result in a cooler PSU, longer lasting PSU, and possibly better stability depending on how borderline the other PSU of choice might have been.

Bear in mind though, that as stated, a brand name quality seasonic 650w is better than a no-name 850w. Price and weight matter in the PSU world. If its too much power for the price, or if you get it in hand and it feels like a feather, its a problem. Good quality PSU's generally have cost associated with that quality (though there are some great budget examples out there, just research your units). Likewise that quality generally brings physically heavier components resulting in cheap PSU's being quite light in weight more often than not.

I will concede that I tend to recomend a bit more heavy PSU's than others here, and I also concede that the official PSU requirments are similar to whats been suggested, but those have been wrong in the past too haha. In the end I think you will be OK, but if you can, get something a couple hundred watts more.

Cheers, sadly i have ran out of budget for another psu since i am getting the 3070ti for free as part of an RMA which replaces my 2080ti. I remember once i had my first really old gaming pc in 2013 that was a nvidia 760 with around a 350-450w psu i think, i had the gpu replaced with a 980ti which probably needed a lot more watts without replacing the psu and was fine for 4 years before the psu blew in 2020.

[Nabster]

If it is a decent quality PSU, It is just enough