How many more watts should my power supply have in relation to my GPU?

[Sweet C]

I have a GTX 660, and from the description, it says that it needs a minimum of 450w to work. My power supply says that it reaches 460w. I'm wondering if this can be a factor in my performance.

[Maverick]

no. if you don't have enough power too the graphics card it just won't run. if your not having good performance out of the graphics card you have too consider what games your running and what the rest of your system specs are, also the GTX 660 is not a top performer.

[[☥] - CJ -]

The graphics card will run even with an inadequate PSU, performance would be hindered however as there isnt enough power for the GPU to run at max clocks.

Driver crashes, Low FPS, perhaps even blue screens could be a cause of a low wattage PSU when the GPU has a decent load while gaming and so forth.

450w requirement is taking into account wattage of a PC in total not just the graphics card, a Safe wattage so to speak.

a GTX 660 doesnt have to be a "Top Performer", its still a very good card and it still requires extra power from the PSU, so while its no GTX 680 that makes no difference hawn169.
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a decent 500-600w PSU would be better, just to be on the safe side if you are looking for a higher grade PSU. Theres many on newegg or other sites that dont cost all that much and are reliable.

[Sweet C]

That settles it then, I'll be investing on a new PSU. Thanks everyone for your comments.

[_I_]

pick a quality power supply
active pfc with a 80+ cert (filters out most poor ones)
antec, corsair, seasonic, silverstone, xfx are good choices

[Trevor]

Make it 700-750 watts power supply. It better to be a bit over kill on the power supply then you losing everything. Cosair and OCZ thay are good.

[ironbender800]

500-600 watts from a quality power supply is enough for most people. Only need 700+ if your running SLI/crossfire.

Ive owned 2 power supplys...both have been corsair and both have been great. first was cx500 and now i have an hx 750 for my SLI setup. no problems with either.

[_I_]

even the cx430 is capable of run any pc with upto a 150w gpu

gtx 660 is 140w

[Maverick]

mmmmm, every system I have delt with if the psu didn't have enough power for the graphics card the system would re-boot at the windows splash screen over and over, I never delt with one that the graphics card didn't perform good due to low power, it just wouldn't run. guess I was dreaming when I was working on the customers system and had this issue.

[Trevor]

I have seen this in power supply that are chust on the eadge of there capasty thay coruse pc compenents to underperform.

[banzaigtv]

I'm running a GTX 660 and a 460w PSU. When I use Kill-a-Watt, I detected total usage of about 330w with the GPU at full load and the CPU at 50% load (65w). I cut the CPU clock speed from 3.2 GHz down to 2.0 GHz using the power management advanced settings when playing Crysis 3 because that game can put a heavy load on even a Core i7 CPU. When playing Far Cry 3 on ultra settings, I applied a 30 fps lock which reduced my GPU usage (and wattage) down to 70% and the game is still very playable. So basically, you can get by with your current setup; you just need to cut back on a few video settings or CPU clock speeds. But as the others suggested, a better PSU is recommended for maximum performance.

[Trevor]

700w-750w will do it nicely then if you expand your pc later you can and you will have good power distrupsion and you will run more effsiontley.

[typographie]

I don't think it makes any sense to go over about 650 W unless you're planning (imminently, not just saying it) to install a Crossfire or SLI configuration, and a high-end one at that. 650 W from Corsair/Seasonic/Antec/XFX will power any single GPU system out there today, easily. Quality and manufacturer reputation is way more important past about 500 W.