Upgrade Power Supply?


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Hey everyone so awhile ago I got an Alienware Aurora R2. Not bad, not great, whatever lol. Anyways I'd like to upgrade to a better video card but realized I have too weak of a PSU to do so. My question is will any PSU work or should I stick with the Dell ones pulled from other systems available online? Any input would be great thanks in advance.

Here's the one I'm not sure if I have to buy to fit it or if another will work it'll probably be cheaper.

http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet/the-9982/Dell-W299G-Alienware-Aurora/Detail

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What card are you looking at? A Radeon 6790 only requires a 500-watt PSU. I would look at other brands also. There are plenty in that price range that would do well. Probably get a good modular PSU at that.

I'm partial to Antec. I've never had one die on me.

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Unless you are gonna go for a quad-Crossfire 6990, or a quad-SLI GTX 590. you should be fine with that PSU

I think the 875w is the one he's looking at. His system now has a 525w PSU, which should still be good enough for most single GPUs.

Edit: Hm, then again, you might be cutting it a bit close with those cards. It might be worth upgrading to a 700w or 800w unit.

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I think the 875w is the one he's looking at. His system now has a 525w PSU, which should still be good enough for any single GPU.

Yeah I'd rather not have to upgrade my PSU ATM but if so I'm just wondering if I have to use Dell or if a regular PSU will work. Honestly though, if I could run the graphics above without upgrading that'd be best.

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For this test we measure power consumption of only the graphics card, via PCI-Express power connector(s) and PCI-Express bus slot.

Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (12 per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).

power_average.gif

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/HD_6970_Lightning/21.html

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Yeah I'd rather not have to upgrade my PSU ATM but if so I'm just wondering if I have to use Dell or if a regular PSU will work. Honestly though, if I could run the graphics above without upgrading that'd be best.

Sorry, I edited my above post. I think you have a PSU upgrade in your future. While the 525w could likely support those cards, you'll be running very close to 100% load, which isn't good as you'll be generating a lot of heat and putting a lot of stress on the PSU. Power supplies are most efficient around 50%, so thats where you want to aim.

It doesn't have to be a Dell. Any PSU will fit. Have a look at power supplies from SeaSonic, Corsair and Antec.

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Sorry, I edited my above post. I think you have a PSU upgrade in your future. While the 525w could likely support those cards, you'll be running very close to 100% load, which isn't good as you'll be generating a lot of heat and putting a lot of stress on the PSU. Power supplies are most efficient around 50%, so thats where you want to aim.

It doesn't have to be a Dell. Any PSU will fit. Have a look at power supplies from SeaSonic, Corsair and Antec.

Thanks man I'll check them out for sure, and thanks to everyone else who has helped.

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