Will 250W HP power supply work for ATi 7770?

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi folks,

At work, I have an HP Pavillion P7-1110 machine (i3 and integrated GPU), and it has a 250W PSU (with the red voltage switch!). I have an ATi 7770 GPU that I could install - but will the stock PSU be able to handle it? What's your best guess?

I am not going to load the GPU much, but I would gain better quality on my dual 24" monitors (two DVI outputs) and I would gain 2GB of system RAM (6GB up to 8GB) that the integrated Intel GPU is currently using.

[washu]

What are the 5V and 12V watt ratings? If it an old 5V heavy design then it is probably a no-go. If it's a modern 12V heavy PSU then I would suspect it to be fine.

Also, why is your system taking a full 2GB from your system RAM all the time? Modern Intel GPUs dynamically allocate RAM up to their max. Even with 2 24" monitors it should not be using 2GB all the time. Might be something configured wrong in the BIOS/UEFI.

Edit: Just checked a system with a HD4000. It is using about 600 MB with two 1080P screens and many windows open. Closing windows reduces the amount of memory used.

[bastiaan]

According to HP, the part number for the PSU is 5188-2622, which at least some of the time corresponds to the delta DPS-250QB-4 B, and I've seen two revisions of this PSU floating around the internet so far, one of which would have ample juice to power this card on the 12V line, but the other wouldn't.

So have a look at the label and let us know what you find.

[NeilBlanchard]

Thanks folks, I will take a closer look at the PSU tomorrow.

The system has two sticks of RAM in it, and it says it has 6GB system RAM. I suspected that they just set it at 2GB in the BIOS, and it doesn't do dynamic management. It is a stable machine, and still pretty snappy.

I just took another look at the Radeon 7770 card, and it has 1 DVI, 1 HDMI and 2 mini DP ports, so I will need a dongle to get 2 DVI connections to my monitors. The one that is running on the analog cable now is noticeably lower quality. I am running DataCAD most of the time, and IrfanView, Thunderbird, FireFox, Adobe Reader, Excel - sometimes all at once!

[CA_Steve]

It's a Sandy Bridge i3 in there, right? i3-2120? So, the design is only 3-4 years old. My money's on the PSU providing close to the 250W on the 12V line.

65W CPU, 75-80W GPU + 50W for everything else -> ~195W stressed load that you'd never see. Probably closer to 150W if an app is GPU heavy, 120W if not.

Should be fine. Your 7770 may have a 6-pin PEG connector...that your HP's PSU may or may not have.

[NeilBlanchard]

The Radeon 7770 does have a 6 pin connector, and I would use an adapter on one of the spare Molex connectors.

I think this computer is over 5 years old.

[CA_Steve]

I think this computer is over 5 years old.

If the CPU is an i3-2120, then the build is no older than Q1'11 (CPU launch date). The PC design/component list would be no older than ~ Jun 2010.

..in any case, PSU ATX spec evolved after Pentium 4...so chances are a 3-5 year old PSU will be compliant with a decent 12V rail amperage. The big thing to look out for is if it's a multi-rail design...and how the amperage is split out.

[MikeC]

Multi-rail is highly unlikely. 250W power rating is too low for that. p7-1110 system released Sept 2011. >80% of power will be in 12V line.

[quest_for_silence]

p7-1110 system released Sept 2011. >80% of power will be in 12V line.

Personally I won't bet on that, but who knows.