I'll be getting a new graphics card soon, but the two cards I'm looking at--the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 TI or the AMD Radeon HD6870--both require 500 Watts of power, while my dell xps 8300 can only provide 460 watts. Will this be a major problem? I've heard that it can cause the components to overheat--do I need a gpu cooling system? Thanks,boeing247

The AMD Radeon HD6870 requires 250W, while the nVidia GeForce GTX 560 TI requires 170W. Use these PC PSU Power Calculators to determine the capacity your PSU should have. Your GPU does not require any additional cooling beyond that provided by the manufacturer, provided you do not OC the GPU. Cheers, - jahman.

Oh, okay. Their websites say 500W, odd. Maybe I read it wrong. Thanks!

They recommend that you have a 500W power supply for running your total system. The actual power consumption of the GPU itself will only be a portion of that. Whether or not you can get away with 460W will depend on the power draws of the rest of the components in your system (CPU, HDD's, SSD's, USB Devices). The PSU calculators will give you a much more accurate idea of how much power you need than the GPU manufacturer's one-size-fits-all estimate.