Hi flyers

I recently upgraded my PC from an i7-8700k to a 7800X3D (with AM5 based motherboard) after seeking advice on these forums, plus bought 32gb of DDR5 ram.

The 7800X3D is an incredible processor for FS2020 and hopefully for FS2024 too.

I am thinking of upgrading my current MSI 2080 8Gb graphics card to either an Nvidia 4070Ti Super 16Gb or an Nvidia 4080 Super 16Gb to be released this month. I will read the various reviews between the different brands once they are out i.e. in terms of speed, price, performance, warranty etc.

My current PSU is 650W and I see that c. 700W (4070Ti Super 16Gb) and min 750W or 850W recommended (4080 Super 16Gb) appears to be the PSU stated e.g. in the MSI card range for these.

Please advise me based on your knowledge:

a) Do you think my current Seasonic Gold 650W would be adequate for a 4070Ti Super 16Gb or 4080 Super 16Gb? I entered my PC spec onto outervision.com calculator and it said 590W recommended. If my 650W is enough I will save money upgrading this to e.g. a 700W-850W, though I do not want to take any risk/shortcut

b) Do you think either a 4070Ti Super 16Gb or a 4080 Super 16Gb would be a good choice to pair with my 7800X3D processor e.g. in terms of CPU bottleneck etc. I appreciate these cards are not released yet (though I read they will be a bit faster and cheaper than their predecessors). I am just trying to future proof as far as possible.

 

39 minutes ago, captainbluesky said:

a) Do you think my current Seasonic Gold 650W would be adequate for a 4070Ti Super 16Gb or 4080 Super 16Gb?

No, I don't.  Can you get away with it?  Maybe...but PSU manufacturers aren't likely overstating their specs.  PSU failures are real butt pain, and can be catastrophic to other system components as well as boogering-up a nicely set up configuration, requiring a reinstall from Windows on up.  A higher-capacity PSU is pretty cheap insurance.

43 minutes ago, captainbluesky said:

b) Do you think either a 4070Ti Super 16Gb or a 4080 Super 16Gb would be a good choice to pair with my 7800X3D processor e.g. in terms of CPU bottleneck etc. I appreciate these cards are not released yet (though I read they will be a bit faster and cheaper than their predecessors). I am just trying to future proof as far as possible.

Either one is likely to be a significant step up from the 2080 in MSFS and are reasonable choices to match the 7800X3D. 

As to "future proof"--ain't no such thing!  There will always be something mo'-better-faster right around the corner.

Thank you Bob, I appreciate your advice.

4 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

No, I don't.  Can you get away with it?  Maybe...but PSU manufacturers aren't likely overstating their specs.  PSU failures are real butt pain, and can be catastrophic to other system components as well as boogering-up a nicely set up configuration, requiring a reinstall from Windows on up.  A higher-capacity PSU is pretty cheap insurance.

A higher capacity PSU is good insurance against FUD (like this). A good, name brand PSU (like Seasonic) is what you want to get. A 7800X3D will likely draw no more than 200W, and a 3080 will do 300W at most (a 4070 will draw noticeable less). There should be headroom, especially if you use PBO to limit the CPU to 105W and run the GPU at a 70% limit.

If you do require more continuous power, the PSU will simply shut off. This is the most benign condition, and not one to be frightened of. I'd be far more concerned about cascading failures when an old PSU has a component failure, not overcurrent. And even then (it's happened twice to me) I just swap out the PSU, no Windows reinstall required.

Cheers

 

50 minutes ago, Luke said:

A higher capacity PSU is good insurance against FUD (like this). A good, name brand PSU (like Seasonic) is what you want to get. A 7800X3D will likely draw no more than 200W, and a 3080 will do 300W at most (a 4070 will draw noticeable less). There should be headroom, especially if you use PBO to limit the CPU to 105W and run the GPU at a 70% limit.

If you do require more continuous power, the PSU will simply shut off. This is the most benign condition, and not one to be frightened of. I'd be far more concerned about cascading failures when an old PSU has a component failure, not overcurrent. And even then (it's happened twice to me) I just swap out the PSU, no Windows reinstall required.

I've seen a couple of PSUs loaded at/near the published capacity that eventually failed and took out the motherboard and/or other components, and a few more where the disorderly power interruptions from a failing PSU corrupted a drive to the point where a software rebuild was necessary (an exercise which could have been mitigated by making regular backups, but that's another discussion). 

Other less catastrophic but still very aggravating consequences of an undersized PSU include CTDs, blue-screen crashes etc when the PSU can't keep up with peak current demand.  When that happens, you have some FUD, all right--a Functionally Useless Device.

There's a reason the GPU manufacturer publishes a min spec for the power supply.

14 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

seen a couple of PSUs loaded at/near the published capacity that eventually failed and took out the motherboard a

 

Happened to me. Inrush thermister failed and took out motherboard. So not related to capacity. Same thing happened again recently with another PSU of same make but only the PSU failed. 

I'm now using a high wattage Corsair PSU. Far more wattage than I need but I wanted the latest technology rather than the usual 10 year old topologies around, and at the time PSU's were in short supply, and this was discounted.

Something else to consider is power spikes, so for me, additional wattage is preferable. And to be honest, the additional cost for a few hundred more watts is negligible. 

The PSU I have now is great. Ships set to multirail (which I prefer) but can be configured as single rail in the software.

19 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

I've seen a couple of PSUs loaded at/near the published capacity that eventually failed and took out the motherboard and/or other components, and a few more where the disorderly power interruptions from a failing PSU corrupted a drive to the point where a software rebuild was necessary (an exercise which could have been mitigated by making regular backups, but that's another discussion). 

Again, that's not a sign of near loaded capacity - it's a sign of an aging or bad quality power supply. A good quality power supply like what the OP has (a Seasoinc 650W) can run comfortably pulling 550W without issue.

19 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

There's a reason the GPU manufacturer publishes a min spec for the power supply.

Yes, and the reason is not "this is what my product requires". I have a 3080 that's pushing a locked 60FPS to P3D right now, and it's using 250W or so, with some transient peaks up to 300W. The 7800X3D is using around 55W. Everything else in the system is a rounding error. For the OP, who is looking at a 4070 - he'll actually be using less than this because the 4070s will use noticeably less power than my 3080 while providing equivalent or better performance.

They say this because there are hundreds of dodgy power supplies out there, and to deal with those customers who bought them. Over-speccing the power supply requirements allows them a large buffer zone, which they need with a lot of them. Not with a Seasonic.

Have you guys ever measured your actual power consumption, either in the machine (which is easy to do) or via a Kill-a-Watt at the wall? It's very interesting and informative.

4 hours ago, martin-w said:

Happened to me. Inrush thermister failed and took out motherboard. So not related to capacity. Same thing happened again recently with another PSU of same make but only the PSU failed. 

I see pattern here. 

I'll stand by what I said before - for power supplies it is better to be good, than big. Useful for other things, too! 😄

Cheers

1 hour ago, Luke said:

I see pattern here. 

 

Actually, no you don't! They  were both high quality EVGA PSU's Luke, with lengthy warranties, 10 years I recall. I've been building PC's long enough to know better than to buy cheap PSU's. If you do a search you'll see that I'm the guy that always advocates high quality PSU's.

If I remember correctly, it was Johnny Guru from Corsair, who was talking about the inrush capacitor failure issue with PSU's a while back, and he remarked that they do eventually fail with repeated on/off cycles, and so it's probably better to leave the PSU on at the wall and just shut down Windows, so that there is some juice left in the capacitors, thus, inrush is not an issue.

Personally, being paranoid about fires, I do like to shut down at the wall, but have recently adopted this measure more often. 

Both of the EVGA PSU's were still well under warranty by the way. First time it happened I RMA'd. Recent failure, RMA was out of the quetsion though, due to the extreme cost of shipping the unit from where I live. If you do a search, I recall I spoke about the issues on the forum. 

Good video on transient power spikes, sometimes almost double.

 

 

Both of the catastrophic failures I mentioned were on relatively young, high-quality PSUs.  One was a PC Power and Cooling unit (before they were bought out and went cheap), the other was...a Seasonic!  Though going with a recognized name-brand gives one a certain improvement in the odds, it's not a guarantee.  And system components do degrade over time.

I do monitor my PC power consumption, particularly after upgrades, and with equipment more sophisticated than a Kill-a-Watt, namely a Fluke 1732 logging power analyzer.

Anyway, it's quite possible to push the limits and get away with it over and over again...right up until you don't.  And it does not make sense to me to buy a powerful CPU/mobo and GPU and then throttle them back with power limits to accomodate a weak PSU.  To each his own, I guess...