I'm putting together a system with a 270K Plus processor and an overclocked PowerColor Red Devil 9070 XT. Would my existing ASRock Phantom Gaming PG-750G be sufficient, or would it be worth upgrading for additional headroom and peace of mind? I was considering the MSI MPG A1000GS PCIe 5 II and the ASRock Steel Legend SL-1000G, both rated at 1000W. The MSI model appears to provide three PCIe power cables but no separate CPU cable, so I'm also unsure whether powering the graphics card with three connectors would leave enough CPU power connections. I don't currently plan to overclock either component.
2 Answers
A good 750W Gold-rated PSU should handle the combination during normal use and most demanding workloads. For maximum caution, connect all three GPU power plugs with separate PCIe cables rather than relying on pigtails, particularly with an overclocked card. That said, the ASRock unit doesn’t provide three fully separate PCIe cables, and the system should still be fine as long as the cables and connectors are in good condition and the PSU is operating properly.
The existing 750W unit should be enough for this setup, especially if you aren’t overclocking. Even with the CPU and GPU drawing heavily at the same time, the combined load should generally remain below the PSU’s capacity, leaving some room for the rest of the system. There’s no real benefit to replacing a suitable PSU early just for future-proofing; you can upgrade later when you actually need one. The graphics card may list three connectors, but its real power draw means two properly wired PCIe connections can often handle it, although using three separate cables is preferable when the PSU supports them.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I’ll keep using the existing 750W PSU since I’m not planning to overclock either the CPU or GPU.
Unfortunately, the ASRock PSU doesn’t have three separate PCIe cables, but it sounds like that shouldn’t be a serious issue for this card and power level.