this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023

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Out-of-touch old gamer looking for 3090-compatible components (self.pcmasterrace)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by PP_BOY_ to c/pcmasterrace

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Title pretty much tells you all you need to know about my situation. In a turn of events tonight I've been gifted a used but working EVGA 3090 card to replace my seven year old 1070.

My current system hardware specs are:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core (upgraded from Ryzen 5 last year)

GPU: MSI 1070

MoBo: MSI MAG B550 TOMAHAWK

PSU - Corsair CX-550 550 Watt

x4 8GB Installed Memory

I also have a 2tb SSD drive with my OS and games installed, and 4 8tb HDD for media.

My main concern is with needing to replace my MoBo with a x3 PCi board and worries about my PSU not being powerful enough. I'm not particularly worried about my tower is a Phanteks Enthoo Pro PH-ES614PC_BK.

Thanks in advance!

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[–] Malcolm 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You might be able to get by with the power supply but 750+ watts is recommended for a 3090. Any B550 motherboard should be totally fine.

For what it's worth I'm running a 5950X, 3090, a pair of water pumps, and 11 fans all off a 750 watt Corsair PSU and I've never experienced any instability or signs of an insufficient PSU.

If it were me in your situation, I'd just pick up a decent 750-800 watt PSU, and upgrade the memory to a decent 32 gig memory kit while I'm at it just to have a little better time. 3600mhz with decent timings seems to be the sweet spot. Otherwise, as long as the GPU fits the case, you should be in great shape to run it.

[–] Fades 8 points 11 months ago

Hard agree on investing on a more powerful psu, you always want headroom on wattage (and a good rating as well)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I think OP means is that he has 4 8GB sticks for already a total of 32GB. While not quite as good as two 16GB sticks, it wouldn't be worth the upgrade cost IMO. I'd say he just needs to upgrade the PSU and maybe replace the thermal pads/paste on his new used 3090 if he's done that sort of thing before.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

don't need to touch anything except the psu. the rest of your rig will keep up fine. that phanteks has official support for up to 340mm long cards without the hard drive cages (you will likely need to remove those), and the EVGA FTW3 3090's were 300mm cards on the dot.

absolutely the fucking do not try to run a hungry 3090 off a 550W CX supply. the infamous 30-series transients will trip that poor thing constantly. buy a 750w or ideally a 850-1000w fully modular unit from SeaSonic, Corsair, or EVGA.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

My 850w seasonic X powersupply tripped on a 3080ti. I got a 1000w Seasonic and that seemed to fix it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I use a 10 year old 750w Seasonic to run a 3090, kinda crazy an 850w tripped. What CPU?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

5800x OCed

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

yeah the 30 series power management was not great. i doubt that was ever the PSU's fault- if anything seasonic's more sensitive OCP would have exacerbated the problem lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, was annoying, but the PSU was already halfway through it's useful life while chips have been ballooning in power requirements. I gave it to a friend and hope to keep this PSU longer. Though I plan on keeping my current hardware for a number of years as improvements have been pretty iterative. :p

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

yeah the PSU market has sure changed. 1000W used to be insane, now it's just normal for high end builds lol.

if you're running a 3080ti you're definitely good on hardware at least for another 3-4 years. I managed to stretch my old 970 almost 6 years, I can't imagine current top-end hardware will age any worse than that.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The MAG B550 looks like it has PCI gen 4, so you would be good to run the card.

The power supply probably needs to be replaced though.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Seconded. Everything looks compatible except the PSU.

[–] GladiusB 3 points 11 months ago

I third it. If you check your MoBos website they have a whole spec section with compatability for every component. I have done this very swap so you should be good. I had to increase my power supply and RAM swap too. But if your RAM already works you should be good.

[–] v81 14 points 11 months ago

Motherboard is fine.

Corsair AXi 850w PSU is what you need.

[–] FireRetardant 10 points 11 months ago

Check out pcpartpicker.com.

You import your build (or even just a single part) and use their compatability filter to shop for other parts from a variety of suppliers. I'm not sure how accurate it is and there are some minor issues (had a liquid cooler not fit a motherboard but it wasn't flagged on the site) but for the most part the compatability filter is accurate.

You can also use it to make your ridiculous dream builds just for fun, plan out other upgrades, shop for the best price, and keep track of what your current build/build history is.

[–] lemmefixdat4u 10 points 11 months ago

Assuming you have the right power connectors, don't exceed the max draw from the PSU, and that the card will fit, you can use a newer graphics card in the older PCIE slot. You'll take a performance hit for doing so. The major difference in slots is the bandwidth. You end up not being able to push enough data to the card to fully utilize it.

The PCIe standard is both backward and forward compatible between generations.

https://www.electronicshub.org/can-you-use-a-pcie-3-0-card-in-a-2-0-slot/

[–] owatnext 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Sorry for off topic, but I just had a little panic.

1070

seven year old

Am I old?

[–] PP_BOY_ 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Haha you should've seen the look of pity my brother in law gave me when I told him my PC's specs. I thought a 10-series was still a respectable card to have.! Oh well, I got a hand me down 3090 out of it, so can't complain

[–] SkyezOpen 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

10 series still hold up fairly well for a ton of things, and the 1080ti is good enough to still be relevant for even new games with fancy graphics.

[–] DanglingFury 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah i have no complaints with my old og build 1080ti and 4790k. I typically play 1440p 144hz and do have to drop the graphics a bit on some newer titles to keep my frames up in the 120-140 range, but otherwise i can crank them.

I built it so i could process the hair in Witcher 3

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh no, my first GPU is 23 years old now ...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I found my Riva TNT 1 in the attic the other day.

I am pretty sure I had a Riva 128 before that one, though.

Fortunately you go through this enough times and you just start to accept that yeah, you're pretty old. The constant joint pain helps.

[–] FireRetardant 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How do you think I feel still rocking my GTX 770.....

[–] owatnext 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I use a laptop now, but my old rig that I use occasionally has a GT640 lol.

[–] FireRetardant 3 points 11 months ago

Honestly been impressed with this card. Started making a buzzing noise after mining doge coins but that was many years ago and it still buzzes away. I can't play modern AAA games on max but I can keep up with many good games and indie titles.

[–] CrazyLikeGollum 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The motherboard is fine, unless you want some of the overclocking features there’s really no need to go above the b550 chipset for a Ryzen 5xxxx series.

That CPU will be excellent paired with a 3090.

You will need more RAM. At least 16GB in a dual channel kit, though 32GB would be better. Going beyond that would be kind of pointless at this point.

The PSU you would definitely need to upgrade. You’d need a minimum of 750W, but going with a 1000W PSU would give you some headroom for future upgrades for a pretty minimal price increase.

[–] PP_BOY_ 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Glad to see that the MoBo and CPU should pair without fault for the 3090. Truthfully I haven't refreshed myself on hardware jargon since I built my PC around 2018.

you will need more RAM

That was a complete typo on my part, I meant to put x4 8GB for 32GB total.

PSU was expected, upgrading to a GPU that maxes 350W on its own. Will probably be looking into a 1000W unit on your recommendation, just for future proofing

[–] CrazyLikeGollum 3 points 11 months ago

As an additional note, if you’re comfortable doing so, I’d recommend going into the BIOS and undervolting the CPU down to 1.2 or 1.3 volts.

A common issue with the higher end Ryzen 5xxx CPUs is that they run a bit hot which prevents them from boosting clock speeds as high for as long as they’re able.

My last build very similar to yours, (3090, 5900x, 32GB RAM) and I was able to shave almost 10C off of the CPU temps by setting a CPU voltage offset of -0.15 volts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Gpus are backwards compatible. You won't get the full speed with an old motherboard but it won't be worse than the old card.

The PSU is a valid concern. You probably want to upgrade to a 700w. As long as it is at least gold rates you will be fine with almost any brand.

The CPU itself is still powerful, so from my perspective there is no need to go all out on a new system, just a new PSU. If you don't hit 60 in your favorite games at your preferred resolution with your preferred graphics level, only then should you consider upgrading.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If you can go more than 700w you should (especially for a 3090, I'd be looking at a 800w at least but would probably go for 1000w myself), you wont use more power than the system needs anyway, so there's no harm having the extra headroom for the future.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

A B550 motherboard should have PCIE 4.0, which means your GPU upgrade is just drop-in. You should be good to go.

[–] Kumabear 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You are absolutely fine except for the power supply.

I’d recommend avoiding a seasonic as I had issues with their OCP on two of their power supply.

I like the Corsair AXi series. They allow you to adjust the OCP if needed.

[–] CrazyLikeGollum 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Personally, Seasonic is the PSU manufacturer I generally recommend. Especially when you start getting over a kilowatt of rated power delivery.

The only issues I’ve had with Seasonic have been related to OCP, which just kills power to the system and then resets. Unlike some other manufacturers like Rosewill, Silverstone, or the generic manufacturers that used to be included with cases where a power spike on either end has killed a number of other components, including my Pentium 4.

But my Seasonic PSUs have generally held up fine, even during XOC type situations. Such as a modded GTX 780ti and an FX-9590 with LN2 pots.

[–] Kumabear 1 points 11 months ago

I have a 3090.

Don’t get a seasonic to run it.

Most especially if it’s a duel 8 pin 3090.

I went through a prime ultra 850 (fair as it was being pushed)

Then I got a prime 1300w and it still had issues in very high gpu power use games like metro exodus.

In the end they had a sale on Corsair axi1600 and I got that and it’s been stable ever since.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

the corsair power supplies are built by seasonic- at least the higher spec ones.

if you had a 500w or lower unit though you might have gotten some of their older import junk.

[–] Kumabear 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is incorrect.

I believe this was true far in the past.

Most of the high end stuff from Corsair are OEM,d by flextronics.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

mm, tells you how up to date i am. i will stop spreading such misinformation.

the last time i was SUPER super in tune with all the peripherial stuff was like 2015. thanks

[–] DanglingFury 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ya bro that was like 3 years ago

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Everything looks more than good except that PSU as others mentioned. 750 should be okay, I'd try to get 850 or 1000 if you can afford the extra amount.

The 3000 series is known for transient spikes that can trip OCP on power supplies that can deliver the needed wattage. Obviously don't cheap out on a no-name or low quality unit. 5900X is more than enough today, and you've got plenty of RAM. Motherboard I wouldn't consider a concern either, put that money into the PSU instead.