[GAs inside] Can I keep my old PSU?

You should be fine, it indeed uses slightly less power.

Whats the wattage? If it's at least 700 it should be fine. I was building a PC for my brother recently and even though the GPU said 500W min the recommended was 750W. I'm assuming because other parts and if it's running at max, etc etc?

ye
minimum is 650W

650w would probably be enough

It all depends in the years you own the PSU, a safe bet would be buying a new one with good reviews by certified HW reviewers.
You didn't add the PSU model and the years you have with It.
You're probably fine.

yep. & yep

Your FEAR is justified, but FEAR not, it should be ok as long as the PSU is working well. So, put your FEAR aside and keep it.

It's only 500W lol
But 80 Plus Titanium

That is correct, and these days especially, PSU upgrades are rarely an issue unless you're doing a 7+ year setup upgrade. Back then, good CPU paired with a GPU would easily get to 700W requirements, whereas today they are as low as 400Ws.

Thanks guys

you can use a psu calculator e.g. https://www.bequiet.com/en/psucalculator/ to check

Bump!

You should be fine if you just switch a 3070 for a 4070. 3070 has a TGP of 220 watts, while 4070 lowers that to 200 watts. You can take a look on tomshardware azarticle "GPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2023: Graphics Cards Ranked". There is a graph of a medium consumption at several resolutions and 4070 always beats the 3070 with a lower average.

Summarizing, if your PSU was able to keep with your 3070, it will be able to keep with your 4070 with 20 watts to spare.

If your power supply works with 3070 (not Ti), then it can handle 4070 (not Ti).

you can always try to undervolt the gpu and see

Okay, a preliminary explanation. The main concern with PSUs is their age. As PSUs age, they "wear" electronically (I say that in comparison to mechanical wear; of course the problem here isn't mechanical wear) and perform worse. This is true of all electronics, really, but it's rarely an issue; with PSUs it absolutely is one because they begin to provide less stable power, which hurts your components' life span and can cause catastrophic failure when you're especially unlucky: as opposed to the PSU dying as a response to a bad power problem, it can die and take your shit with it, which isn't fun at all. That's why a PSU should be good and rated for more power than you actually need; the PSU is the #1 component of your machine with which you should never under any circumstances pinch pennies.

So, what is long age for a PSU? Well, that kind of also depends. For example, if your PSU is the kind of ultracheap crap that doesn't even have its own transformer (sadly a common reality in many areas; you can easily spot that the PSU doesn't have a transformer because it's physically light, as the iron in the transformer weighs a great deal), I'd even say that zero days is really old, lol. Anyway, a couple years is not a real concern; assuming your PSU is good and rated for at least 30% more than the power you actually draw, I wouldn't begin to worry until the PSU was at least four or five years old, three if it's not quite as good, but I also wouldn't run a machine on a ten-year-old PSU no matter how good it was and much power it provided when new -- unless the machine itself was that old too.

As a note, you ought to look at power ratings vs actual draw per line (3.3V, 5V, 12V), not overall. The overall power the PSU can provide is a somewhat meaningless number because you will always max out one line before the others. A PSU rated for 1 kW that has too little output on the 5 V line will definitely be a huge concern when you try to install 20 HDDs on a huge RAID array and also try to draw a crapload of power over USB, even if it''s only drawing 500 W total.

The long and short of it is: yes, if it's not too old, but consider swapping it if it's getting on in years, regardless of whether it provides enough power, as a matter of component safety and life span.

Source: I'm an electrical engineer.

Biggest question is what's the age and brand/make of your PSU?

I used to be a supermod in a PC modification forum for years, and I would write articles on what PSUs to choose based upon the type and manufacturer of the capacitors in them. 😁🤓

Here's the advice I've always given everyone for custom builds when they're considering their PSU: never, ever, EVER cheap out on your PSU. EVER. Literally everything is hooked to it, and if it goes then it's likely to take some or all of your other expensive components with it. The good news is that if you invest in a good PSU, it's like to survive at least 2-3 upgrades. It's one of the best bang-for-your-buck quality improvements you can make to a good custom system, and it's likely the most overlooked thing on most people's part lists.

I have a 1.2KW NZXT that's aesthetically matched to my case (white with black trim) that I got for a great price because the first gen was so-so...but then they fixed the issue (solder problems in some units) and were trying to get their rep back, so I got a $300-$350 PSU for $90. I've upgraded three times with this PSU, and if my PSU tester is still remotely accurate, it still hasn't wavered and the rail is steady as ever. Current build is a 2950X TR2 (16-core) that I've been running for three years paired with an EVGA 3090ti that I added about a year back. I'll likely still have this PSU for my next upgrade. But the second I run a test and start seeing fluctuations, then off to electronics recycling it goes and I get a new one.

Invest well, and save money in the long run.

That said, if your current PSU is of good quality and still running well, then yes, all reports suggest the 4xxx series is less power-hungry than the 3xxx series, and you should be good to go.

EDIT: I just read Cassol's post above mine. Literally LOLing right now. Freaking echo chamber in here. Great minds, and all of that. 😁

Lots of good information here. a little hyperbole. a modicum of misinformation.

But heres the great news, if you just swap, and have issues, you can swap back (to the higher manufacturers spec'd wattage part) while you wait for your psu to arrive.

Pro-tip, make a bench power supply out of your old PSU's. It's super fun, dangerous inverse to your intelligence, and a good way to learn some fundamental things about their function and whatnot.

Bump :)

Keep the current PSU.You can then use any of the GPU's whenever you want.

barely a performance increase and it's not like you only pay the price difference but you spent another 600 bucks. not worth it
I mean it has some higher clocks but a worse bus. You can just overclock your current gpu and get the same result lol

Depends on practical Watt - not the summary, but the one that's actually used.

If it's FSP, then you should definitely keep it :)