I just opened my tower and noticed the power supply reads as 470W. On the product specs it says 500W. To run the new nVidia 1080, a 500W power supply is recommended. I am also thinking of installing an 2nd SSD and 2 nd hard drive down the road probably over a year.
http://h20386.www2.hp.com/CanadaStore/images/datasheets/N0A72AA.pdf
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So I talked to best buy about the power supply and they pretty much said you are shit out of luck in polite terms...fucking LOL....they are like hmm mmmm that's HP you know they do strange things. However they said they do not recommend putting the 1080 500W in my system even though it says 500W on the specs but actually 470 on the unit. They said you risk burning out the mother board.
Is there anything I can do through HP to get back some losses. This is false advertisement. This was actually one of the factors why I went with the HP phoenix because that 500W was the sweet number and is the reason I did not go with Dell :frusty::frusty::frusty:
The 500W spec is the AC rating for the power supply. The DC wattage supplied to the computer parts is a bit lower (10-20% less) due to design inefficiencies. For a pre-built PC that 98% of users will never upgrade, so that's an acceptable rating. For people like yourself and myself , who plan upgrades, IMHO 750 W from a quality manufacturer is the
minimum. You can go for a larger supply, it won't waste electricity as it will only supply and therefore draw what's needed. Keep your existing 470W PS and add a 1080 and the upgrades you mentioned - you will be pretty close to the line. The 1080 requires 180W, CPU ~100W, motherboard ~75W, RAM ~5W/stick, Hard drive ~10W, SSD ~5W, optical drive ~25W, fan ~5W each. Your PC's consumption will be APPROXIMATELY: 400-420W max, with typical consumptions about 1/2 that. Definitely don't overclock and you won't be able to go SLI.
Doesn't hurt to try beating on HP, only costs you some time. I doubt they will do anything more than ship you a new 500W PS, which you will have to replace anyway, but give it a shot!
Be aware, some pre-built PC manufacturers use proprietary connectors on their motherboards. Dell and HP used to do this, but I believe they stopped. This means (potentially) you can't swap power supplies unless you cut the wires off one of your PS connectors and solder them onto the appropriate pins in their proprietary connector. A quick google search should confirm if they are using standard or proprietary connectors, but I'm pretty sure they stopped.
Me? I'd suck it up and buy a minimum 750-850W power supply.
BTW, in my comparisons pre-built PCs are almost always cheaper by a fair margin. Building your own will certainly result in better quality, but you have to perform the build and it may require some troubleshooting if you mess up. I've built quite a few machines and still sometimes run into problems (almost always RAM related).
"Founder" version is just marketing. The old term is "reference".
http://www.gamersnexus.net/news-pc/2427-difference-between-gtx-1080-founders-edition-and-reference
NO, don't feel obligated to buy a Founder card. Most of the 3rd party cards are cheaper, run good quality components, come with games, many run cooler, most run quieter and some come with a modest overclock.
I'd also be inclined to wait 2-3 months after the initial release to see what the 3rd party providers come out with and to let prices stabilize. Definitely check out the reviews, occasionally a manufacturer will build a unstable card and these tend to be quickly identified.
