Upgrade Power Supply for Z420

Appolonius · ‎03-30-2019

I want to install a new graphics card which requires both a 6-pin power connector and an 8-pin power connector. The PSU in my Z420 only has 1 of these (6-pin I think but I don't want to open it up and look right now). Does anyone know if there is a PSU of 700W - 800w that will fit into the Z420 and has both of these connectors? and the existing ones of course.

wb2001 · ‎03-30-2019

@Appolonius,

You will need to run this program FIRST to determine the Boot Environment.

That unit was released early 2012, so it is likely BIOS, which is not upgradeable to the more modern UEFIvBIOS used in the newest graphic cards. If your "BIOS", its a done deal, your going NO WHERE fast. The last suitable card would be the GTX 660.

If it were UEFI, then continue:

Your source information can ne had from this vendor.They will be able to answer your questions.

This system is feedback driven thru Solution and Kudo flags. It's the only means of knowing if you have been served. Please click Accept as Solution, if your problem is solved. To say THANK YOU, press the "thumbs up symbol" to render a KUDO. You can render both Solution and KUDO..

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Appolonius · ‎04-02-2019

Thanks for your reply: I checked with msininfo32 and I do have UEFI. I recently flashed the 'BIOS' and it is now J61 v03.94. The 'boot block date' indicates that the MOB is version 2 and I have upgraded the CPU to an E5 1660 v2.

At the moment I have a GTX 960 - an ASUS Strix version that miraculously only needs a single 6-pin supply. This works very well, but would probably not quite drive a 4K resolution monitor at a higher refresh rate; as you may guess I'm pushing the Z420 to see if it can make a good gaming machine.

The problem that I foresee is that a GTX 980 Ti card could be consuming up to 250 watts and needs a 6-pin and an 8-pin power supply, so I need to replace the PSU with one that can provide this extra power and has both an 8-pin cable and a 6-pin cable. The site that you linked me to looks promising but I havn't seeb a 750 Watt PSU there yet.

What would be useful in the event that I talk to a supplier like Phoenix would be a list of all the cables that the existing PSU in the Z420 has. As they are all black it will be a tricky task to trace them all.

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