220-801 · Question #1186
A technician is planning a hardware upgrade of a workstation. The technician would like to upgrade the video card, sound card, and NIC and add a USB 3.0 card. The technician is concerned about power…
The correct answer is A. Video card. High-performance video cards draw significantly more power than other expansion cards and often require dedicated PCIe power connectors, making a PSU upgrade necessary.
Question
A technician is planning a hardware upgrade of a workstation. The technician would like to upgrade the video card, sound card, and NIC and add a USB 3.0 card. The technician is concerned about power consumption by the expansion cards. Which of the following upgrades would MOST likely require also upgrading the power supply?
Options
- AVideo card
- BUSB 3.0 card
- CSound card
- DNetwork card
How the community answered
(23 responses)- A96% (22)
- B4% (1)
Why each option
High-performance video cards draw significantly more power than other expansion cards and often require dedicated PCIe power connectors, making a PSU upgrade necessary.
Dedicated graphics cards are by far the most power-hungry expansion cards, often consuming 150-300W or more and requiring 6-pin or 8-pin PCIe supplemental power connectors directly from the PSU. A USB 3.0 card, sound card, and NIC each draw minimal power (typically under 25W combined), whereas a modern GPU alone can exceed the headroom of an older PSU. This makes the video card the only realistic candidate for requiring a PSU upgrade.
USB 3.0 expansion cards draw very little power, typically under 10W, and do not require a PSU upgrade.
Sound cards are low-power devices drawing only a few watts from the PCIe slot and do not stress the PSU.
Network interface cards consume minimal power, usually under 5W, and will not require a PSU upgrade.
Concept tested: Power requirements of GPU expansion cards
Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/component-guidelines/power-delivery-and-management
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