Noob question

bm23

bm23

Active Member
I've been using the com for a long time but never really care about power supplies until recently when i was looking for a graphic card. On average, how much electricity does each component of the computer use? i know that a GPU uses about 100 to 250w. Also, is 560W enough for crossfire?
 
It's not a no0b question. It depends on each graphics card. Most use a four-pin connector to power the card. If you get a really cheap one then they dont require power becuase it receives the power from the motherboard. If you get a more expensive, bigger, card then it will require two cables to power the card. You just have to check what the card looks like and usually get 500+ watts for yous psu.
 
what about the rest of the computer? how much electricity do they use? or is the PSU mainly for GPU?
 
bm23 said:
what about the rest of the computer? how much electricity do they use? or is the PSU mainly for GPU?
Click to expand...

It depends on your system. What chipset you have, the processor your running, how many drives you have, how many sticks of memory you have, if you use alot of PCI cards instead on onboard like sound and LAN, how many fans running and so on.
 
thanks for the replies. the reason why i asked is because i read that a single 4850 use 220w while loading. i was thinking of crossfiring 2 of those in the future and i realise that 440w out of my 560w would go to the GPUs. i didnt know if the rest of the 120w would be enough for the rest of the components.
 
a motherboard usually uses 20-24 pin connector which is standard and every psu has one.
It also depends on how many peripherals you have. Hdd also matter. if you get one thats like 550+ watts then you should be good.
 
Btw the wattage of the PSU is not what is important. It is how many amps each rail carries that matters the most. A 450watt with 28 amps on the 12v rail can easily perform better than a 500watt with only 18 amps on the 12v rail...think about it ;)
 
Moocher said:
Btw the wattage of the PSU is not what is important. It is how many amps each rail carries that matters the most. A 450watt with 28 amps on the 12v rail can easily perform better than a 500watt with only 18 amps on the 12v rail...think about it ;)
Click to expand...

you lost me there. can you explain it further?
 
What I mean is that Some companies paste high wattages on their PSU's because they want to sell it to consumers who are unfortunate enough to see past this, they increase the Amps on the other ramps that are not as critical as the 12v and then sell it. Because if you have say a 500watt PSU (which btw is I guess the standard now a days) that only has 15 amps on the 12v rail (this feeds the CPU and graphics card I believe) but your graphics card requires 28 amps on the 12v rail you are screwed! SO what I am trying to say is that ignore the wattage of the PSU (at firs), focus on how many amps you need on each rail and let that be a major part of your descision on a PSU...

for example:

Look at this broad way comp power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...dway Com Corp Okia-550-Blue 550W Power Supply

and this E-power PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...escription=ePOWER EP-550XPF 550W Power Supply

The BWC PSU is 550watts but only has 24 amps on the 12v rail (not enough for most modern gfx card), but the e-power PSU has a whopping 30 amps on the 12v rail (this is more than enough, the 8800gt requires about 28amps all together)...but they around the same price. although I would use neither of these PSU's because I'm not sure if these companies have are quality
 
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