Guess How Many Watts
- Thread starter Kornowski
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Kornowski
VIP Member
Who was that aimed at?
Because most systems dont pull anywhere near the amount of watts people think they need. If watts are a more important than amps and efficience which one of the P/S are better in your opinion.
500W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703015
550W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817165033
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Kornowski
VIP Member
I know, right. People always over-estimate what they need with regards to the size of the power supply.
currently running e6300 Overclocked,2 IDE burners (temp)8800GT,2 hard drives,sound card,on my 460W,seen no problems yet.
Yeti
VIP Member
The problem is that you're thinking of watts as it pertains to PSU marketing whereas I'm thinking of it as defined in electronics. Of course power ratings are exagerated and differ between peak power rating or sustained power rating. However, all the talk of x amps on the 12V rail could just as easily be stated in watts on the 12V rail while being as, if not more, meaningful. In the case of this power meter it isn't even dealing with the DC output of the PSU, but rather the AC input so it is the correct total power consumption of the computer. You don't get an electric bill for amps; you get it in kW-hr which is total energy.StrangleHold said:
Now of course people can't just look at the reading as the size of power supply they need, which I think is your point. But that value can be used for other purposes - power usage, heat generated, etc.
I agree with that. This meter is only telling you how much watts the System as a whole is pulling from the wall. Not how much the system is pulling from the Supply. I'm just saying thats amperage and efficiency is more imporant in general when buying a P/S than how many watts it has.
gamerman4
Active Member
Wattage is a great metric to measure the power drain of your system because wattage is pretty much amps at a certain voltage. The 12V rail is always the most important because it runs the main stuff in your comp. Amp is just the current needed to keep it running and voltage is what you need to keep it on. Wattage is a combination of both so its a good measurement.
fade2green514
Active Member
the best a psu has ever gotten for efficiency is 89% efficiency (that i have seen) and it was under full load, and a very low wattage psu.
put simply, smaller psu's generally work more efficiently. they get to be as low as 75% efficiency though, so yours at the lowest possible efficiency under a fully loaded system would be like 345 watts. if you add another card, i'd get a new psu. but, if you want to chance it get the extra card and try it out. it's not like a lack of power can hurt your system, you just might have to wait another week to be able to use another card in SLI. nice card btw, those 8800gts g92's are beautiful. but, they cost just as they perform... better performance = more $$.
1000watt psu's ... it's all a marketing angle. they get you to spend $250 on a psu when you really need half the wattage, even for SLI/Xfire setups. my 600 watt has lasted me forever though, and it was cheap. cost me $55 after MIR and it'll run Xfire just fine.
put simply, smaller psu's generally work more efficiently. they get to be as low as 75% efficiency though, so yours at the lowest possible efficiency under a fully loaded system would be like 345 watts. if you add another card, i'd get a new psu. but, if you want to chance it get the extra card and try it out. it's not like a lack of power can hurt your system, you just might have to wait another week to be able to use another card in SLI. nice card btw, those 8800gts g92's are beautiful. but, they cost just as they perform... better performance = more $$.
1000watt psu's ... it's all a marketing angle. they get you to spend $250 on a psu when you really need half the wattage, even for SLI/Xfire setups. my 600 watt has lasted me forever though, and it was cheap. cost me $55 after MIR and it'll run Xfire just fine.
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ceewi1
VIP Member
Very true, but I'd also caution people about taking the opposite line of thinking - just because a certain system only draws (say) 500W max doesn't mean it's a good idea to try to use a 500W PSU with it. PSUs really don't like being run at close to capacity for extended periods of time, even if it's a continuous rating.
80+ Gold certification requires greater than 90% efficiency at typical loads and there are a few units (granted, not typical consumer grade units) that have achieved it. Silver certification requires greater than 88% efficiency at typical loads, and there are quite a few units, even 1KW+ consumer units that have achieved it. If someone had said two years ago that we'd be seeing that I'd have laughed!
I think a large part of the problem is that a lot of people who run SLI'd high end cards seem to think that they must need the biggest PSUs available. I have seen greater than 1KW power draw on fairly extreme gaming systems (Dual FX-70s + two OC'd 8800GTXs + highend watercooling, from memory), and if you were to add e.g. three way SLI + large RAID5 array into the mix even 1KW would not be adequate. Of course, 99.99% of people don't run anything like this which is where the problem lies...
We should start a 'list your power draw' thread for people with these sort of devices to post in. Might be helpful for people wondering how much power their system is likely to use to lookup similar systems. Does anyone else have a power meter? A few PSUs do include something similar (although a little less accurate). For Americans, this is one of the more popular: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ctronic+Gadgets-_-P3+International-_-82715001
For Australians, this is what I use: http://www1.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?URL=index&ID=MS6115&CATID=12&SUBCATID=457
