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1500W PSU is No longer required?

S

sub-80

Senior member
Hello;

Considering how power efficient graphic cards are these days is there any need to go higher than 1200W. Seeing how more than 2 way sli is no longer officially supported. With two new titan which will be released, is there a reason to go 1500W?


Thanks
 
sub-80 said:
Hello;

Considering how power efficient graphic cards are these days is there any need to go higher than 1200W. Seeing how more than 2 way sli is no longer officially supported. With two new titan which will be released, is there a reason to go 1500W?


Thanks
Click to expand...

I'd personally say anything over 900w is now totally overkill since things are more power efficient and only 2 way SLI is supported going forward. My 850w Corsair has been fine for any and all 2-way SLI or CF configurations over the years.
 
If am going for 2x1080 sli I'd need a 1200w.
But am not sure if the new Titan will require me to go above 1200w

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
Not sure the average user ever needed a 1300watt PSU. Also PSUs usually have an efficiency sweetspot versus power delivered.
 
sub-80 said:
I used extreme power calculator to get my estimate

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

That is way off.
1080 = 180watt tdp. 2 1080 = 360 watts.

In fact, look at the Anand review. A full system with a 1080 running Furmark (max load, way more than you'd see in any game), pulls only 318 watts total from the wall. Add another 180 watts for the second 1080 and you are at 496 watts. A 600 watt gold psu is more than enough.
 
you must have not been around a lot in the past ... 7 years.

a 1200w PSU will quad-SLI with headroom to spare.
 
Yakk said:
Not sure the average user ever needed a 1300watt PSU. Also PSUs usually have an efficiency sweetspot versus power delivered.
Click to expand...


Going multi gpu has always made big psu a necessity. And efficiency sweetspots are not really a big point with modern psus as they have to maintain their efficiency thru out the range to pass specification. Take the EVGA 1600 T2 tested by jguru. It maintained greater than 90% efficiency from 160w to 1600w, cold or hot. Sweetspot? It's somewhat irrelevant now.


And just because the the new overpriced midrange is capped to two gpu, it doesn't mean the high end will be. If one is waiting on the highend gpus, I wouldn't be downsizing psus just yet.
 
lol graphics cards are far from more efficient, they use way more power than they ever did... but they are also way more powerful. That's why you need like 2 6 pin connectors now days, because the 18awg wire of one connector would melt. It's also why they need MASSIVE heat sinks and take up 2, sometimes almost 3 slots. It's gotten a little ridiculous actually. That said, for a single video card you need maybe about 500w for the whole system, so unless you want to do SLI you don't need a 1000w+ psu. I would do at least 750w for a modern gaming system to be safe though, between video card and cpu it will use a pretty decent amount of power and you want some extra leg room for if it gets pegged to 100%.

If you're going for power efficiency go with a server class board that has built on video, and a Xeon (such system won't be good for gaming though). The minute you get into add-on video card and core i7 territory you are adding a couple hundred watts to the power usage.
 
Deders said:
Apart from 2 GPU's what would you be running from the PSU? Another PC?.
Click to expand...

If you're overclocking, I'd say it's fair to budget ~200w for CPU/platform. (Including motherboard, watercooling pump, fans, etc.) Maybe 250+ if you're doing extreme AMD FX OC'ing. (I remember reading somewhere that draw those could climb over 200w for just the CPU.)

Beyond that, I have no idea. Forty-seven hard drives maybe.
 
dave_the_nerd said:
Beyond that, I have no idea. Forty-seven hard drives maybe.
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That and 20 Delta fans running full bore. 😉

Trying to tell most people they do not huge PSUs is like trying to convince they don't use 64 GB of RAM while gaming.

As the young people say, it's all about that bass. 😉
 
i wanna see this case that holds 20 fans. actually, scratch that, i wanna see this 64gb gaming pc in a youtube video, as you game on it with 20 fans running full blast next to you.
 
DigDog said:
i wanna see this case that holds 20 fans. actually, scratch that, i wanna see this 64gb gaming pc in a youtube video, as you game on it with 20 fans running full blast next to you.
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Sorry, a picture will have to do instead of a Youtube video.

BTW, did a joke rub you the wrong way some how?

https://www.engadget.com/2007/11/25/66-fan-case-mod-exemplifies-overkill/

q:100
 
DigDog said:
yes, if that is your pc, you are allowed to use a 1500w psu/
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Ok, I will admit I have no idea what is going on in this thread. All I did was make a small joke about enthusiasts using huge power supplies and lots of fans, after dave_the_nerd mentioned having 47 hard drives.

With that, I will bow out of this thread.

Edit:

Now thinking about it, I think you thought that I talking about my system, and me justifying why I needed a large power supply. However, I hate noise so I use Noctua fans, and my power supply is a very pedestrian 650w.

For a moment when you jumped on my post, I thought to myself "Man, this guy must really hate Delta fans or something".
 
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Deders said:
Apart from 2 GPU's what would you be running from the PSU? Another PC?



The ATX spec for the GPU cables is 16awg, to avoid the melting.
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My mistake I just knew it was not super thick, so there is a need for many conductors to spread the load. A single 16awg would still not be enough and probably get red hot.

I remember when video cards did not even need an extra connector and the PCB traces on the motherboard were enough, and they did not even need a heat sink. You also had to game at like 640x480. 😛
 
Red Squirrel said:
My mistake I just knew it was not super thick, so there is a need for many conductors to spread the load. A single 16awg would still not be enough and probably get red hot.

I remember when video cards did not even need an extra connector and the PCB traces on the motherboard were enough, and they did not even need a heat sink. You also had to game at like 640x480. 😛
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16 awg is thick enough for 2x6 pin as well as 1x8 and 1x6 together. I would presume that any decent psu manufacturer would use even thicker wires when using 2x 8pins on the same wire or we'd be hearing a lot more about wires melting.

16awg can handle 22A which at 12v comes to 264W. When you consider that up to 75W (it varies greatly for different card models) comes via the PCIe slot itself, and that most top end cards don't draw more than 250-300W, 16awg is borderline OK in those situations.

It's when you have overclocked dual gpu cards that you really need to double check, or use 8 pins from separate cables.

On the other hand, The new 1080's with 2x 8 pins will never get close to making those wires too hot.
 
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Red Squirrel said:
lol that's awesome. Funny thing is the air flow is probably terrible, depending how they set those up. 😛 Still looks like a fun mod though.
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Yeah, I agree. Airflow would probably end up blowing against each other.

There are computer enthusiasts, and then there are the super enthusiasts like this guy in the video. In case you ever wanted to know what 12 Delta fans running sounded like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSllkFWVhJI

Some look like they are having trouble getting enough juice to run properly.
 
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For me it's not so much the '1500W' that concerns me, it's the performance of the power supply itself. And funnily enough it seems that the AX1500i is one of the best power supplies ever made, and I think there's an EVGA 1200 watt one also widely considered to be excellent. I don't see many 750W power supplies winning performance awards on jonnyguru (which I use as a bible for power supply reviews), but I might be mistaken.

I think there are rigs where larger power supplies are warranted but 1500W is indeed very generous.
 
Aristotelian said:
For me it's not so much the '1500W' that concerns me, it's the performance of the power supply itself. And funnily enough it seems that the AX1500i is one of the best power supplies ever made, and I think there's an EVGA 1200 watt one also widely considered to be excellent. I don't see many 750W power supplies winning performance awards on jonnyguru (which I use as a bible for power supply reviews), but I might be mistaken.

I think there are rigs where larger power supplies are warranted but 1500W is indeed very generous.
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What about the AX750i, HX750i and RMi series? I believe like you say the EVGA G2 (correct me if i'm wrong) also pretty much got a perfect score.
 
I'd still check the reviews for the specific wattage you want. Remember when the Antec TruePower New 650 was winning awards for best balance of power, price and stability etc, but the 750W model couldn't keep up and pretty much every review site said so?
 
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