Enough Wattage?

[wege12]

Do you think that a EVGA Gold 1,000 watt power supply would be sufficient for a PC running two 280x's and a 390? I'm thinking I might need a little more juice .

Other proposed parts in this rig are:

CPU: AMD A4 or A6 dual core
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB Single DDR3
Motherboard: ASRock-FM2A88X-PRO3-Socket-FM2

My goal is to keep costs as low as possible on this build besides the GPUs.

Thank you

 

[96Firebird]

What is your goal running mismatched GPUs? Mining?

 

[wege12]

What is your goal running mismatched GPUs? Mining?

Yeah, mining Ethereum

 

[Erithan13]

I'm mining with a 290 and a 380 (both overclocked/undervolted) and seeing 470W power draw from the wall with the CPU idle. Bear in mind PSUs are rated for the system power draw and they'll pull more from the wall due to PSU inefficiency. Based on that I think 1000W would be overkill, however you could always take the view that since a mining rig places a lot of strain on hardware the 1000W unit provides a large margin of safety and will be less stressed than a PSU rated closer to the actual power draw. Whether or not that's worth the extra cost is up to you.

 

[wege12]

I'm mining with a 290 and a 380 (both overclocked/undervolted) and seeing 470W power draw from the wall with the CPU idle. Bear in mind PSUs are rated for the system power draw and they'll pull more from the wall due to PSU inefficiency. Based on that I think 1000W would be overkill, however you could always take the view that since a mining rig places a lot of strain on hardware the 1000W unit provides a large margin of safety and will be less stressed than a PSU rated closer to the actual power draw. Whether or not that's worth the extra cost is up to you.

Good point. If you believe 1000W is overkill, what would you recommend?

 

[Erithan13]

I'd be very surprised if the system draw exceeded 700W (outside of seriously OCing the cards) so a quality 800W PSU would be quite sufficient, plus there's plenty of room to undervolt/underclock the cards too. I've never really looked at higher power PSUs so I don't know what the market looks like and what sort of increments the PSUs come in. I'd probably say 750W at a minimum to be safe, 800W for a bit more comfort. If you had any plans to add more cards then obviously a 1000W unit would be more justifiable.

 

[EightySix Four]

I did a 1000w PSU with my 3x 390s for mining. Probably a bit overkill but the potential for 70amps on the 12v rail made me make sure I had something beefy back there.

 

[DownTheSky]

I'd say don't look at the few bucks you might be saving and go for the 1000W one. Skimping on a good PSU for mining is never a good idea. Keep in mind that PSU will work full load 24/7.