Please learn to read english and context jediyoda, the discussion was regarding overkill and efficiency issues. It's been clearly stated that peak efficiency of a psu is around 40-60% of maximum wattage, this has nothing to do with 40-60% actual efficiency. Your rant is completely off topic from the original discussion and does not invite people to talk intelligently about the original conversation. I don't always agree with Mr Oblivious's opinions, but he has a good deal of solid technical knowledge about psus that should definitely be listened to.
The 9800X2 is coming next month ,and will need a min. of 580 watts so a 650 watter would not be overkill,Some people have been told in this section they will never need more than a 500-550 watt power supply for a single card ,more times than not, It will be said the 9800X2 is not a single card but it will be the only Nvidia high end card option for Intel boards for a while.
Also ATI will release the R680 this month and will require as much power, single card.
so it could be said in Jan. 2008 the min. power supply would have to be 650 watts, To have most of the gaming options open,as far as power is concerned .The way I see it.
No, purely hypothetical. I will be starting my next big computer build in a couple weeks, and I'm guessing it'll pull over 500 watts when the initial parts are put in. I just started this thread to get a feel of what the general idea was on PSU wattage. You guys really took to it!
DSF
Diamond Member
- Oct 6, 2007
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What exactly are you planning to put in it?
A computer with a Core2Duo and an 8800GTS pulls less than 300W under load.
Edit: @rgallant - Where are you getting those power supply numbers regarding the 9800GX2 and ATI's coming offerings? They sound like complete nonsense to me.
Here's the specs for the system I'm building:
Thermaltake Armor Plus case
Intel Q6600 quad core 2.4 GHz
Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi
EVGA 8800GTS 512
Corsair 2GB DDR3
PC Power and Cooling 750 watt
Thermalright Ultra 120 heatsink
Thermaltake Armor Plus case
Intel Q6600 quad core 2.4 GHz
Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi
EVGA 8800GTS 512
Corsair 2GB DDR3
PC Power and Cooling 750 watt
Thermalright Ultra 120 heatsink
http://www.fudzilla.com/index....view&id=4983&Itemid=34
I went by what is out there ,as according to these rumored specs. one card ,will need a min. of 580 watts, so it will bump the basic rule of one high end card system ,can get away with a 500 watt power supply, people looking at past posts in this PSU section might not know what is coming out,in the short term, This person might not buy this up coming card but I don't thing it should be exclued from the range of wattage options ,going by past needs to the ones coming out,might require a rethink,for 2008 FOR gaming.
ATI also rumored their next big high end card could have four R700 yet unreleased cores on it, if not, they have still said multi cores will be coming past the R680 = more power
I'am not a expert but I read alot of these forums every day, also just trying to save someone a upgrade when a large power supply ,from day one would allow a safe upgrade path, If you read the This and other video card forums any video card problems are sorted out by what powersupply is in their system before they move on to other possible causes.
This is one of those fun yet annoying problems when it comes to future technology. Obviously, everyone who builds a system builds it to their own personal needs (gaming, audio or video production, 3D, etc.), so making the effort to future-proof your system can always be a challenge. Do you spend the money on high end components now that will last for a reasonably long amount of time, or do you go with low end products that that won't break the bank, but also won't be too expensive to upgrade later?
For me, it's a combo of both. But in regards to power, I guess my personal feeling is go for a power supply that can handle at least twice as much power as your system is sucking out at full load. This way, if you do upgrade your components in the future, as long as you keep your system going, your PS should consistently have enough horsepower to run anything you throw at it.
I was told two years ago a 500 watt would last forever,just upgraded to a 650 and I don't ask people any more about what I should get.
It is personal ,and I can't help thinking how many people who just picked up EVGA 8800gt/gts and might hit the step up to the 9800X2 and had needed to buy a new powersupply ,were told they only needed a 500 watt, only to find it might not be big enough for the new card,and will have to buy another.or past on the step up.
Anyone who says all you'd ever need is 500 watts has clearly been sniffing large quantities of thermal compound. I mean, it's good that a lot of manufacturers are making their products more energy efficient, but at the same time, those components like CPUs and video cards are just becoming massive in terms of raw power.
Twenty years from now, I'd love to see that person use 500 watts to run Unreal Tournament 15. That wouldn't even cover the juice needed for the full-body, USB-powered, virtual reality simulator.
njdevilsfan87
Platinum Member
- Apr 19, 2007
- 2,342
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Until I start pulling 500W from the wall, my HX520 stays. I've got an overclocked Q6600, overclocked G92 GTS, 8GB RAM, 3 HDs, 2 extra PCIe cards, and 7 120mm fans... if I throw my CPU and GPU under full load I'll pull 330W from the wall. I've still got a long ways to go.
The HX520 has good 12v rails, what about the others people only see 500w or 600watts what is that saying ,I think death by Fire ? My math if you add 20% to 400 D/C you get 480 from the wall @ 80%
but have you upgraded to a possible new card with a 6 pin and a 8 PIN connector?
PIC-E=75 6Pin=75 8pin=150 only 300 watts my mistake (could be wrong on these )
65w-85w un,oc,clock cpu , close to 400 watts +20%, yet no hard drives, (I use 4)no DVD,yet your system might run?
as I said I'am No expert ,but there is no e-penis value to under powering a big investment, to save 20 bucks
sorry.
What death? 330w max load out of a 520w psu = extremely sensible. I assume idle is going to be 150w or so, which should be nothing for a good corsair.
Originally posted by: sbazzle
Strange, could have sworn p4's were far worse for power than core 2 duos and athlon'sThe only component that's recently been going up in power is the video cards. Everything else has been equal or less. Motherboards have been getting better in some regards(depending on manufacturer) also, especially with the more efficient vrms and other components. Hopefully we'll get really low power chipsets in the future. Let's not pretend that power usage is going up massively unless you specifically buy insane cli/crossfire configurations.
Originally posted by: tomoyo
Strange, could have sworn p4's were far worse for power than core 2 duos and athlon's
Yeah, the P4's are definitely less efficient than today's processors. But as time goes on, and more cores are put in a chip, how much less power can they pull when all those cores are working like mad at the same time? Perhaps I don't fully understand the science behind it, but the math doesn't make sense to me.
Plus, I'm guessing that the video cards are the most power-hungry pieces, but this also makes me think about the prototype CPUs we hear about with integrated high-end graphics. I know Intel has been working on stuff like that, and I'd love to know how efficient those are compared to a separate processor and video card.
njdevilsfan87
Platinum Member
- Apr 19, 2007
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There's nothing about e-penis here...
My point was - get a quality name brand power supply, and you will not need to worry about the "next-gen" cards pulling too much power for it to handle. You're assuming that the next gen cards will use 300W - which is a bit high to be honest. The second power connector doesn't mean it will be entirely used. Take a GTX for example - it's got enough connections to allow it 225W, when in reality it pulls around 175W I believe.
And also you don't add 20% to your total assumption. When you add 400W DC, that's 400W. You will pull 480W AC off the wall. The PSU itself is supplying 400W, not that and an extra 20%. But if you are going to be using +400W DC, I would start looking at 600W+ quality PSUs.
But I find it hard to believe that any single card setup in the next year or two will use 400W+ just given off what I've seen based off my system. Intel's new 45nm slightly reduced power draw, and ATI/nVidia's die shrinks recently made today's higher end cards consume less power than the ones that were around a year ago. But I guess it is a significant possibility (something I did not think about before) if ATI and nVidia shift toward something like ATI's HD 3870X2 or whatever it's called for single card setups.
If your 650W PSU cannot handle a 9800GX2, no offense it's a garbage PSU and you need to start looking at quality PSUs instead of thinking to yourself "I have to go out and buy the cheapest 1000W PSU!" (not that any are cheap and will not perform well, but you probably see what I'm saying).
But buy all means, if you want a 1000W PSU, go ahead and buy one. It's not a bad decision, it's just highly unnecessary right now unless you plan to run quad crossfire or triple SLI (or whatever ridiculous multi GPU setups there are), or some server that has 15 hard drives - basically some kind of setup that the average enthusiast does not have. I think a good quality 750W one would last you at least 5 years assuming you stick to single card setups.
I actually turned off my monitor to get only power draw from the computer itself...My system is not pulling anywhere near as much power as I initially thought it to be a month or two ago (point about overestimates). I'm taking these AC readings from my UPS, and this is what I get...
Idle: 140W +/- 10W
GPU+CPU Full Load: 310W +/- 10W (it was really 350-360W before, bad estimate on what I thought my monitor used heh)
If I factor in the optimal efficiency of 85%...
Idle: 119W +/- 8.5W DC
GPU+CPU Full Load: 263W +/- 8.5W DC
Theoretically... any 500W PSU should be able to power my system without a problem. But we know that isn't the case...
If the new cards do come with a 6 & 8 pins,as seen in photo,s they could have use two 6 pins for 150 watts +PICe@75 watts=225 if I'am not wrong,Max load = 75watts 1x6 pin
At no point did I pick on your system ,It seems you replied base on your system ,not the possible up coming systems,as I was trying to outline ,I only upconverted known MAX D/C out put based on future cards to your A/C readings from the wall@ a20% min.loss,and 330 watts A/C doesn't cut it,for the new cards
at no point did I SAY MY 650 COULDN'T HANDLE A 9800x2 ,unless you have knowleage,in fact I don't even call it the 9800GX2 as I don't think Nvidia has Named it yet.It's two 8800gts 512's mating, together some how ,maybe?
any ways I did not enter this post to get into a no win pissing match ,just deleted the rest of my reply and will replaced it with a open question: If/when AnandTech did a review on the new Quad QX9770 Mild O\C @4gigs ,With two 8800 GTS 512 CORES will they use a 500 watt power supply in their test system (,that is also bare bones ,out of case, no fans ,only one drive ) to get the most out of the test hardware ?? It's only a one time test ,not 7/24 for 1-3 years,
njdevilsfan87 it seems like were replying to pre edited post for the people who can't follow these replys and the replys seem out of context with each other.
I never said anything about SLI/Crossfire, that comprises about 1% of the entire computer population and I'm guessing less than 10% here. We're talking about single quad core + single high end gpu for HX520. If you want to go crazy with energy inefficient sli/crossfire, it will obviously require more careful power measurement. Personally it's not an area I care for, but I will gladly help someone figure out power needs for that.
Also e-penis is all about getting overpowered stuff, not underpowered. The purpose of not buying huge power supplies is for silence or money savings, nothing to do with e-penises.
Just to note my personal high end system doesn't use over 200w at load, but I do undervolt both my cpu and gpu, so disclaimer: result may be lower power than usual
Also e-penis is all about getting overpowered stuff, not underpowered. The purpose of not buying huge power supplies is for silence or money savings, nothing to do with e-penises.
Just to note my personal high end system doesn't use over 200w at load, but I do undervolt both my cpu and gpu, so disclaimer: result may be lower power than usual
Originally posted by: sbazzle
Originally posted by: tomoyo
Strange, could have sworn p4's were far worse for power than core 2 duos and athlon's
Yeah, the P4's are definitely less efficient than today's processors. But as time goes on, and more cores are put in a chip, how much less power can they pull when all those cores are working like mad at the same time? Perhaps I don't fully understand the science behind it, but the math doesn't make sense to me.
Plus, I'm guessing that the video cards are the most power-hungry pieces, but this also makes me think about the prototype CPUs we hear about with integrated high-end graphics. I know Intel has been working on stuff like that, and I'd love to know how efficient those are compared to a separate processor and video card.
Sure, but if you're noticing, the cpu cores aren't getting much more complicated these days. It's a combination of shrinking dies and also adding more cores. This kind of balances out...assuming cpu manufacturers continue to keep leakage down. Hopefully the trend continues in the future, I'd be scared if we run into a wall where cpus end up at 200w.
The scary thing to me right now is that video cards are just more and more "pipes" with more complex shader functions. All that does is inflate transistor count with no way to avoid giant gpus that use 200w. A new paradigm shift is badly needed on the scale of intel going from 30+ stages to 14 stages in their pipeline.
njdevilsfan87
Platinum Member
- Apr 19, 2007
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If they did one, I would expect something in the 600W+ range. That's perfectly fine if that's how you want to look at it. But assuming a QX9770 4GHz will consume as much power as my Q6600 at 3.6GHz, a quality 500W+ PSU could do it.
And here's my question. If you owned that Anandtech review system, would you rather power that Anandtech review system with a Corsair HX520 (though even for this system I'd recommend the 620), or a POWMAX PowerKing 650W PSU?
I'm not trying to turn this into a pissing match I'm just trying to help you out.
- Oct 30, 1999
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Yeah, I really think that a discussion like this needs to be handled on a case by case basis.
For example: One of my machines at home is an AMD 4200+, a 6800GT, two HDD's, one optical, 2GB of RAM on a V-Series 500W. Ample, right? Been running this way for over two years without a single problem.
Well, the 500W is 500W peak rated at 25°C. Assuming that the 500W peak is actually 400W peak, that should still be enough. But assuming that the air being sucked up into the PSU is about 40°C and the PSU may have a derating curve that shaves 25% off of it's 400W capability means it may only be able to put out 300W continuous. Still seems fine because the UPS says I'm only pulling about 280W from the wall.
We also have to remember that the displays on UPS's, Kill-A-Watt type devices, etc. are incapable of measuring transient loads. I use my quad-father rig to test samples from OEM's because I know the machine packs a heavy punch with the dual FX74's and two 8800 Ultra cards. Running 3DM'06, I pull about 700W from the wall. But using the same 800W PSU I can put a full 800W load on with my load tester, if the OCP's are set to 28A on the +12V rails feeding the PCIe connectors, the unit will actually shut down during Canyon Flight despite the fact that the PSU can put out 97.5% of it's capability on the +12V rail and the Kill-A-Watt is still only showing 700W being pulled from the wall. If we set the OCP's on the +12V to 32A, the unit works. But it's not showing any more getting pulled from the wall. Why? Because the Kill-A-Watt can't capture those transient peak loads that can cause a PSU to run at full tilt on a moment's notice.
So anyways... my wife asked my to pull out the old Handspring Prism so she could use it to take notes at school. I plugged the cradle into the USB of this computer so it can charge and Sync and suddenly I hear a high pitch whine coming from the PSU. After about 15 minutes, the PC shut down. Now when I turn it on I get nothing but funny characters on the screen and no post. If I unplug the Handspring, it posts and boots into Windows, but now the PSU is always whining. Good thing I've got a VX450W I can throw in there as a replacement.
So yeah, Corsair HX520 or POWMAX PowerKing 650W (is there such a thing?) makes a big difference because with variables like continuous vs. peak, rated temperature, derating curve and transient peak loads, it's impossible to just throw a number out there and call it a "good guestimate" because even if it works now... what's it going to do two years from now?
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