What power supply for this system?

nsxdemon

Member
Mar 12, 2001
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I already posted this in the General forum but it's more specifically appropriate here. Anyway, I've got most of the following components for a new server rig (for divx and MP3's)...it's slightly different than my other post cuz I changed the drives around a bit. Some don't seem to fit in as server stuff (like the TI4600) but I'll switch them out into a gaming rig if I build one.

Intel D850GB motherboard
Intel 1.4 GHz P4 (yea yea, don't laugh, I'm working on changing this whole old P4 chipset thing)
4 x 128MB PC800 RDRAM
Visiontek GeForce4 TI4600
1 x Maxtor 10K III 36GB
1 x IBM 75GXP 60GB 7200 RPM drive
2 x IBM 75GXP 75GB 7200 RPM drive (both 75GXPs might get replaced with bigger drives sometime but they've worked great for 2 years now)
2 x WD1000BB 100GB 7200 RPM drives
4 x WD1200BB 120GB 7200 RPM drives
Promise SX6000 IDE RAID Controller
Promise ATA100 IDE Controller
Adaptec 29160 SCSI Controller
PCI NIC Card
52X CD-ROM
16x10x40 Yamaha CDRW
12X DVD-ROM
250MB Zip Drive
1.44MB Floppy

What size power supply should I go after for this setup? Something like Enermax's 550W PSU? I don't know how many of you will suggest redundant power supplies but my case (YY-0221) won't fit a redundant unit, just standard ones.
Cheers,
nsx
 

nsxdemon

Member
Mar 12, 2001
126
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bump?
weird.....says one reply except it's just the original post...we'll see what happens after this bump here.
 

gplanet

Senior member
Jan 5, 2002
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here's an estimate for you

25W Intel D850GB motherboard
100W Intel 1.4 GHz P4 (yea yea, don't laugh, I'm working on changing this whole old P4 chipset thing)
30W 4 x 128MB PC800 RDRAM
10W Visiontek GeForce4 TI4600
28W 1 x Maxtor 10K III 36GB
28W 1 x IBM 75GXP 60GB 7200 RPM drive
56W 2 x IBM 75GXP 75GB 7200 RPM drive (both 75GXPs might get replaced with bigger drives sometime but they've worked great for 2 years now)
56W 2 x WD1000BB 100GB 7200 RPM drives
112W 4 x WD1200BB 120GB 7200 RPM drives
10W Promise SX6000 IDE RAID Controller
10W Promise ATA100 IDE Controller
10W Adaptec 29160 SCSI Controller
10W PCI NIC Card
15W 52X CD-ROM
15W 16x10x40 Yamaha CDRW
15W 12X DVD-ROM
15W 250MB Zip Drive
5W 1.44MB Floppy

assuming you have a bunch of fans....add 25W

this comes to a total of 575W. But that's at 100% power for every device, which will never happen, assuming a maximum of 80% power usage (which will also never happen, unless you're burning CDs, while transfering data to and from every single hard drive and you're playing a game). But 80% is a good number to be safe.....460W.

So you should get a good 430-450W PS. The most important thing is quality. If you want, you could get a 500-550W in case you want to go dual-proc someday but it's not necessary.

EDIT: do you have onboard motherboard devices such as sound and USB devices? add about 10W for each of those.
 

mcvan

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Apr 13, 2000
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Originally posted by: gplanet
28W 1 x Maxtor 10K III 36GB 28W 1 x IBM 75GXP 60GB 7200 RPM drive 56W 2 x IBM 75GXP 75GB 7200 RPM drive (both 75GXPs might get replaced with bigger drives sometime but they've worked great for 2 years now) 56W 2 x WD1000BB 100GB 7200 RPM drives 112W 4 x WD1200BB 120GB 7200 RPM drives
Umm... those numbers for the drives are like 3-4 times what they really are. IBM 75XGPs dissipate ~8W check here WD specifies "spinup" power to be 17W, but idle and seek is just ( & 11W: 120BB specs The Maxtor is similar to the WD.

Nothing wrong with going for 450W, but whether you NEED to is debatable. I did some power dissipation experiments on a bunch of desktop systems. On a P4-2G system (fairly loaded) with 2 Seagate 7200 rpm drives, the idle / normal use consumption was ~75-80W. Max peak, with everything I could throw at it -- 120W. Max sustained, 110W. An identically configured XP1700+ system drew about the same wattage. Pulling HD out dropped idle wattage maybe 6W; max, maybe 8W. Pull the LAN card made like a 1-2W difference, the Live! sound card maybe 5-7W. I doubt very much

If you search on Intel's site for any motherboard specifications & suport, you'll find they cite typical system power dissipation very similar to the above.