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Why is everyone OVERDOING Power Supply Wattage?

W

WildHorse

Diamond Member
For an AMD Athlon 64 desktop system in a full tower hooked up with 4 to 5 drives & 1GB RAM, the PS selector on the PC Power & Cooling web site indicates a PS in the 400W to 425 (maximum) Watt range.

Yet in this forum and on Newegg & Zip Zoom Fly, I see prominence given to PS's in the 500W to 600W range.

WHY?

a) Doesn't it just waste electricity & cost more in electric charges to use a PS that's too big for the need? Plus more waste heat, & a higher purchase price.

b) Could people be buying 500W & up in expectation that the dual core cpu's comming out in a year will need that much power?

c) Is a PS with 25% or more extra Wattage needed because of overclocking? (I' haven't oc'd yet). Or are people simply overbuying the PS Wattage because that's what's offered for sale?
 
Future Proofness

Bragging rights

Also a lot of the 500-600Watt PSUs you see are cheap. Not many of the high end ones such as PCP&C 510 and OCZ 520 and up are out there.

No it doesn't waste electricity unless it has horrible efficiency, remember we are not using the 500Watt continuously.

-Kevin
 
Originally posted by: scott
For an AMD Athlon 64 desktop system in a full tower hooked up with 4 to 5 drives & 1GB RAM, the PS selector on the PC Power & Cooling web site indicates a PS in the 400W to 425 (maximum) Watt range.

Yet in this forum and on Newegg & Zip Zoom Fly, I see prominence given to PS's in the 500W to 600W range.

WHY?

a) Doesn't it just waste electricity & cost more in electric charges to use a PS that's too big for the need? Plus more waste heat, & a higher purchase price.
Click to expand...

No. I don't understand why so many people think this (as it makes NO sense), but the PSU will only draw as much power as you actually need. A more or less efficient PSU will make a difference, but nobody seems to actually care about that (since it doesn't result in a bigger number on the side of the box and most manufacturers won't tell you their efficiency, because it's generally lousy).

b) Could people be buying 500W & up in expectation that the dual core cpu's comming out in a year will need that much power?
Click to expand...

That, and/or SLI, which can eat up a few hundred watts of power with high-end video cards. 500-600W is still way, way too much for any sane system, however.

c) Is a PS with 25% or more extra Wattage needed because of overclocking? (I' haven't oc'd yet).
Click to expand...

Overclocking/volting does significantly increase power draws, but again, I doubt most people are pushing anywhere near the limits of any decent PSU.

Or are people simply overbuying the PS Wattage because that's what's offered for sale?
Click to expand...

There does seem to be a lot of that going around. PSU manufacturers have realized they can make a lot of money selling 500W-600W PSUs for twice as much as 400W models, even though even almost all "enthusiast" systems would be fine with a 400W one (if not 300-350W).
 
A PSU is an investment, just like a case. You'd like to buy a good, quality PSU that you can use through several builds.
 
Originally posted by: Matthias99
There does seem to be a lot of that going around. PSU manufacturers have realized they can make a lot of money selling 500W-600W PSUs for twice as much as 400W models, even though even almost all "enthusiast" systems would be fine with a 400W one (if not 300-350W).
Click to expand...

Either that, or they can get more buyers, simply by putting a "500W" rating on their supply, even though it can only supply 300-350W continously. (I've seen more than one cheap one showing the listed rating as "max", and generally those are 100-150W above what the continous load rating is.) So if you have a rig that draws 300W+ continously (not totally out of the question), then unless you buy a "real rating" PSU (like a PC P&C or Fortron), you will need to buy a "500W" one, just to get a 350W stable supply of power.

Plus, a lot of the newer-spec supplies are coming with a much higher amp rating on the +12V rail, which can push the labeled overall wattage spec upwards quite a bit as compared to older supplies with not many amps on the +12V. Considering how people seem to be so worried about the +12V rating ("oh no, 18A is way too low, make sure your PSU has 24A+ on the +12V rail"), it logically follows that they would also tend to purchase supplies with a high rating on the +12V, and thus a higher listed wattage rating as well.

(Personally, I think that 18A on the +12V should be fine, short of an SMP opteron system with dual 6800Us SLI'ed, and half-a-dozen HDs.)
 
Originally posted by: slash196
A PSU is an investment, just like a case. You'd like to buy a good, quality PSU that you can use through several builds.
Click to expand...

I agree. The only things I carry over from build to build are the PSU, case, and monitor. Speakers too, but that doesn't really count.

But just to prove (to myself) that a 500 Watt PSU isn't needed rite now, I powered the machine in my sig with a True430 (I only left two HDD's hooked up though).
 
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Originally posted by: Matthias99
There does seem to be a lot of that going around. PSU manufacturers have realized they can make a lot of money selling 500W-600W PSUs for twice as much as 400W models, even though even almost all "enthusiast" systems would be fine with a 400W one (if not 300-350W).
Click to expand...

Either that, or they can get more buyers, simply by putting a "500W" rating on their supply, even though it can only supply 300-350W continously. (I've seen more than one cheap one showing the listed rating as "max", and generally those are 100-150W above what the continous load rating is.) So if you have a rig that draws 300W+ continously (not totally out of the question), then unless you buy a "real rating" PSU (like a PC P&C or Fortron), you will need to buy a "500W" one, just to get a 350W stable supply of power.
Click to expand...

Well, of course, they've been doing *that* for years. But it wasn't until fairly recently that a whole plethora of reputable-brand manufacturers started really producing 500-600W PSUs (which can actually put out 500-600W worth of power!) There just wasn't any market for these outside of servers before, and I'm not certain why one has developed all of a sudden.

Plus, a lot of the newer-spec supplies are coming with a much higher amp rating on the +12V rail, which can push the labeled overall wattage spec upwards quite a bit as compared to older supplies with not many amps on the +12V. Considering how people seem to be so worried about the +12V rating ("oh no, 18A is way too low, make sure your PSU has 24A+ on the +12V rail"), it logically follows that they would also tend to purchase supplies with a high rating on the +12V, and thus a higher listed wattage rating as well.

(Personally, I think that 18A on the +12V should be fine, short of an SMP opteron system with dual 6800Us SLI'ed, and half-a-dozen HDs.)
Click to expand...

Well, 18A on +12V is, at most, 216W. With high-end CPUs and video cards bucking 100W consumption each (mostly on the +12V line...), you do the math. You could easily need more than 200W on the +12V for a system with a real fast CPU and two 6800GTs or 6800Ultras, and/or a lot of hard drives (which, if you assume a power draw of ~10W while active, are using up nearly 1A each!)

But if you're not planning on super-high-end SLI or multiple CPUs, 18A should be plenty.
 
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Plus, a lot of the newer-spec supplies are coming with a much higher amp rating on the +12V rail, which can push the labeled overall wattage spec upwards quite a bit as compared to older supplies with not many amps on the +12V. Considering how people seem to be so worried about the +12V rating ("oh no, 18A is way too low, make sure your PSU has 24A+ on the +12V rail"), it logically follows that they would also tend to purchase supplies with a high rating on the +12V, and thus a higher listed wattage rating as well.

(Personally, I think that 18A on the +12V should be fine, short of an SMP opteron system with dual 6800Us SLI'ed, and half-a-dozen HDs.)
Click to expand...

My friend's comp with an fx-53 and 6800gt wouldn't boot with 18 amps on the 12v rail. He had to run out and grab a new PS for it to work

 
I like knowing my actual load is well below the rating of my PSU. This means I will be operating at temperatures (PSU components) that are well below what they are designed to withstand and I believe this will increase the life of my PSU.

Not to mention that I don't trust specifications all that much. "Specmanship" abounds and I want the breathing room to prevent suffering from the "but you said......" syndrome. 😀

-Sid
 
I'm taking bets.

I have a 250watt and a 300watt power supply. Think either of these be enough to power a amd 3000+ 939, 6600gt, 512 pc3200, and two CD drives? No OC.

They're coming in on Thursday so as of noon tomorrow all bets are off 🙂
 
If your talking about a nice 300 watt psu like an Antec is should be okay although a qaulity 350 would be your best bet.
 
I'm running an Abit NF7, FX5600, 1GB Crucial PC3200, 2 optical drives and 2 hard drives on 350 watts and never had a problem. 500watts is overkill for 95% systems but it makes the e-d*** that much bigger for those who have them. More power to the companies to sap the kids college tuition and the parents who pay for it.
 
I have 4 psus in my system (1 pcp&c and 3 meanwell) and I still don't feel like it's enough. That's for 2 cpus, 2 TECs, 8 dimms, a Realizm 800, a X850XTPE, and 16 HDDs. When you got that much cash vested, Overkill (Redundancy for the server-types) is the way to go. Don't forget your UPS!
 
A lot of it can be blamed on bad advice given on boards like this one. Browse through the endless number of PSU threads and look how many posters tell people they need 450W or 500W+ PSU's for a single CPU system with a couple hard drives. The future proof thing is bogus. I have a multiple 300-350W PSU's that weren't top of the line even 3 or 4 years ago when I got them and they will still power all but the most exotic setups today. By the time you actually need what the highest end today can offer, it will probably be incompatible with what is being offered.
 
420W Enermax with PFC here, I could power whatever I throw at it for years to come, I really don't see any sense in buying 500W+ PSU's unless you have a dual CPU rig with like 6 sticks of RAM and a RAID 10 array or something
 
Originally posted by: Amplifier
I'm taking bets.

I have a 250watt and a 300watt power supply. Think either of these be enough to power a amd 3000+ 939, 6600gt, 512 pc3200, and two CD drives? No OC.

They're coming in on Thursday so as of noon tomorrow all bets are off 🙂
Click to expand...

I'm running more then that on a 300W unit, so as long as it's a quality PSU it should be fine.

For reference, my system hits 219W under load with a single Hitchi 19" CRT on.
A64 3200+ @ 2.65GHz
GF 6600GT PCI-E
Radeon 7000 VE PCI
1x CDRW
1x DVD
2 7200RPM HDD's (Maxtor D740X & WD1200JB)
SB Audigy2
2GB DRAM
Gigabyte NF4 (K8NF-9)
 
i think its the same as the manufacturers of Hard drives use the number 1000 instead of 1024 (i think) to calculate how many gigs it can hold, just so that it sounds bigger, same thing with manufacturers.
 
My old system was a p4 1.8a, geforce 4 Ti, 3 HDDs, and 2 Optical Drives. Not a light system by any means, but it doesn't draw as much power as systems do today. Anyway it wasn't even completely stable at stock speeds with an Antec True330, but switching to a True550 it was very stable at 2.51 GHz. 550W might have been overkill, but after the frustration of an underpowered PSU I just didn't want to chance it. I'm now on an OCZ520 (The Antec 550 wouldn't boot my new system, some strange incompatibility) and I like knowing that it will power basically any PC I might want to build for years to come.
 
On my old rig, (Dell Dimension 8100), I ran a P4 2.4, 512 mb ram, geforce 6800, 2 optical drives, and 3 hard drives off of the same old stock Dell 250w PSU...Yes, I may have been pushing it, but I never had any crashes and I ran that system at full load a lot! 🙂
On my new rig, I run an OCZ 420w, so I guess I may have overdone it, but its rock solid.
 
My school just bought a new server. It's a dual processor rackmount (19 inches wide and 7 inches tall) made by Sun Microsystems and running Solaris (a version of Unix). It has dual 560 watt PSUs!!
 
Originally posted by: halfadder
My school just bought a new server. It's a dual processor rackmount (19 inches wide and 7 inches tall) made by Sun Microsystems and running Solaris (a version of Unix). It has dual 560 watt PSUs!!
Click to expand...

... which is about the norm for any half-decent server. Remember, of course, that they're redundant PSUs, so it doesn't actually need 1120W of power.
 
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