"How many watts do I need"? Check Here!

[Stefan Payne]

750W

 

850W only when there is a change in Plattform (like Dark Power Pro P11).

[ZhangirDuyseke]

1 minute ago, Stefan Payne said:

750W

 

850W only when there is a change in Plattform (like Dark Power Pro P11).

Thank you very much for response! I didn't think that it is going to be this quick. You've probably saved me a few bucks. Hey, one more question. 750W is enough even for overclocking?

[Stefan Payne]

2 minutes ago, ZhangirDuiseke said:

Thank you very much for response! I didn't think that it is going to be this quick. You've probably saved me a few bucks. Hey, one more question. 750W is enough even for overclocking?

Can't answer that because it depends on what you mean with 'Overclocking'.

Because you can do some sensible OC that doesn't increase the power consumption that much.

And you can do sledgehammer OC that doubles the consumption oft the components...

[MDRodz]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/r3cm8Y

 

I've built my PC with the specs above, and I would like to know if the 1000w PSU is enough, even though the PC Part Picker AND the Cooler Master PSU Calculator say it's not enough.

 

Actually, I have the whole build with the exception of the second GTX 1080ti to use 2-way SLI. The PSU obviously works fine with the current build, but I'm afraid i can't buy another GTX 1080ti without changing the PSU.

[mariushm]

1000w will be enough.

 

1080ti uses up to 250w ... if you overclock them, it goes up to 300-320w

The cpu will go up to around 150w, if you overclock it heavily it could be 200-250w

The rest of that stuff in the system is around 100 watts  (10-30w motherboard, 10w fans / cooler, waterpump, 5w per ssd, ~2w per stick of ram )

 

 

but seriously ... do you need a 2 TB SSD drive?  if you have the 1000$+  to throw at it...

 

With 1000$ you could almost make a second system with a RAID 5/6 from 4-6 TB NAS drives and with 10gbps cards.

 

No 10gbps ethernet on that motherboard...

[MDRodz]

Thank you very much!

 

That's actually a great idea, but I don't have the need to store that much data and I wanted to keep it simple, since I don't have much space in the house for a second system...

[mariushm]

Yeah, but if your ssd dies (and they die suddenly unlike mechanical drives which often show warnings in SMART data before failing) you lose all data. A raid5 or 6 will survive if 1-2 drives die.

 

Also with so much memory you could basically create a 80-100 GB ram disk and copy game completely to ram when you want to play, or use that as scratch disks.

 

[Uhc]

On 8/17/2014 at 1:54 PM, Aniallation said:

Just a general reference for "how much wattage do I need" questions that are filling the forum. Check these and you'll have a general idea of where to start for shopping for a power supply, and questions can be diverted from "how many watts do I need" to a much more specific "what power supply should I get within my budget that will power a system that needs XXX watts"

 

Briefing on buying a quality power supply:

 

Shopping for a power supply is not all about wattage. As much as your mind or people might make it seem like so, it's not. It's about multiple factors, however the most important things are the quality of the PSU and the amps on the 12V rail. Not just watts. This is why the question of "how many watts of a PSU do I need" is becoming drowned out nowadays, because it's no longer a large variable

 

Info on PSU quality:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

As far as PSU quality goes, again, take a look online. If there's a PSU you have your mind set on, take some time to go on Google and take a look at the reviews by websites like Jonnyguru, HardOCP, and others, to see what people are actually saying about that power supply. If it's good, then follow your dreams! It's not worth risking buying a poor quality power supply for a high-end system because it's cheap or it's a brand you like. Also, use common sense. Don't buy a metal gray box Diablotek power supply because it advertises 600W for half the price of brand names like EVGA.

 

Note the OEM of the power supply, often mentioned in reviews. Not every company makes their own power supples. Most brand-name PSU's are made by other companies. However due to the huge variability of PSUs on the market, we can't possibly cover it all, so if you have a hard time finding information on a PSU, take some numbers from here, and create a thread in this section containing your location and budget, to have some members of our community help you out.

 

Here are some good OEM checking resources:

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page541.htm

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/psu_manufacturers

 

 

And remember, 80 Plus ratings are just efficiency ratings. They are not the rating of how good a power supply is. 

 

 

 

 

Info on PSU 12V rail amps:

Hidden Content

 

On with the numbers!

Again, These numbers are established assuming you are using a quality power supply. The overclocks are also based on heavy overclocking, including overvolting. 

 

Hidden Content

 

Another way you could get a rough estimate on your own, is take the TDP of the CPU + GPU(s) and add 100W for other components. This should give you a rough estimate of the maximum power draw your PC will require at stock clock speeds.

 

Use these numbers when shopping for a power supply, but if you're not sure of specifically what model to get, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking! Create a thread in this section that contains your location (country is fine), preferred store or retailer (if any), and your budget. Our community members will be happy to assist you find a good quality power supply that will be quiet, efficient, and reliable. 

 

Hope this reference guide was of help to you if you're looking to get a new PSU to upgrade or for a build. If there's anything that you feel can be added to this, or if you have any questions then let myself know. This thread is a work in progress and I'll do my best to keep working on it so leave suggestions!   Thanks for looking!

 

Changelog:

Hidden Content

Do you 

 

On 8/17/2014 at 1:54 PM, Aniallation said:

Just a general reference for "how much wattage do I need" questions that are filling the forum. Check these and you'll have a general idea of where to start for shopping for a power supply, and questions can be diverted from "how many watts do I need" to a much more specific "what power supply should I get within my budget that will power a system that needs XXX watts"

 

Briefing on buying a quality power supply:

 

Shopping for a power supply is not all about wattage. As much as your mind or people might make it seem like so, it's not. It's about multiple factors, however the most important things are the quality of the PSU and the amps on the 12V rail. Not just watts. This is why the question of "how many watts of a PSU do I need" is becoming drowned out nowadays, because it's no longer a large variable

 

Info on PSU quality:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

As far as PSU quality goes, again, take a look online. If there's a PSU you have your mind set on, take some time to go on Google and take a look at the reviews by websites like Jonnyguru, HardOCP, and others, to see what people are actually saying about that power supply. If it's good, then follow your dreams! It's not worth risking buying a poor quality power supply for a high-end system because it's cheap or it's a brand you like. Also, use common sense. Don't buy a metal gray box Diablotek power supply because it advertises 600W for half the price of brand names like EVGA.

 

Note the OEM of the power supply, often mentioned in reviews. Not every company makes their own power supples. Most brand-name PSU's are made by other companies. However due to the huge variability of PSUs on the market, we can't possibly cover it all, so if you have a hard time finding information on a PSU, take some numbers from here, and create a thread in this section containing your location and budget, to have some members of our community help you out.

 

Here are some good OEM checking resources:

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page541.htm

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/psu_manufacturers

 

 

And remember, 80 Plus ratings are just efficiency ratings. They are not the rating of how good a power supply is. 

 

 

 

 

Info on PSU 12V rail amps:

Hidden Content

 

On with the numbers!

Again, These numbers are established assuming you are using a quality power supply. The overclocks are also based on heavy overclocking, including overvolting. 

 

Hidden Content

 

Another way you could get a rough estimate on your own, is take the TDP of the CPU + GPU(s) and add 100W for other components. This should give you a rough estimate of the maximum power draw your PC will require at stock clock speeds.

 

Use these numbers when shopping for a power supply, but if you're not sure of specifically what model to get, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking! Create a thread in this section that contains your location (country is fine), preferred store or retailer (if any), and your budget. Our community members will be happy to assist you find a good quality power supply that will be quiet, efficient, and reliable. 

 

Hope this reference guide was of help to you if you're looking to get a new PSU to upgrade or for a build. If there's anything that you feel can be added to this, or if you have any questions then let myself know. This thread is a work in progress and I'll do my best to keep working on it so leave suggestions!   Thanks for looking!

 

Changelog:

Hidden Content

Do you actually need 350watts for a 1050ti and an i3 because my cousin has that setup on a 180w psu and the only problem he has ever had was when his pc didn’t work when he left it on for a week

[mariushm]

With such low wattage power supplies it's all about the quality.  The 1050ti cards use up to 75w from 12v rail, the i3 will use up to around 30-50w , the motherboard and ram maybe 20-30w , hard drives around 5-10w , fans  around 1-2 watts each etc...

Thing is the power supply must be able to provide most of that on 12v, so let's say 150-200w on 12v ... you divide watts by volts and you get the minimum amps, for ex 200w / 12v = ~16.5A

[Mark77]

Did something interesting this night.  Put a Watts Up! .NET meter on a server:

 

i7-2600

4x4gb DDR3 RAM (not DDR3L)

5 x 7200rpm Hitachi HDDs (in RAID-10)

3 fans

2 x 7200rpm Seagate 2.5" HDDs (RAID-1)

Silicon Image 3114 4-port PCI SATA RAID

LSI Logic PCI-E U320 SCSI card

Supermicro X9SAE-V motherboard w/dual Ethernet (both utilized!)

2 Hauppauge TV tuner cards

2 Atheros AR9280 WiFi radios

TSST CD/DVD-RW

Antec 600W PSU

 

Guess the idle consumption?  Only 81W!  Power factor was 0.98.  

[mariushm]

That's normal, because your CPU idles most of the time. 

Your big consumers are the hard drives, at around 4-5 watts each , so you have 7 x 4-5 = ~ 30 watts on hard drives.  Then you have 1-2 watts per memory stick and for each fan, so there's another 10-15 watts.

The power supply loses around 10 watts due to poor efficiency at such low power consumption, so basically all the other components use around 25-35 watts (cpu, motherboard, boards  etc)

 

[Smileyy]

Is a 400w be quiet! Pure Power 10 enough for these specs?

 

 

8GB (2x 4096MB) G.Skill RipJaws 4  DDR4-2800 DIMM CL16-16-16-36 Dual Kit

250GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s

1000GB Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 7.200U/min 32MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s

AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (I'm not gonna overclock)

MSI B350 PC MATE

Gigabyte GTX 1070 OC

 

I currently have a 1050ti in my pc but wanna upgrade soon without changing my PSU, will the 400w still be enough? And could be a 1080 possible with the 400w PSU?

 

 

 

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, Smileyy said:

I currently have a 1050ti in my pc but wanna upgrade soon without changing my PSU, will the 400w still be enough? And could be a 1080 possible with the 400w PSU?

 

Yeah, 400W is totally fine for that.

[Crowzer]

Hello,

Do you think my PSU, a Be Quiet Pure Power L8 630W in that case, can handle an overlockedd Ryzen 2700X and the next nVidia cars as 1180/70 ?

My others spec in my profile.
I feel like it will be good but I would like to have some other opinions.

I try to gathering information in order to upgrade my current build.

 

Thank!

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, Crowzer said:

Hello,

Do you think my PSU, a Be Quiet Pure Power L8 630W in that case, can handle an overlockedd Ryzen 2700X and the next nVidia cars as 1180/70 ?

Should be replaced because of Group Regulation.

No need to go 600W again, get a better one this time. Pure Power 10 is OKish, but better get a Straight Power 11, Bitfenix Whisper M (or Formula).

550W is fine, probably even 400-450W.

[Heartlesss]

Hello, i'm building my first Gaming PC..

And i'm kinda stuck at PSU part.. Do i need 550w or 650w would be better?

Won't be doing 2 card sli, or overlock..

 

Did some internet digging etc.. My setup will use about 320-340 watts.. (if i'm right)  And then i heard that "Efficiency" works best at 50-60% of PSU load.. aka 650w better?

And then theres the web browsing & movie watching (when PSU uses low wattage) 80+Efficiency wont hurt then? If i use less than 20%

of psu power? <(if that's possible)

I'm so confused.. =(

And witch PSU would be better? Both are gold rated..

 

EVGA Supernova G2/G3

or

Be Quiet! Straight Power 11

 

Motherboard - Asrock Z370 Extreme4

Processor - Intel Core i5-8600K 95W 

CPU Cooler - Be Quiet Dark Rock 3

Memory - Corsair Vengeance DDR4, 2x8 16GB, 3000MHz

Graphics Card - Asus GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB, ROG Strix

SDD - Crucial MX500, 250GB

HDD - Seagate 2TB, 7200rpm, 64MB

Case will have 3x/120mm and 2x/140mm Fans

 

Thanks for help =)

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, Heartlesss said:

Hello, i'm building my first Gaming PC..

And i'm kinda stuck at PSU part.. Do i need 550w or 650w would be better?

Won't be doing 2 card sli, or overlock..

550W is more than enough.

And you might even think about 450W.

 

2 hours ago, Heartlesss said:

Did some internet digging etc.. My setup will use about 320-340 watts.. (if i'm right)  And then i heard that "Efficiency" works best at 50-60% of PSU load.. aka 650w better?

No, because the differences are minimal.

And the efficiency graphs of 80plus are useless because not enough data...

Anyway, I've looked at some PSU and the difference between peak Efficiency and 100% load is usually something like 2%, maybe 2,5%.

 

And its also not true that the best efficiency is at 50-60%, it is often at 40% sometimes even at 30%.

 

And you get a higher RPM fan with some PSU wich means higher noise under lower loads with higher wattage units.

And with be quiet, you can bet your PC that they use at least 3 different fans, maybe even four in the Straight Power 11 lineup.

 

2 hours ago, Heartlesss said:

And witch PSU would be better? Both are gold rated..

 

EVGA Supernova G2/G3

or

Be Quiet! Straight Power 11

I'd get the Straight Power 11 because its less noisy and I really don't like the totally confusing EVGA Lineup.

 

If you want something cheaper you might think about Cougar GX-F and Bitfenix Whisper M.

[mariushm]

3 hours ago, Heartlesss said:

Did some internet digging etc.. My setup will use about 320-340 watts.. (if i'm right)  And then i heard that "Efficiency" works best at 50-60% of PSU load.. aka 650w better?

And then theres the web browsing & movie watching (when PSU uses low wattage) 80+Efficiency wont hurt then? If i use less than 20%

of psu power? <(if that's possible)

I'm so confused.. =(

And witch PSU would be better? Both are gold rated..

 

What that chart says is that a Gold Efficiency power supply must be at least 87% efficient at 20% or higher of its maximum output power, at least 90% efficient at 50% of its maximum output power and at least 87% at maximum output power.

 

So let's say your system uses 350 watts when you're gaming, and 100 watts when you're in Windows watching a movie or browsing the web and let's say you're trying to compare a 650w Bronze efficiency power supply and a Gold Efficiency power supply.

 

At 100 watts power consumption, that would mean the power supply you'd choose would work at 15% of its maximum output (650w), which is below 20% - so a bronze efficiency power supply must be able to reach 82% efficiency while a Gold efficiency power supply must reach at least 90%

 

So for Bronze psu :  100 watts going to components are 82% of the power consumed from the mains socket ... so :power supply consumes 100w x 100% / 82 % = 121 watts

For Gold psu : power supply will only consume 100 x 100% / 87% =  115 watts

 

When gaming, 350 watts is a bit more than 50% of the maximum output power of 650% so bronze psu will be 85% efficient, and gold psu will be 90% efficient

 

So bronze :  350w  x 100 / 85 = 411 watts - basically 60 watts are lost as heat inside the power supply

For gold : 350 x 100 / 90 = 389 watts

 

So for every hour of low power usage you're saving around 6 watts, but for every hour of gaming you're saving around 22 watts ... 1000 watts is around 0.2$ in electricity costs I think.

 

But the bigger benefit is that because less power is lost in the power supply as heat, the power supply is cooler and the fan doesn't have to spin as fast or at all , your psu will be more silent and you'd be more happy.

 

 

100 watts  ...... 82 %

? watts .... 100 %

 

so  ? watts = 100 x 100 / 82 = 122 watts

[Stefan Payne]

Right now I'm playin around with my two Tahitis again and thus Crossfire, for my Cougar GX-F Userreview (550W).

 

And to get it near its maximum capacity of course...

 

And here what I measured:
Heaven without Prime, 7970OC (1000/1375MHz) -> around 350W or so.

With Prime: closer to 400W

7970GHz/280X BIOS: w/o Prime: A bit under 500W, like 475W or so.

With Prime: 575-600W

 

 

All Measurements are primary measurements with my cheapish China/Pollin Power Meter...

And it shows you how enormously hard it is to load a 550W PSU close to 100%...

[Stefan Payne]

43 minutes ago, Lilit said:

For the time being, I have picked the EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W Gold Fully Modular ATX power supply though I can likely do better on price and quality. I'm a little lost. 
 

Just look at the posting above yours.

If _THAT_ rig can be powered with a 550W without any problems, why do you want a 650W for a way weaker system??

Anyway, 550W is more than plenty, no need to get a 650W, doesn't give you any advantage anyway...

[Stefan Payne]

2 minutes ago, Lilit said:

I've heard or read suggestions from a minimum of 15% system load to 50% system load compared to PSU wattage.

That is the Problem, there aren't many people who really know things about PSU.

You have at most like 5 people or so that know their stuff and are on the Internets (most people, who know stuff about PSU don't go in Forums, they don't have the patience)...

 

And no, its wrong and ancient thought from 15 Years ago when most PSU, even from named brands, were garbage. 

Modern PSU can be loaded to 100% capacity, just google "Stefan Payne Whisper M 850W", there is an image of the Box side where the manufacturer states that the PSU can be used with 100% load for 24/7 Operation.

 

And, as you have read, a Ryzen 7/1700 with _TWO_ Radeon 7970GHz/280X is around 575W Primary even with 90% efficiency that's just 517,5W so still plenty of room.

 

2 minutes ago, Lilit said:

I'm wanting to know the right PSU wattage for my system with some overclocking, the EVGA was what I chose based only on the PSU Calculator. 

Those PSU Calculators are just stupid adder that read values out of a Database, nothing you couldl't do with like 2min research...

 

And those values are just too high. Just try adding a Stick of memory or another Harddrive.

They calculate it with like 10-20W for the Memory Stick and 50W for the Harddrive.

 

While it is true that a Harddrive can consume 50W - when the Motor starts spinning - for a couple of milliseconds or so. So nothing that's really important.

But a Memory Stick with 10W Power Consumption would instantly burn. There might be some that could consme that much but nobody uses them no more...
I'm Talking about the Fully Buffered Things that were used at a Time in Servers when Core 2 Duo was the thing and of course RAMBUS with their fat heatsinks.

 

But besides that its unlikely that a Stick of Memory will consume something close to that...

 

 

Just look at graphics card with 10 or 20W TDP (you have to go back far in the past), what kind of serious heatsinking they used!
Either a rather fat passive heatsink or an active fan.

 

2 minutes ago, Lilit said:

I'm a bit lost as recommendations I have received vary in wattage. 

Because those Calculators are totally overestimating what your PC consumes and you don't have a Power Meter that can measure the power consumption of the components.

Well I have some kind of Power Meter Thingy and they say that my PC (the one above but normally with an RX480 from Power Color) is under 300W under normal gaming situation...

 

And to get the 550W PSU loaded for TEsting, I had to put TWO graphics cards inside...

 

So its pretty hard to get over 500W and that's what I'd recommend in this case:

A good quality 550W PSU. 650W is a waste...

[Damascus]

Hmwdin?

 

6950x

Rx 580 or gtx 1080

Ssd (meaningless draw?)

 

Sff only, I currently have an sf-600

[Stefan Payne]

31 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Hmwdin?

 

6950x

Rx 580 or gtx 1080

Ssd (meaningless draw?)

 

Sff only, I currently have an sf-600

why don't you use an ATX? Those SFF ones are all way worse than ATX and more expensive.

And you don't have many options. And what Board?? The ASRock X99E-ITX/ac that only has Dual Channel Memory and defeats the purpose of LGA2011??

 

 

The next best thing could be Silverstone SX700-LPT, the SX800-LTI...

 

Besides that there isn't much.

And don't expect low noise either.

[Damascus]

3 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

why don't you use an ATX? Those SFF ones are all way worse than ATX and more expensive.

And you don't have many options. And what Board?? The ASRock X99E-ITX/ac that only has Dual Channel Memory and defeats the purpose of LGA2011??

 

 

The next best thing could be Silverstone SX700-LPT, the SX800-LTI...

 

Besides that there isn't much.

And don't expect low noise either.

Yeah, I'm on an x99e-itx.  I'm honestly just enjoying cramming this much power in to 7L lol, just want to make sure I have enough wattage

[seon123]

8 minutes ago, Lilit said:

The wattage of a PSU is the max amount it can draw from an energy source

No, it's the max output. As you can see on the label of every single PSU. 

8 minutes ago, Lilit said:

The efficiency of a PSU is the amount of wattage actually provided to components divided by the amount drawn from the energy source. 
 

Efficiency = System Wattage Use / Drawn Wattage 

That's correct.

9 minutes ago, Lilit said:

Using my build, the total system wattage is 299W while the GPU requires at least 500W to operate meaning the PSU must be at least 500W 

No. It'll use closer to 250W, and the PSU recommendations for the GPU is assuming the worst case scenario. Which is an absolutely crap PSU. A decent 450W PSU will have plenty of headroom for upgrades. 

11 minutes ago, Lilit said:

The PSU I chose operates between 90% to 92% Efficiency [or more] depending on VAC. I am unsure of VAC, so I just used 91% Efficiency for the Efficiency equation. And doing so resulted in 328.57W [or more/less] drawn from the power source to provide my system with 299W of power. 

The efficiency and pepper draw at the wall doesn't really matter. 

11 minutes ago, Lilit said:

Example results from other calculators. 

All of those are completely useless, and overestimate by a ton. In general, you get about twice as much as you should get.