Watt calculation

[p123]

Is there any way I could calculate the watt usage of a PC before buying it?

Because I am not sure which PSU is gonna be enough for me

[Spotty]

Yep. There are some PSU calculators you will find online that will let you put in your parts and it will give you a wattage estimate, but most of them aren't that great.
Main parts to be concerned with are your CPU and Graphics card, as they are by far the most power consuming parts in a system.

What parts are you looking at buying?

[UrbanFreestyle]

I believe you can put your parts into PC PArt picker and it will show estimated Power useage

[TheKDub]

1 minute ago, p123 said:

Is there any way I could calculate the watt usage of a PC before buying it?

Because I am not sure which PSU is gonna be enough for me

 

If you put all of the parts you're going to buy into https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ it will tell you an estimated wattage for your PC

I'd make sure to get a power supply at least 20% higher than the estimated usage, that way you have room for extra fans, accessories, peripherals, etc...

My current PC is estimated around 400W, but I went with an 850W PSU for a few reasons...

1. The less load you have on the power supply, the less heat it'll produce, and the quieter it'll be able to operate.
2. It leaves plenty of room for overclocking and future upgrades.

[p123]

Just now, Spotty said:

Yep. There are some PSU calculators you will find online that will let you put in your parts and it will give you a wattage estimate, but most of them aren't that great.
Main parts to be concerned with are your CPU and Graphics card, as they are by far the most power consuming parts in a system.

What parts are you looking at buying?

The CPU and the graphics card are ryzen 3 2200g and an RX560 which will be added later in the build

The others are a b450 mobo from gigabyte, 1 SSD, 1 HDD and the 2x4 ram sticks

[Chronified]

17 minutes ago, p123 said:

Is there any way I could calculate the watt usage of a PC before buying it?

Because I am not sure which PSU is gonna be enough for me

Powersupply calculators are all made to recommend way more than you need, for the purpose of upselling their products. 

 

Just search the TDP of your GPU and CPU, add them together and add 20%, use that as the minimum PSU 12v rail you should have.

There's no situation where you'll reach TDP on both CPU and GPU, and leave a bit of headroom for your chipset, RGB, storage, etc. If you use 2+ mechanical HDDs, add 30% instead of 20%. 

 

For instance, Ryzen 5 2600 (65w) + 1660 ti (120w) 

Apparently you could get away with a 250w 12v rail (likely a 350w/400w PSU) with that pairing. 

 

Keep in mind to keep headroom for future upgrades, a 650w PSU seems to be the sweetspot for budget single-gpu systems. You can upgrade to pretty much any CPU on your platform and the GPU to a 2080ti and still not pass the 650w. 

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, p123 said:

The CPU and the graphics card are ryzen 3 2200g and an RX560 which will be added later in the build

The others are a b450 mobo from gigabyte, 1 SSD, 1 HDD and the 2x4 ram sticks

2200G = 65W
RX 560 = 100W

Total system: <200W under max load.

To get those figures I searched reviews which test power consumption for those parts and based it off that.
Ryzen 2200G - https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-raven-ridge-thermal-power-benchmarking,5464-5.html

AMD RX560 - https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-radeon-rx-560-4gb,review-34033-14.html

 

The other stuff such as the motherboard chipset, RAM, case fans, USB devices, etc don't require a lot of power. Few watts each at most.
A 2.5" SATA SSD might be up to 4W while reading/writing, or as low as <0.1W when idle. A HDD will be around 5W when spinning idle and maybe up to 10W when actively reading/writing.

Decent PSUs typically start at 450w though, so for that system I'd recommend looking at some 450w units.

Wattage isn't the only thing to consider however. There are some good PSUs and bad PSUs. Were there any models you were considering already? If not, what is your budget?

[Enderman]

A ~500W PSU would be more than enough, just make sure it's from a known brand name and has good reviews.

[p123]

8 minutes ago, Spotty said:

2200G = 65W
RX 560 = 100W

Total system: <200W under max load.

To get those figures I searched reviews which test power consumption for those parts and based it off that.
Ryzen 2200G - https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-raven-ridge-thermal-power-benchmarking,5464-5.html

AMD RX560 - https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-radeon-rx-560-4gb,review-34033-14.html

 

The other stuff such as the motherboard chipset, RAM, case fans, USB devices, etc don't require a lot of power. Few watts each at most.
A 2.5" SATA SSD might be up to 4W while reading/writing, or as low as <0.1W when idle. A HDD will be around 5W when spinning idle and maybe up to 10W when actively reading/writing.

Decent PSUs typically start at 450w though, so for that system I'd recommend looking at some 450w units.

Wattage isn't the only thing to consider however. There are some good PSUs and bad PSUs. Were there any models you were considering already? If not, what is your budget

I have been considering this PSU

 

Corsair CX Series CX450

 

It has a 80 Plus bronze certification and 450W seem enough since my power consumption should be 312W

My budget is around 400-450$

[seon123]

3 minutes ago, p123 said:

I have been considering this PSU

 

Corsair CX Series CX450

 

It has a 80 Plus bronze certification and 450W seem enough since my power consumption should be 312W

My budget is around 400-450$

That's a decent PSU, should be fine. When buying a PSU, just ignore the efficiency. Instead look at actual reviews, and check the electrical performance, noise protections etc. Buying a PSU based on the efficiency is as silly as buying a CPU based on TDP. 

The lazy way to get a wattage estimate under a gaming load is GPU TDP + 70W. 

[Spotty]

12 minutes ago, p123 said:

I have been considering this PSU

 

Corsair CX Series CX450

 

It has a 80 Plus bronze certification and 450W seem enough since my power consumption should be 312W

My budget is around 400-450$

That will be fine.

 

If you're planning on gaming I'd probably try and get at least an RX570 instead of the RX560. Shouldn't cost much more. Or even a 2nd hand RX580. Also 2x8GB of RAM if possible - DDR4 prices have dropped a lot in recent months and prices now start at about USD $65 for a 2x8GB 3000MHz kit.