Enough Wattage?

[Jove325]

I wanted to know if 450w is enough headroom for a 404w system? Also what about getting a power supply with too much wattage, like how much more wattage can a power supply have before it can be dangerous for the computer?

[IAmAndre]

It's fine as long as the PSU is powerful enough to cover your needs. However you don't want to have it running at its limit all the time and sometimes there might be some power spikes that the PSU wouldn't be able to cover. However you also don't want it to be "too powerful" because it reaches the power efficiency mentioned on it only when it's used at a certain level, so it's less efficient when the power requirements of the system are too low compared to what it can actually deliver.

[Jove325]

1 minute ago, IAmAndre said:

It's fine as long as the PSU is powerful enough to cover your needs. However you don't want to have it running at its limit all the time and sometimes there might be some power spikes that the PSU wouldn't be able to cover. However you also don't want it to be "too powerful" because it reaches the power efficiency mentioned on it only when it's used at a certain level, so it's less efficient when the power requirements of the system are too low compared to what it can actually deliver.

Okay, that makes sense but what if i have a 550w power supply with a 340w system, I am wanting to upgrade later and got a larger power supply to save that money.

[IAmAndre]

That's totally fine. Just don't go for a 1000W PSU if you only consume a third of it. Also the price difference between a 550W and say a 450W variant of the same PSU is usually quite marginal so go for the more powerful one.

[seon123]

Why do you think that you have a 404W system? If you used a PSU calculator, that was just a waste of time. What are your specs?