power consumption

[Wiks]

hey i would like to know if a 450w unit is enough for my pc and if i can upgrade my 65w tdp cpu to a 95w tdp cpu, specs 

R3 3200g Stock cooler

Gtx 1650 super oc 

msi a320m a pro max 

1TB HDD (dunno rpm)

2 120mm fans currently at 900rpm 

 

[minibois]

1 minute ago, Wiks said:

hey i would like to know if a 450w unit is enough for my pc and if i can upgrade my 65w tdp cpu to a 95w tdp cpu, specs 

R3 3200g Stock cooler

Gtx 1650 super oc 

msi a320m a pro max 

1TB HDD (dunno rpm)

2 120mm fans currently at 900rpm 

A good 450W would work.

What 450W do you have/will you get?

[Wiks]

Just now, minibois said:

A good 450W would work.

What 450W do you have/will you get?

it is 80 plus bronze i believe 

[5x5]

Just now, Wiks said:

it is 80 plus bronze i believe 

Efficiency isn't quality. We need the exact model

[Wiks]

2 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Efficiency isn't quality. We need the exact model

corsair cx450m

[gloop]

7 minutes ago, Wiks said:

corsair cx450m

Not the best, but will handle your current build and future upgrades.

[Wiks]

2 minutes ago, gloop said:

Not the best, but will handle your current build and future upgrades.

ight thanks 

[mariushm]

16 minutes ago, Wiks said:

 

 

~ 60w R3 3200g Stock cooler

~80w Gtx 1650 super oc 

~ 25w (including ram) msi a320m a pro max 

~8w 1TB HDD (dunno rpm)

~5w (1.5-2.5w each) 2 120mm fans currently at 900rpm 

 

Your computer will barely go over 150w when you're gaming. Maybe 200w will be reached from time to time, if you're really pushing it.

The Corsair CX450 can do more than 400w on the 12v output, from where the processor and video card are powered, so you're not even getting close to half the power supply's capability.

You'll be fine.

 

[Wiks]

3 minutes ago, mariushm said:

~ 60w R3 3200g Stock cooler

~80w Gtx 1650 super oc 

~ 25w (including ram) msi a320m a pro max 

~8w 1TB HDD (dunno rpm)

~5w (1.5-2.5w each) 2 120mm fans currently at 900rpm 

 

Your computer will barely go over 150w when you're gaming. Maybe 200w will be reached from time to time, if you're really pushing it.

The Corsair CX450 can do more than 400w on the 12v output, from where the processor and video card are powered, so you're not even getting close to half the power supply's capability.

You'll be fine.

 

Okay, i've been thinking of going to intel the i5 9600kf and also the msi mag b365m mortar mobo, so i should be good to go with that then? Thanks for the help! 

[mariushm]

8 hours ago, Wiks said:

Okay, i've been thinking of going to intel the i5 9600kf and also the msi mag b365m mortar mobo, so i should be good to go with that then? Thanks for the help! 

Why, what would be the point?

The motherboard is decent enough to handle a Ryzen 5 3600, which is about as powerful if not more powerful than a 9600KF and saves you the need to also change the motherboard.

The Ryzen 3600 is $160 new on Amazon, the 9600KF is around $200 when it's in stock, because Intel can't make enough processors anymore due to problems with their manufacturing process.

It's also more power hungry, a 95w TDP processor compared to the Ryzen 3600 that has 65w TDP, and you further get screwed by not having a cpu cooler in the package - the ryzen comes with a decent cooler.. now great, but if you don't overclock it's good enough.

 

If you spend a few dollars on adding some heatsinks to the VRM and have a fan blowing down on the VRM, I'd be comfortable suggesting even a 8 core Ryzen with that motherboard.

Here's example heatsinks (you want to buy the ones with adhesive tape supplied, or already applied to them) : https://www.amazon.com/s?k=vga+ram+heatsink&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

These go on top of the chips here, you'll want to measure the space you have with a ruler or something and buy heatsinks sized so they could sit on top of those chips without touching the capacitors (those round tall things):

 

 

 

365 motherboards are like A320 boards on AMD, budget. the less or no overclocking options, with features cut down, 365 is a chipset intel had to make by taking 360 and manufacturing under an older manufacturing process to free the production line for processors, they're so limited in production these days...

 

The only benefit that MSI Mortar board would bring is 2 extra memory slots, 2 extra sata connectors, and one usb type c connector ... that's all. Everything else is the same.

 

For you it makes more sense to upgrade to a 3600 or even a 3700 something (8 core) and use the stock cooler to save money. Then save a bit more and at some point upgrade to a B550 motherboard.  You can still sell your current motherboard for 40-50$ and your current CPU can also sell for around 70-80$ 

Put it on sale as a bundle with the motherboard for 110$, accept 100$ in your hand and you'll probably sell the bundle within days.

[Wiks]

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

Why, what would be the point?

The motherboard is decent enough to handle a Ryzen 5 3600, which is about as powerful if not more powerful than a 9600KF and saves you the need to also change the motherboard.

The Ryzen 3600 is $160 new on Amazon, the 9600KF is around $200 when it's in stock, because Intel can't make enough processors anymore due to problems with their manufacturing process.

It's also more power hungry, a 95w TDP processor compared to the Ryzen 3600 that has 65w TDP, and you further get screwed by not having a cpu cooler in the package - the ryzen comes with a decent cooler.. now great, but if you don't overclock it's good enough.

 

If you spend a few dollars on adding some heatsinks to the VRM and have a fan blowing down on the VRM, I'd be comfortable suggesting even a 8 core Ryzen with that motherboard.

Here's example heatsinks (you want to buy the ones with adhesive tape supplied, or already applied to them) : https://www.amazon.com/s?k=vga+ram+heatsink&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

These go on top of the chips here, you'll want to measure the space you have with a ruler or something and buy heatsinks sized so they could sit on top of those chips without touching the capacitors (those round tall things):

 

 

 

365 motherboards are like A320 boards on AMD, budget. the less or no overclocking options, with features cut down, 365 is a chipset intel had to make by taking 360 and manufacturing under an older manufacturing process to free the production line for processors, they're so limited in production these days...

 

The only benefit that MSI Mortar board would bring is 2 extra memory slots, 2 extra sata connectors, and one usb type c connector ... that's all. Everything else is the same.

 

For you it makes more sense to upgrade to a 3600 or even a 3700 something (8 core) and use the stock cooler to save money. Then save a bit more and at some point upgrade to a B550 motherboard.  You can still sell your current motherboard for 40-50$ and your current CPU can also sell for around 70-80$ 

Put it on sale as a bundle with the motherboard for 110$, accept 100$ in your hand and you'll probably sell the bundle within days.

oh okay, sorry i was asleep. On my motherboard box it says ryzen 3000 ready, if i go to the bios or cpu-z it says my latest bios were released 11th of july (2019) and i go to msi's website and it says a new bios were released 14th of august (2019). They never mention anything about new cpu compatibilty so does that mean i am good to go? 

[mariushm]

The processors supported and the bios version they're supported from is here : https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/A320M-A-PRO-MAX#support-cpu

 

Click on Compatibilty then CPU if needed.

 

For Ryzen 5 3600, bios 7C52v20.zip  (so version 2.0) is the minimum required. The zip's readme file says it was released on 2019/8/14

You can go in bios (press Del or some other key) and you can see which bios version you have right now right there on the screen.

You can also use software like Aida64 or HWInfo - https://www.hwinfo.com/download/  - to see which bios version you have.

Example of HWInfo (clicked on Motherboard on the left - click to zoom) :

 

But you can simply download the latest version, unzip it on a usb stick (maybe format usb stick as fat32 file system first) and then go in bios and update the bios with the latest bios from usb stick.

The latest bios is from June this year .... see https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/A320M-A-PRO-MAX

Go to Downloads > Bios if needed, but the link should go directly to bios downloads page.

 

They even link to a youtube video on that page showing you how to do it:

 

 

The motherboard will be fine with any 65w TDP processors.

It also supports 95w TDP processors and will work with them, but most likely you won't get the full performance out of them without adding some cooling to the VRM section (those chips I circled in green) above.

Basically, those chips convert 12v from power supply to the voltage the processor needs, but the chips are not perfectly efficient, so there's some heat produced during conversion. If there's too much heat, the circuit has to slow down the cpu to have enough time to cool down.

 

For lower power processors (65w TDP processors), the circuit doesn't produce enough heat to have any issues, so lower power processors will always run at 100% .

 

With more powerful processors, the circuit can manage to stay cool for most of the time, but when you're doing something very intensive where all cpu cores will run at near 100% for a long enough time (let's say more than 30s-1m continuously) those chips can get very hot and need time to cool down. 

The motherboard at that point will tell the processor to artificially slow down the cpu cores by reducing frequency of each core and therefore consume less power, and this gives that conversion circuit time to cool down.

So for example, you'll have an 8 core cpu running with all 8 cores at 3.7 Ghz but after 30 seconds or so, you'll see the CPU reduce the frequency of all cores to 3.2 Ghz or even 2.8-3.0 Ghz and stay there until the application completes the cpu intensive work. As the circuit cools down, the CPU can reach that 3.7 Ghz again.

So after those initial 30 seconds or so, your power hungry processor may be as fast as a cheaper lower power 6 core or 4 core processor that keeps running at higher frequencies.

 

You can extend that period of time until the chips get too hot, by adding tiny heatsinks on those chips, and by positioning a case fan to blow air over those heatsinks. With a few dollars worth of heatsinks and a fan there's potential to have that circuit always cool enough that a 95w TDP cpu will never throttle (reduce its frequencies).