How to get more mileage (wattage) out of my build

[ThankGodItsFriday]

Hey guys! New guy here, although I've been casually following your vids for about a year now.

 

If you'll examine my specs on my profile, I have an 850w PSU, and through a wattage calculator (on NewEgg), I got an estimate of 700w max for all my hardware. Yet, when benchmarking or using 3D modeling software, I rarely push anywhere above 350w.

 

I don't know if my computer is running as efficiently as it should, or if that's a normal readout. Thought I'd throw this question out to you guys: Is this normal?

 

Also, I'm not sure if I posted in the right place, because I'm new here. Be patient with me LTT! 

[Jon-Slow]

What's your system spec like? Where are you monitoring the 350w? Is this what your PC is pulling measured from the wall? That's pretty normal and the max suggested wattage for a PSU is for power spikes.For example I could be gaming with a 13900KF and a 4080 and still be pulling what appears to be under 400w from moment to moment from the wall. I could decrease that by a substantial amount by limiting my frames to 90, or 120 and by enforcing a soft power limit on my GPU and undervolt my CPU.

 

But do say what is your spec is like and what benchmakrs you've tried with what scores and such while pulling 350w.

[LIGISTX]

34 minutes ago, ThankGodItsFriday said:

Hey guys! New guy here, although I've been casually following your vids for about a year now.

 

If you'll examine my specs on my profile, I have an 850w PSU, and through a wattage calculator (on NewEgg), I got an estimate of 700w max for all my hardware. Yet, when benchmarking or using 3D modeling software, I rarely push anywhere above 350w.

 

I don't know if my computer is running as efficiently as it should, or if that's a normal readout. Thought I'd throw this question out to you guys: Is this normal?

 

Also, I'm not sure if I posted in the right place, because I'm new here. Be patient with me LTT! 

Very few PC's will ever actually pull 700 watts continually... especially when gaming.

 

We need to know what your specs are to tell you a more realistic number. The wattage calcualtors tell you what size of PSU you need to be able to handle transient spikes, not necesarily average load values.

[ThankGodItsFriday]

2 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

Very few PC's will ever actually pull 700 watts continually... especially when gaming.

 

We need to know what your specs are to tell you a more realistic number. The wattage calcualtors tell you what size of PSU you need to be able to handle transient spikes, not necesarily average load values.

It's all on my profile page, but TL;DR...

Quote

System

• CPU
  AMD Ryzen 5 3400G
• Motherboard
  MSI A320M PRO M2 V2
• RAM
  LEXAR Ares 32GB DDR4
• GPU
  AMD RADEON RX 6650 XT
• Case
  DeepCool Micro-ATX with one 5.25" legacy drive bay and glass side (well decorated!)
• Storage
  TeamGroup NVMe M.2 256GB SSD & Western Digital Blue 4TB HDD
• PSU
  ESGAMING 850W 80 Plus Gold
• Display(s)
  LG 2560x1080 displays - one HDR from 2021, and one from 2015
• Cooling
  Just some fans. Nothing special.
• Keyboard
  MSI Vigor GK71 with Red Switches
• Mouse
  Wacom Intuos4 small tablet with pen and mouse
• Sound
  Cheap speakers. 'Nuff said.
• Operating System
  Windows 11 Pro 22H2

Also I use 3DMark for benchmarking graphics, and I ran their DX12 benchmark:

[LIGISTX]

6 minutes ago, ThankGodItsFriday said:

It's all on my profile page, but TL;DR...

Also I use 3DMark for benchmarking graphics, and I ran their DX12 benchmark:

I would be shocked if that machine ever pulled over 250 watts... But I can see the GPU pulling back maybe 250 by itself, so I guess 350 in heavy rendering is plausible. But that is a pretty low wattage machine, so if you are pulling 350, you are getting ever ounce of performnace out of that thing.

[DreamCat04]

33 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

I would be shocked if that machine ever pulled over 250 watts... But I can see the GPU pulling back maybe 250 by itself, so I guess 350 in heavy rendering is plausible. But that is a pretty low wattage machine, so if you are pulling 350, you are getting ever ounce of performnace out of that thing.

I have an 850W power supply myself and I can only ever get it to pull around 480W from the wall by stress-testing both my i7 12700K @5.0 and my RTX 3060Ti with its power limit increased to 220W. @ThankGodItsFriday your computer will only ever pull as much power as it needs.

 

3 hours ago, ThankGodItsFriday said:

I don't know if my computer is running as efficiently as it should

Your computer pulling more power would make it less efficient actually

[ThankGodItsFriday]

17 minutes ago, DreamCat04 said:

I have an 850W power supply myself and I can only ever get it to pull around 480W from the wall by stress-testing both my i7 12700K @5.0 and my RTX 3060Ti with its power limit increased to 220W. @ThankGodItsFriday your computer will only ever pull as much power as it needs.

 

Your computer pulling more power would make it less efficient actually

Thanks, that makes perfect sense. I guess any frame drops or lag is due to my hardware's physical limitations, not how much wattage it can pull in. Still, I'm glad I've future-proofed my system by getting a power supply far beyond what my PC actually needs.

 

However, why would Newegg report higher wattage usage for my specs if I don't really need it? Is it inflated for more sales, or to help give you more than what I need? (IMHO, I have a hunch it's the former point, but I thought I'd throw this out there anyway.)