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

[mariushm]

16 minutes ago, awesomegamer919 said:

You can get an RX580 to draw 200w+ pretty easily...

Sigh... of course  you can do stupid things, if you really want to. The numbers I say are for the average Joe, who will play at 1080p 60fps, probably with game settings on defaults like Medium or High, who won't bother to overclock the video card.

If user overclocks, it would be possible to go over 200 watts for short periods of time.

If you want to be really anal about it, the RX 580 should not consume more than 150w (pci-e 8pin power connector maximum) + 75w (pci-e x16 slot maximum power) = 225 watts. For very brief periods, milliseconds basically, the card may pull 250w or so.

If you don't use ultra quality settings, on most games the card will consume below 200w.

 

16 minutes ago, awesomegamer919 said:

I'd disagree, OP could easily see up to 300-320w of power draw (from PSU secondary side)

He has a non overclockable Intel cpu with a 84w TDP, so that one won't average more than 50-80w, the motherboard will maybe pull around 10w for chipset, onboard sound nad lan, memory power etc .. the hard drives consume 2-5 watts, fans maybe 1w each ... so peanuts.

Yeah, if he encodes a video while playing a game (basically abusing both cpu and video card at same time) you may see those numbers, but like I said, on average daily he's more likely to see around 250w of power consumption while gaming.

16 minutes ago, awesomegamer919 said:

Raidmax = almost universally bad, their only good unit is a Titanium Andyson rebrand

Corsair and EVGA don't make their own PSUs (EVGA uses Superflower/FPS with a single gold Seasonic unit, Corsair uses Channel Well and Great Wall) and both have gold rated PSUs that are worse than the SAMA FORZA...

I know Corsair and EVGA are selling psus from various manufacturers. I personally recommend Seasonic every time, but I had to add other brands just so I wouldn't seem biased. I never said SAMA model is bad.... it's just a not so well known brand, and the price per performance may not be so great compared to other brands that sell more volume and may be able to offer discounts or rebates and practically give you a better deal.

 

[awesomegamer919]

2 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Sigh... of course  you can do stupid things, if you really want to. The numbers I say are for the average Joe, who will play at 1080p 60fps, probably with game settings on defaults like Medium or High, who won't bother to overclock the video card.

If user overclocks, it would be possible to go over 200 watts for short periods of time.

If you want to be really anal about it, the RX 580 should not consume more than 150w (pci-e 8pin power connector maximum) + 75w (pci-e x16 slot maximum power) = 225 watts. For very brief periods, milliseconds basically, the card may pull 250w or so.

If you don't use ultra quality settings, on most games the card will consume below 200w.

Turns out video quality =/= power draw, and in fact, may caused *increased* power draw due to increased CPU load.

2 minutes ago, mariushm said:

He has a non overclockable Intel cpu with a 84w TDP, so that one won't average more than 50-80w, the motherboard will maybe pull around 10w for chipset, onboard sound nad lan, memory power etc .. the hard drives consume 2-5 watts, fans maybe 1w each ... so peanuts.

Yeah, if he encodes a video while playing a game (basically abusing both cpu and video card at same time) you may see those numbers, but like I said, on average daily he's more likely to see around 250w of power consumption while gaming.

TDP =/= power draw, Intel CPUs may boost their clocks up for periods of time which in turn may increase power draw above TDP.

2 minutes ago, mariushm said:

I know Corsair and EVGA are selling psus from various manufacturers. I personally recommend Seasonic every time,

Serious question, why? What does Seasonic do that other OEMs don't? CWT, FSP, GW etc all have the same or even greater capabilities than Seasonic, and that's ignoring the big server PSU OEMs

2 minutes ago, mariushm said:

but I had to add other brands just so I wouldn't seem biased. I never said SAMA model is bad.... it's just a not so well known brand, and the price per performance may not be so great compared to other brands that sell more volume and may be able to offer discounts or rebates and practically give you a better deal.

 

Counterpoint, SAMA make their units in-house, cutting out the middle man which may improve prices. Defining price/performance on a PSU in difficult as everyone has differing criteria for what they want, but the Forza series is damn good...

[Vuu]

The problem is, here most of the "higher end" PSU's are hard to get... The levels seem to be that the weaker ones will be universally bad from even the best manufacturer, and the absurdly strong ones are of highest quality. 

 

Just take a look here (don't worry, i set it up to the PSUs so you don't have to look):

 

http://itsvet.com/napajanje-pda1-57.i

https://www.pcberza.rs/komponente/napajanja-napajanja/235/

 

The ones that are according to here, tier 1 and 2 are almost always ludicrously overpowered. As you can see, basically all that is sold is Raidmax - and not the new ones that are improved, but the ancient ones. And to dabble with our version of ebay I would refrain

 

And yea, any gaming i'd do would be at 1080p at max settings, the rx 580 strong enough for that

[mariushm]

2 hours ago, awesomegamer919 said:

 

TDP =/= power draw, Intel CPUs may boost their clocks up for periods of time which in turn may increase power draw above TDP.

Fully aware that TDP is different than power draw.  TDP is just a "rating", which basically says for this cpu, you should use a cooler capable of dissipating this much heat.

This TDP thing is like a point system, with 1 to 5 stars.... so if a cpu has an actual TDP that's slightly above a number of stars, it automatically gets the next star.

 

So for example, for socket 1150 they basically have TDP 15w / 25w / 35w / 45w / 5xw / 65w / 84w 

 

If they took 100 i7-4771 processors and depending on binning (silicon quality) they determined their tdp between 60w and 70w, then they can't classify this cpu as TDP 65w one, they will have to classify this cpu as TDP 84w  because that's simply the next higher rating.

Most "locked" processors will not actually consume much power, even though their TDP rating would indicate that.

 

I'm saying from experience that the cpu in question will average around that much power consumption during gameplay.. Maybe I shouldn't have put that "so" word in the sentence.

 

2 hours ago, awesomegamer919 said:

Serious question, why? What does Seasonic do that other OEMs don't? CWT, FSP, GW etc all have the same or even greater capabilities than Seasonic, and that's ignoring the big server PSU OEMs

Consistency, very good track record, they're less willing to compromise on OEM designs (replacing capacitors with less quality ones to reduce costs, replacing ball bearing fan with sleeve fan to save costs, using taiwanese or chinese primary capacitor instead of high quality japanese one because it costs 50 cents less etc)

CWT is super flexible when it comes to OEM designs, they accept pretty much anything, so you can pick 10-20 random CWT based models from random brands and check their reviews and you'll see they're all over the place.  FSP has a tendency to use shitty Capxon and other lower tier capacitors, GW has also their own problems like bad soldering from time to time.

Except their OEM or some "industrial" models of power supplies where they sometimes go with taiwanese capacitors, Seasonic is typically consistently using higher quality components and as far as I know only a few of their "budget" models are assembled at a second factory. 

 

Corsair customizes their power supplies to reduce costs and uses various OEMS, and even has (or had) some series of power supplies that were made simultenously by two different OEMs , same circuit layout etc just some different components depending on what that OEM preferred or had.

EVGA has some crap bronze efficiency power supplies but the higher end ones are good, same for Superflower (less known in US)... if you're a beginner you may not be able to sort good models from less good ones so it's just easier to suggest a brand with good reputation.

 

 

[awesomegamer919]

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

Consistency, very good track record, they're less willing to compromise on OEM designs (replacing capacitors with less quality ones to reduce costs, replacing ball bearing fan with sleeve fan to save costs, using taiwanese or chinese primary capacitor instead of high quality japanese one because it costs 50 cents less etc)

Didn't stop this Seasonic built unit from breaking ripple spec: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story3&reid=209

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

CWT is super flexible when it comes to OEM designs, they accept pretty much anything, so you can pick 10-20 random CWT based models from random brands and check their reviews and you'll see they're all over the place.  FSP has a tendency to use shitty Capxon and other lower tier capacitors, GW has also their own problems like bad soldering from time to time.

Except their OEM or some "industrial" models of power supplies where they sometimes go with taiwanese capacitors, Seasonic is typically consistently using higher quality components and as far as I know only a few of their "budget" models are assembled at a second factory. 

Taiwanese/Chinese capacitors are fine, do I expect to see them on flagship products? No, but guess what, Corsair had CapXon and G-Luxons in the AX1500i and it still kicked ass... why? because it turns out capacitors are only a small part of the PSU and a well engineered product with Chinese/Taiwanese capacitors will always be better than a poorly designed unit with "Japanese" Capacitors (See the Arctic unit above for an example, 

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

Corsair customizes their power supplies to reduce costs and uses various OEMS,

Do they though... Corsair are known for using high quality fans in everything except their 2 most budget lines (CX semi-modular and VS), the CX non-modular and everything else they sell either uses a rifle bearing of a high quality Protechnic FDB, in contrast, the "FDB" used by Seasonic has a *much* shorter MTBF compared to "proper" FDBs, as far as I know no one's cut one open yet, but I don't trust Hong Hua enough to say with full confidence that their "FDB" is actually an FDB and not a rifle bearing...

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

and even has (or had) some series of power supplies that were made simultenously by two different OEMs , same circuit layout etc just some different components depending on what that OEM preferred or had.

Partially false, Corsair has 1 series that's dual-sourced, the current CX non-modular, the 2 designs are significantly different, though other than noise they are close enough that getting either is fine. This isn't due to cost-cutting measures, it's simply due to how much CWT/GW can produce...

2 hours ago, mariushm said:

EVGA has some crap bronze efficiency power supplies but the higher end ones are good, same for Superflower (less known in US)... if you're a beginner you may not be able to sort good models from less good ones so it's just easier to suggest a brand with good reputation.

If we are looking for "almost universally good" brands then BeQuiet or maybe SilentiumPC would take the cake, Seasonic still has the S/M12II which suck (missing protections, group regulated)...

[Vuu]

It's all for naught when there isn't even Be Quiet in this country

[FredyCH]

Hi guys

 

wanted to ask if my power supply is strong enough for my build! See my signature for the facts.

 

I just finished it yesterday and was just watching some youtube and doing my ebanking.

 

I would like to start overclock it and then start gaming and streaming.

 

I have upgraded my gfx, my cpu etc and i didnt changed my power supply.

[Stefan Payne]

10 hours ago, FredyCH said:

Hi guys

 

wanted to ask if my power supply is strong enough for my build! See my signature for the facts.

I just finished it yesterday and was just watching some youtube and doing my ebanking.

I would like to start overclock it and then start gaming and streaming.

I have upgraded my gfx, my cpu etc and i didnt changed my power supply.

1. pls post it here as not all people can see your signature, either deactivated it or are on mobile.

2. you will change it

 

And no, your 630W Thermaltake is garbage and needs to be replaced.

[FredyCH]

21 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

1. pls post it here as not all people can see your signature, either deactivated it or are on mobile.

2. you will change it

 

And no, your 630W Thermaltake is garbage and needs to be replaced.

---

 

ASUS ROG STRIX Z370F-Gaming | Intel i7-8700K | MSI Geforce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X1 | Thermaltake Smart SE 630W | 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000MHz | Corsair Crystal570X RGB Mirror | Corsair H100i v2 | 2 x 500GB M.2 Samsung Evo 970 Pro | 1 x Samsung 850 - 256GB | 1 x WD Essentials 1TB | Creative Sound Blaster Z | Razer DeathStalker Chroma Keyboard | Mad Catz R.A.T. 4 Gaming Mouse | Logitech G430 Headset | Corsair Gaming MM200 Extended Edition |Corsair ST100

 

 

How much Watt should i need? what kind of power supply do you recommend?

[Vuu]

On 9/3/2018 at 10:43 AM, Vuu said:

I'm planning to upgrade to the RX 580 8GB, and am wondering if I will need a new PSU, since I'm using an old "600W" (the 12V rail delivers like 457W according to the panel) Raidmax and I don't want that thing turning into a fireworks show...

 

In that case, the configuration would be:

 

I7-4771

RX 580 8GB

16GB DDR3 RAM

and a bunch of shit with basically no consumption (SSD, 2x HDD, dvd-r drive)

 

I was at first thinking of SAMA Forza 750W but that might be overkill

 

Would Antec TP-550C TRUEPOWER CLASSIC be good enough? Is the only 550W tier 1 PSU I could find in this country

[Stefan Payne]

2 hours ago, FredyCH said:

How much Watt should i need? what kind of power supply do you recommend?

Watt isn't the issue here, quality is.

You don't need a high wattage PSU if you don't overclock, a 450W is good enough.

What you want and need is the best PSU you can get for your money. 

 

But to be honest, the MSI 1080ti is a problem that will switch off many PSU!

So if you can, exchange the MSI for any other card! AFAIK its the only card that causes this much trouble.

 

Anyway, a be quiet Straight Power 11 with 550W is a good option. And no, the 650W is bullcrap and makes no sense whatsoever.

 

44 minutes ago, Vuu said:

Would Antec TP-550C TRUEPOWER CLASSIC be good enough? Is the only 550W tier 1 PSU I could find in this country

I don't know...

Because its rather old, IIRC its anno 2012 or something like that.

 

To be honest, I'd rather try the SAMA than the old, loud S12G...

 

PS: I have a 550W True Power Clasic here.

Its OK at lower loads but at medium to higher loads its not great...

[FredyCH]

13 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Watt isn't the issue here, quality is.

You don't need a high wattage PSU if you don't overclock, a 450W is good enough.

What you want and need is the best PSU you can get for your money. 

 

But to be honest, the MSI 1080ti is a problem that will switch off many PSU!

So if you can, exchange the MSI for any other card! AFAIK its the only card that causes this much trouble.

 

Anyway, a be quiet Straight Power 11 with 550W is a good option. And no, the 650W is bullcrap and makes no sense whatsoever.

 

I don't know...

Because its rather old, IIRC its anno 2012 or something like that.

 

To be honest, I'd rather try the SAMA than the old, loud S12G...

 

PS: I have a 550W True Power Clasic here.

Its OK at lower loads but at medium to higher loads its not great...

Hi thanks for the ideas! I will consider buying a new PSU then

 

I have the MSI card for over a year now. I never had any problems. What kind of problems do you think i could be facing with that card?

[Stefan Payne]

3 hours ago, FredyCH said:

I have the MSI card for over a year now. I never had any problems. What kind of problems do you think i could be facing with that card?

Worst case: Random reboots

Best case: PC switches off randomly instantly.

 

So the be quiet Straight Power 11 with 550W is a good option for you, I think. 

[17030644]

On ‎03‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 3:46 PM, mariushm said:

 

 

 

Consistency, very good track record, they're less willing to compromise on OEM designs (replacing capacitors with less quality ones to reduce costs, replacing ball bearing fan with sleeve fan to save costs, using taiwanese or chinese primary capacitor instead of high quality japanese one because it costs 50 cents less etc)

CWT is super flexible when it comes to OEM designs, they accept pretty much anything, so you can pick 10-20 random CWT based models from random brands and check their reviews and you'll see they're all over the place.  FSP has a tendency to use shitty Capxon and other lower tier capacitors, GW has also their own problems like bad soldering from time to time.

Except their OEM or some "industrial" models of power supplies where they sometimes go with taiwanese capacitors, Seasonic is typically consistently using higher quality components and as far as I know only a few of their "budget" models are assembled at a second factory. 

 

Corsair customizes their power supplies to reduce costs and uses various OEMS, and even has (or had) some series of power supplies that were made simultenously by two different OEMs , same circuit layout etc just some different components depending on what that OEM preferred or had.

EVGA has some crap bronze efficiency power supplies but the higher end ones are good, same for Superflower (less known in US)... if you're a beginner you may not be able to sort good models from less good ones so it's just easier to suggest a brand with good reputation.

 

 

It's still bullshit.

it's easier to suggest a brand but like you said beginners are unable to sort good from bad models that's why you don't recommend brands and just give him models he or she can choose from. Otherwise they fall into the stupid assumption that all PSUs from that brand are good or that you shouldn't consider other brands

[Tprince119]

Going to reply here and let it run a couple days before creating a post. I have used 3 different "power supply calculators" and have gotten 3 very different recommended/load wattage results.

So, black friday/cyber monday or just around the corner and it's that time of year to get some upgrades. I'm going to list everything my PC will have by the end of the year (Except a PSU as that will be decided here)

i7 8700k OC 5.0Ghz

Corsair H100i V2

Asus Maximus X Code Motherboard

32GB TridentZ RGB

2x EVGA 1080Ti in SLI

2x 500GB M.2 Samsung 970

3x 1TB Samsung 860 SSD

1x 2TB Firecuda SSHD

 NZXT S340 Elite Case

4x Be Quiet Silent Wings3 fans (Both case fans and both rad fans were replaced with these)

2x 30" RGB Lighting strips

2x Monitors (Acer 144Hz, LG Ultrawide)

9x USB devices as follows

Razer Basilisk Mouse

Razer Blackwidow Elite Keyboard

Audio-Technica AT2020 Mic

Steel Series H wireless headset

Wireless Charging dock

Bluetooth dongle

Logitech C920 Webcam

Desktop Speakers

Micro USB cable I charge stuff with (Most my headphones for the gym)

 

So depending on the calculator I use, I get a range from 953w load to 1492w load... The one thing all these sites have in common is the recommended power supply is exactly 50w higher than the calculated load....I've seen 1080Ti SLI builds on youtube with guys running 850w-1200w power supplies too....So i'm guessing I shouldn't need more than 1200, but do I really even need that much? Would something like a Corsair HX1000 or Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 11 1000w be fine? I'd like to keep the rating above gold and I'd like to find pick something that's known to be reliable since I have a lot of money invested. I'm not LTT, I can't have the best of the best but I want to protect my investment. 

[mariushm]

A single GTX 1080ti will consume up to 250 watts from the 12v output of your power supply. If we allow for overclocking, power boost etc let's reserve 300 watts

The processor is a problem ... without overclocking, let's say it uses up to 125 watts. With overclocking to 5 Ghz.. let's just say 150 watts to be on the safe side, all this from 12v of your power supply.

The cooler will probably use around 5w from 12v , for the pump and fans.

Motherboard will take 12v from psu and convert it to 1.35v or whatever the ram needs, and power it .. each stick will probably not go over 2 watts, so you're looking at let's say 10w for ram including the blinky lighs on them.

Besides that, motherboard will use let's say 10-15w on 12v and maybe 10-15w on 5v to power the chipset, onboard audio, onboard network, wifi if any etc

 

SSD devices don't use much power when idle or when reading from them, each uses less than 1w.. when writing to flash memory, for microseconds at a time the drive may use up to 5w or so .. but this is irrelevant for you... so let's just reserve 3w on 12v for the 2 M.2 SSDs and 5w on 5v for the 3 1 TB SSDs (sata SSDs typically are powered from 5v only)

The mechanical drives use around 6w from 12v to spin the motor and around 3-5 watts on 5v for the electronics on them.

Fans don't use much power (look on label, multiply current by 12v) ... let's say 1w each ... so for 4 fans, let's round up to 5w on 12v

the 2 led strips ... let's say 10 watts in total, i doubt it's even that much

the monitors don't matter, they're powered from their own power supply.

 

USB devices will use less than 5w each because that's how much the ports are capable ( 5v at 0.5a = 2.5w for usb 2.0 devices, 5v at 0.9A = 4.5w for usb 3.0) . keyboards and mice in theory use less than 1w but adding rgb increases power consumption... so you could just average to 3w per device on usb .... this would be from the 5v output of your power supply or from 12v, depending on the motherboard design (some motherboards use a 12v to 5v dc-dc converter to power the usb ports on the i/o shield)

Speakers are powered separately, so they don't matter.

 

So the psu you want must be capable of providing this much on 12v at very least : 2 x 300w (video) + 150w (cpu) + 5w (cooler) + 30w (mb+ram) + 10w (ssds+sshd) + 10w (led strips) + 5w (fans)  =  ~800 watts on 12v  so it would be best to go with a power supply that can output this much + a reserve of around 10-15%, so I would look for a 1000w power supply, or if you're really on a budget and promise not to overclock the video cards and maybe tone down on the cpu overclocking, then you could probably go for a good quality 850w power supply.

 

 

[bs17]

Hello, I am trying to decide what size psu I need to get.  I have an i7 8700k which I plan on overclocking, and a vega 64.  The recomended size for the gpu says 750 but I have read on other forums of people saying that they have experienced shutdowns with 750's.  What can you recomend?

[mariushm]

Vega64 eats up to around 300 watts but for brief periods (something like 10-20ms) it can pull 400w or so. 

The 8700k ... maybe 150-175w with overclocking

The rest of the components in the pc, maybe 50w

 

So yea, you could make it with a high quality 650w power supply but a 750w model would probably make more sense especially since the price difference wouldn't be that much.

[bs17]

12 hours ago, mariushm said:

Vega64 eats up to around 300 watts but for brief periods (something like 10-20ms) it can pull 400w or so. 

The 8700k ... maybe 150-175w with overclocking

The rest of the components in the pc, maybe 50w

 

So yea, you could make it with a high quality 650w power supply but a 750w model would probably make more sense especially since the price difference wouldn't be that much.

I have had people reccomend an 850W all the way to a 1000W to avoid failures you don't think that I need something that high?

[germgoatz]

1 minute ago, bs17 said:

I have had people reccomend an 850W all the way to a 1000W to avoid failures you don't think that I need something that high?

no, 650w is more than enough. otherwise you're getting more watts that you'll never be able to use.

[Krelian]

Hello and sorry in advance for my question (i'm new in these kind of stuff).

 

So i'm trying to build a Rig and used Seasonic's Wattage Calculator. Then i entered the card i wanted to use (in this case the AORUS RTX 2080 Ti Xtreme). What confuses me is the memory clock slider. I have checked Gigabyte's website for the Memory Clock of the card, and it says 14140MHz but the slider only reaches 2250MHz. Question is does the Memory Clock add to Wattage needed or can i just ignore it? 

 

BTW the specs would be:

 

CPU: Intel i7 8700k

RAM: 32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3200MHz

GPU: AORUS RTX 2080 Ti Xtreme

MOBO: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS Master
 

Could anyone recommend a PSU for me? Thanks and sorry again for the noobish question. 

[mariushm]

Any RTX 2080 ti card will use up to 260 watts. For safety and overclocking, round that up to 300 watts.

The 8700k won't go over 150 watts or so, but you can round it up to 200 watts.

The rest of your components are unlikely to use more than 50 watts.

 

So you'll need a power supply that can supply at least 300+200+50= 550 watts on 12v output, which means any quality 750w power supply will be perfect for you.

Quality 650w power supplies will also work but when gaming, you'll get close to maybe 80% of their maximum output, and the price differences between 650w and 750w models these days are so low, it's not worth saving a few dollars by going with 650w.

 

The memory on RTX cards is the new GDDR6 kind and that calculator is probably not updated to be aware of this kind of memory. Also, the 14140 Mhz value is kind of bogus, it's a marketing number.

The memory is rated in gigabits per pin, how many bits it can put on the contacts of the memory chip, and the highest speed these days for GDDR6 is 14 gbps or 14 billion bits. Gigabyte took this and called it 14 Ghz or 14000 Mhz ... so the number 14140 simply means they they overclocked the memory by 1% which in the grand scheme of things is nothing.

GDDR6 is supposed to use a little less power compared to GDDR5x but these "first generation" chips are probably not as "refined" and optimized to use less power, they probably use just as much power as GDDR5x which is still not much.  Those 11 GB of memoy on the card probably don't consume more than 20-30 watts out of the total power consumption of your card.

 

This should be a good starting point for you, any of the ones in this list will run you computer just fine:  NEWEGG LIST

 

[stabs23]

With that system - what is the best GPU I can get? 2070/2080? how about 1080 or 1080ti?

I will not overclock it.

 

thanks

[seon123]

5 minutes ago, stabs23 said:

With that system - what is the best GPU I can get? 2070/2080? how about 1080 or 1080ti?

I will not overclock it.

 

thanks

There's nothing stopping you from getting an RTX Titan. Except for possibly the price. 

[stabs23]

26 minutes ago, seon123 said:

There's nothing stopping you from getting an RTX Titan. Except for possibly the price. 

In nvidia site I saw that some of those cards' Recommended System Power is 600W or even 650W. that's why I asked that.

So I'm suppose to be okay with 2700X and evga G2 550W with those cards?