Wattage confusion

[Elevenbgrunt]

So pc partner says my comp needs about 750 watts I've got i7 8700k and 2 x 1080 ti Poseidon looking at overclocking cpu and maybe the gpus later in future and I'm water cooling with duel loops. How much extra wattage should I add since I'm gonna have 3 water pumps 12 fans and the overclocking that pc part picker doesn't take into account. Am I crazy for thinking I need a 1200 watt or maybe 1500w psu?

[Elevenbgrunt]

Also how hard is it to replace a fan on a psu with one that has rgb lighting?

[APasz]

I'd add at least 250w to allow room for the overclocks then add the wattage of the 3 pumps combined. There should be a label on the pumps that'll tell you what the voltage and amp/wattage is.

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, Elevenbgrunt said:

So pc partner says my comp needs about 750 watts I've got i7 8700k and 2 x 1080 ti Poseidon looking at overclocking cpu and maybe the gpus later in future and I'm water cooling with duel loops. How much extra wattage should I add since I'm gonna have 3 water pumps 12 fans and the overclocking that pc part picker doesn't take into account. Am I crazy for thinking I need a 1200 watt or maybe 1500w psu?

(headroom included for the estimations)

Each 1080ti uses 300w under overclocking, 8700k uses 150W, 100W for the pumps, fans, drives, even LED strips. They add up to 850W, So yes, 1000W is needed. Preferably 1200w if you can afford it, but 1500w is a bit too much.

 

1 minute ago, Julian2000nl said:

Always have spare power. The more the better. If you can afford a 1500W PSU, get a 1500W PSU, it's also great for future proofing. I'd say 1200W is a minimum. 1000 will work too but it's not great for future proofing and might become an issue later on.

 

DO NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES open your PSU, unless you really know what you're doing("I know how to build a PC" is not knowing what you're doing). There are capacators in there than hold a deathly charge. Even when your PSU has been off for a while: You touch the wrong part, you're dead. You remove the fan and accidentally touch a capacator, boom you're dead. Keep your PSU fan what it came with.

Dont open it up. It can be dangerous and breaks your warranty. Buy one with RGB fans instead.

[Thermosman]

11 minutes ago, Julian2000nl said:

Always have spare power. The more the better. If you can afford a 1500W PSU, get a 1500W PSU, it's also great for future proofing. I'd say 1200W is a minimum. 1000 will work too but it's not great for future proofing and might become an issue later on.

 

DO NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES open your PSU, unless you really know what you're doing("I know how to build a PC" is not knowing what you're doing). There are capacators in there than hold a deathly charge. Even when your PSU has been off for a while: You touch the wrong part, you're dead. You remove the fan and accidentally touch a capacator, boom you're dead. Keep your PSU fan what it came with.

Assuming you don't turn it on at all, its probably ok ***sign off liablity here***

[Elevenbgrunt]

16 minutes ago, Julian2000nl said:

Always have spare power. The more the better. If you can afford a 1500W PSU, get a 1500W PSU, it's also great for future proofing. I'd say 1200W is a minimum. 1000 will work too but it's not great for future proofing and might become an issue later on.

 

DO NOT under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES open your PSU, unless you really know what you're doing("I know how to build a PC" is not knowing what you're doing). There are capacators in there than hold a deathly charge. Even when your PSU has been off for a while: You touch the wrong part, you're dead. You remove the fan and accidentally touch a capacator, boom you're dead. Keep your PSU fan what it came with.

Not worried about danger more so about complexity. Is it soldered in or is it a connector? I'm an operator at a nuclear power plant I use stuff with high enough voltage and amps on a regular basis that their is no known safety gear in existence that would protect me in the event of an arc flash or if I touch wrong thing.

[RAM555789]

4 minutes ago, Thermosman said:

Assuming you don't turn it on at all, its probably ok ***sign off liablity here***

No even if a PSU is turned off it is NOT SAFE to open, the capacitors can stay charged for years. As another poster said you CAN DIE. People have actually died from opening up there PSUs. You touch a capacitor and it can stop your heart. Unless there's someone right there who can start CPR, and your a very lucky person you will die. Leave opening up a PSU to professionals it's not worth your life.

[Elevenbgrunt]

17 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

(headroom included for the estimations)

Each 1080ti uses 300w under overclocking, 8700k uses 150W, 100W for the pumps, fans, drives, even LED strips. They add up to 850W, So yes, 1000W is needed. Preferably 1200w if you can afford it, but 1500w is a bit too much.

 

Dont open it up. It can be dangerous and breaks your warranty. Buy one with RGB fans instead.

Void warranty ok then I'd rather not do that.

[brob]

50 minutes ago, Elevenbgrunt said:

So pc partner says my comp needs about 750 watts I've got i7 8700k and 2 x 1080 ti Poseidon looking at overclocking cpu and maybe the gpus later in future and I'm water cooling with duel loops. How much extra wattage should I add since I'm gonna have 3 water pumps 12 fans and the overclocking that pc part picker doesn't take into account. Am I crazy for thinking I need a 1200 watt or maybe 1500w psu?

These power estimates are the maximum theoretical draw. In general it is quite difficult to push a system hard enough to actually pull the maximum. In fact there are several videos on the net using earlier generations of gpu that find well less than the max being drawn even with the cpu and gpu working flat out. Newer gpu seem to come closer to the stated max.

 

850W would be the minimum in my opinion. 1000W would be my suggestion. Much more is simply going to push psu utilization down into its less efficient zone.

 

45 minutes ago, Elevenbgrunt said:

Also how hard is it to replace a fan on a psu with one that has rgb lighting?

 

Depends on the psu. Some models have a fan that plugs into the main board. Others, usually less expensive models, use a soldered connection. If you find a good review of a model, there is often a picture or note about the fan connection to the main board. 

 

Undoubtedly, opening a psu will void its warranty. (It can also be dangerous if one has little or no knowledge of psu.)

 

The big question is why do this. In most modern cases psu are mounted with the fan facing down on the bottom the case. So it is not directly visible. If the desire is to achieve indirect lighting under the case, many cases have a bottom fan mount between the front and the psu. Simply use that mount for an RGB fan.

[Thermosman]

1 hour ago, RAM555789 said:

No even if a PSU is turned off it is NOT SAFE to open, the capacitors can stay charged for years. As another poster said you CAN DIE. People have actually died from opening up there PSUs. You touch a capacitor and it can stop your heart. Unless there's someone right there who can start CPR, and your a very lucky person you will die. Leave opening up a PSU to professionals it's not worth your life.

RGB is worth life lol

[DocSwag]

I would go for 1000w, 1200 if you really want to play it safe.

22 hours ago, Elevenbgrunt said:

Not worried about danger more so about complexity. Is it soldered in or is it a connector? I'm an operator at a nuclear power plant I use stuff with high enough voltage and amps on a regular basis that their is no known safety gear in existence that would protect me in the event of an arc flash or if I touch wrong thing.

The fan should be connected just by a 2 pin connector to the pcb on the psu. If anything though your bigger worry might be figuring out how to connect the fan to an RGB header seeing as the psu sure won't have one.

 

If you do open up your psu though, try not to go anywhere near the big caps and also, before doing, shut down your pc, flip the switch on the back of your psu to off, and then hold the power button on your pc for about a minute. Wait about an hour after that and then open up the psu.