Post your gaming setup!

[BicycleMafioso]

But SLI 560ti's have like 415W power draw with load alone.

The whole build will draw 501w.
Each GTX 560 Ti draws 'round 170w. That's 340w together. Where would the other 75w come from?
So I took 650w to have overclocking headroom and for "future considerations!".
There's no reason to go crazy. "More is not always better."

[DeltrusDisc]

What is the easier way to check how much wattage my computer is pulling out of the wall, anyways? I mean with the OC'ing the 560 Ti and if I were to ever get a second, I really wonder how much more it is drawing.

[BicycleMafioso]

What is the easier way to check how much wattage my computer is pulling out of the wall, anyways? I mean with the OC'ing the 560 Ti and if I were to ever get a second, I really wonder how much more it is drawing.

Why do you want to know how much it pulls off of the wall?
Just curious.
All PSUs are built to handle (using 650w as an example) 650w from the PSU itself, then if it's a goldrated PSU it draws 722w from the wall at 650w.
Meaning that the 650w labelling is what's drawn on the internal side, not the external.
EDIT: But if you want to check, you can buy a special something-something (English, blah!) reader that just shows you in an LCD-display how much watt is running through it. You then plug your psu directly into that small reader that you in turn put into the wallsocket.

[DeltrusDisc]

Why do you want to know how much it pulls off of the wall?
Just curious.
All PSUs are built to handle (using 650w as an example) 650w from the PSU itself, then if it's a goldrated PSU it draws 722w from the wall at 650w.
Meaning that the 650w labelling is what's drawn on the internal side, not the external.

This is why I usually leave power supply talking to people like you, tetris. I don't understand much of that mumbo-jumbo. Though no one ever put it so plainly and simply to me. >_> I'm just a humble man.

[Ghâzh]

I present you, the Wattmeter .

An interesting artice about picking the right power supply (I thought it was interesting, anyway). Running a test setup with gtx 580 in it with 450 watt power supply, who would have thought.

[DeltrusDisc]

Except you'd have a small margin of room for anything else in the computer. >_>

[Deleted]

I present you, the Wattmeter .

An interesting artice about picking the right power supply (I thought it was interesting, anyway). Running a test setup with gtx 580 in it with 450 watt power supply, who would have thought.

When I pick and recommend a PSU I usually tend to lend recommendations from this list: http://www.overclock.net/power-suppl...-supplies.html
Given, they are a bit picky (for example, while the Corsair CX500 V2 is said to pull 500W, it has around 410W on the 12V rail) but that list is very solid.

[Ghâzh]

Ah, should not be mistaken for merely a list of recommended PSU's. If I remember correctly most of the tested units were rather unkown mainly because they were germany, I think. Yet though it has a bunch of usefull info in general about power supplies and the related stuff, it was a good read all in all.

Except you'd have a small margin of room for anything else in the computer. >_>

That particular PSU was picked purely for testing. And it served it's purpose to prove that a good PSU can actually deliever more than the listed power and having several hundred watts headroom is ridiculous.

[DeltrusDisc]

Ah, should not be mistaken for merely a list of recommended PSU's. If I remember correctly most of the tested units were rather unkown mainly because they were germany, I think. Yet though it has a bunch of usefull info in general about power supplies and the related stuff, it was a good read all in all.


That particular PSU was picked purely for testing. And it served it's purpose to prove that a good PSU can actually deliever more than the listed power and having several hundred watts headroom is ridiculous.

Ah then fair enough. Just don't want people thinking a 450w will be enough for their rigs. >_<

[BicycleMafioso]

Ah then fair enough. Just don't want people thinking a 450w will be enough for their rigs. >_<

Name a single-GPU build that a (quality) 450w won't be good enough for then? :P

[DeltrusDisc]

Name a single-GPU build that a (quality) 450w won't be good enough for then? :P

Wouldn't an OC'd 580 pull enough of that at max-load to warrant at least a 500-550w PSU? >_>

I feel I'm being made a fool of by dear tetris. :<

[Wries]

http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80P...rSupplies.aspx

Do run through ten or so of the PDF reports and notice that efficiency is not exactly at its peak when close to 100% load. Example: my PSU. and here's the TX

Just saying. Is popular to say, on the mmo-c board, that it's a myth that "around 50% load is at its peak efficiency", but here we have plenty of "official" documents suggesting that 50% is where it's at.

[BicycleMafioso]

Wouldn't an OC'd 580 pull enough of that at max-load to warrant at least a 500-550w PSU? >_>

I feel I'm being made a fool of by dear tetris. :<

If we factor in overclocking, you'd have to go above, yea. But that's too flimsy, as you can't really guess the values pre-hand. But otherwise, no.
450 is a stretch, but fine (if the build does not include a DVD+-rw)
The GTX480, however, would not be fine, and was the correct answer. ": D"

@ Wries: Indeed! But where, forgive me for asking, are you going with it? Running a non-80+ bronze, you wouldn't want to take it higher than 50%, but imo, that's what the rating-system is all about - having a good enough PSU that it's not a waste to go to the 70-80% area. And you linked the 750HX twice.

[Wries]

Wouldn't an OC'd 580 pull enough of that at max-load to warrant at least a 500-550w PSU? >_>

I feel I'm being made a fool of by dear tetris. :<

How hard is it to say x58 + Radeon 6990? :P

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4209/a...e-card-king/18

[DeltrusDisc]

If we factor in overclocking, you'd have to go above, yea. But that's too flimsy, as you can't really guess the values pre-hand. But otherwise, no.
450 is a stretch, but fine (if the build does not include a DVD+-rw)
The GTX480, however, would not be fine, and was the correct answer. ": D"

I went straight from a 9800 GeForce OC BFG Tech card to a PNY Green Edition 9800 GeForce GT to the 560 Ti I have now. The 2xx and 4xx series I know very very little about.

@Wries, technically the 6990 is a dual-GPU card. She did say single GPU.

[Wries]

@ Wries: Indeed! But where, forgive me for asking, are you going with it? Running a non-80+ bronze, you wouldn't want to take it higher than 50%, but imo, that's what the rating-system is all about - having a good enough PSU that it's not a waste to go to the 70-80% area. And you linked the 750HX twice.

No matter what 80+ spec, the highest efficiency requirement is at 50%. Not saying it's necessary to aim for 50%, just saying, without doing any of math on electricity prices whatsoever , that getting a PSU that is somewhat over-dimensioned for your PC isn't necesarily the most stupid move a builder could do.

---------- Post added 2011-10-03 at 01:01 AM ----------

@Wries, technically the 6990 is a dual-GPU card. She did say single GPU.

Whatevah!

[BicycleMafioso]

No matter what 80+ spec, the highest efficiency requirement is at 50%. Not saying it's necessary to aim for 50%, just saying, without doing any of math on electricity prices whatsoever , that getting a PSU that is somewhat over-dimensioned for your PC isn't necesarily the most stupid move a builder could do.

Correct, and nothing I've argued against - especially as I've known this. But that does not remove from the fact that it's still an unnecessary powerplant that never will get used. They may kid themselves that they are "futureproofing", but by the time they need to upgrade, chances are they'd want a better (not beefier) PSU, or one that hasn't aged as horribly.
Because while efficient, <50% and >80% they age faster considerably faster, IIRC.
Getting what you need now and accomodate for reasonable upgrades is a better decision for your computer. Ie, going for some slight overclocking headroom and a possible addition of 1-3 HDDs, than that SLI-intention that will likely never happen.

I'm not saying that people with a single GTX 460/HD6850 should go for a 350w PSU, but there's no reason to go above 650w for any kind of single GPU or most dual GPU-rigs. So go 650w, not above. It's a good spot to land at.

And also, more isn't always better. Get something that's right for your system. (And it's still pretty stupid)

[Ghâzh]

http://www.plugloadsolutions.com/80P...rSupplies.aspx

Do run through ten or so of the PDF reports and notice that efficiency is not exactly at its peak when close to 100% load. Example: my PSU. and here's the TX

Just saying. Is popular to say, on the mmo-c board, that it's a myth that "around 50% load is at its peak efficiency", but here we have plenty of "official" documents suggesting that 50% is where it's at.

You are correct that most high quality power supplies have their peak efficiency at around 50% load. You'll have to, however, take in account that when your system idles and the load drops below 20%, the efficiency rapidly decreases to around 50-60% as well (while your best efficiency was 90%). That's pretty serious if you consider that you spend plenty of time idling most of the time. And the difference between efficiency at 50% and 90% load is barely few percent. Will you be better of with 1000watt PSU instead 500watt one in the long run if the latter costs twice less, uses few percent more power under load but considerably less during idle periods?

[BicycleMafioso]

Speaking of idle, I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but most PSUs can only drop to an X % of their rated value at idle. Meaning, if you use the same rig, but two different PSUs, the 350w PSU might have your system at more correct idle values (let's say 75w - a thoroughly made up number), while the 820w PSU might only be able to get you to ~179w.

This I've humorously noted in some reviews of GPUs, that although they've changed the GPUs around, since they use a beefy PSU, almost all the rigs idle at the same watt-number.

[DeltrusDisc]

So apparently Intel Burn Test is not as good as some folks here think. I used it on standard, high, and very high the other day, no issues at all. Then I just blue screened a few minutes ago, I had changed nothing. -.-