Power supplies, their marketting, and you...

Humongous Power Supplies and what you Really Need
Manufacturers are nowadays bound to their respective marketing gurus resulting in ridiculously exaggerated trends which the usual customer tends to overlook. Let us talk about power supplies for instance. With 1000 Watt power supplies available from many companies and 2000 Watt power supplies just around the corner one can come quickly to the conclusion that you really need that much power.
But you don't! Mostly every website out there who puts PC hardware states the electric power consumption or gives a rough figure about it. If you then add those numbers together for every component you have you might be surprised about the result. For Example, the guys from Legion Hardware put together a dead fast machine consisting of a quad-core Intel CPU, two GeForce 8800GTX cards, a feature-packed ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard and four 1GB DDR2 memory modules. Additionally the system had four Seagate 320GB hard drives and six 120mm case fans and let's not forget the water-cooling system. Now reckon what wattage the power supply they used to power that beast was rated at!
550 Watt - They took a Thermaltake Purepower 550w and it works like a charm for more than two months now.

Power supply output ratings are actually quite inaccurate and can be very misleading. This is why it is very important to purchase a trusted and respected brand name.

If you came this far I would suggest you reading that article, it's well written and outlines every aspect of what to have in mind when purchasing a decent power supply.

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I'd like to take this chance to explain to you all clearly and simply, you over rate computer hardware power consumption and you all need to learn a thing or two. Especially you, perkam .

This test will include..

* Detailed specifications of the rig..
* Power consumption @ wall..
* 12v, 5v Rail Readings..
* Overclocking, benchmarking..
* ..and more


The specs of the rigs are..

Intel Core 2 Xtreme QX6700
ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi/Ap
2x1GB G.Skill 2GBGA (D9GMH) and 2x512MB Corsair 8000ul (D9 Fatbody's; for benching.)
eVGA 8800GTX 768MB; vmodded.
Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic
Many-a-fan
AquaXtreme 50z Pump
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10
NEC SATA DVD Burner

Thanks to fhpchris for generously letting me borrow the CPU, video card, and Corsair RAM.

I will be doing some overclocking, hard benchmarking, etc. The most I've drawn so far from this PSU is 493w from the outlet without wincing. Testing will continue tonight, pictures will be taken, and most of the results if not all will be up by tomorrow. Please stay tuned, for the sake of all future PSU recommendations!

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Mycobacteria said:

New question.

How many wats do you need before your PSU is holding you back from a decent OC?

In the reviews you have quoted they have yet to OC the two GPUs, CPU, RAM etc. And if the reviewers do OC how far and how much more power will they consume?

Maybe 500 wats is enough to run a system stock but maybe you need 600-700 wats to help you OC the system a bit more?

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Humongous Power Supplies and what you Really Need
Manufacturers are nowadays bound to their respective marketing gurus resulting in ridiculously exaggerated trends which the usual customer tends to overlook. Let us talk about power supplies for instance. With 1000 Watt power supplies available from many companies and 2000 Watt power supplies just around the corner one can come quickly to the conclusion that you really need that much power.
But you don't! Mostly every website out there who puts PC hardware states the electric power consumption or gives a rough figure about it. If you then add those numbers together for every component you have you might be surprised about the result. For Example, the guys from Legion Hardware put together a dead fast machine consisting of a quad-core Intel CPU, two GeForce 8800GTX cards, a feature-packed ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard and four 1GB DDR2 memory modules. Additionally the system had four Seagate 320GB hard drives and six 120mm case fans and let's not forget the water-cooling system. Now reckon what wattage the power supply they used to power that beast was rated at!
550 Watt - They took a Thermaltake Purepower 550w and it works like a charm for more than two months now.

Power supply output ratings are actually quite inaccurate and can be very misleading. This is why it is very important to purchase a trusted and respected brand name.

If you came this far I would suggest you reading that article, it's well written and outlines every aspect of what to have in mind when purchasing a decent power supply.

Click to expand...

Mycobacteria said:

Ok he had 8800GTX in SLI with 550 wats... but it didnt say if he OCed or not... I presume he kept it at stock.

I would still rather buy a 600-700wat PSU just be be on the safe side...

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Mycobacteria said:

You cant compare the two reviews because one dude OC his but only had one 8800GTX, while the other dude had two 8800GTX in SLI but didnt OC. OBVIOUSLY we are not comparing apples to apples here. So NO its NOT a contradiction what I say still STANDS I would still buy a 600-700wat PSU in both cases.....

Do we understand each other now?

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Mycobacteria said:

Nice choice, I have a silver stone 600wat modular myself.

In your sig you use a 500wat antec... Are you upgrading to a 650wat silverstone? Are you doing this because you found 500wats to be inadequate for your rig?

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BTK said:

yes we do........

I just think people worry about PSU too much

anyways I like this

single 12v rail 55A

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5...650W_Quad_SLI_Ready_Power_Supply_-_OP650.html

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