[Shisno]

Hello everyone,

Been lurking the forums for quite some time now, but have only just registered now to ask a question.

I am currently using an FSP450-60EP PSU to power my MSI N460 GTX Hawk Talon Attack GPU.

Is my PSU strong enough? The specs for the card call for a "450W or greater power supply (with a minimum 12V current rating of 24A)"

As far as I can tell, I am just squeaking by for wattage, but I am concerned if my PSU can put out enough Amps. I don't know a huge amount of PSU's, other than the knowledge I picked up in JohnnyGURU's thread. I think the label below is indicating it's a dual rail PSU with two 12V 18A, but I don't know if they combine to meet the 24A requirement.

[jazon1]

it looks ok but like you said it is cutting it close.my only concern is that alot of low end psu's are over rated and usually dont actually produce the wattage they claim.

[mjw21a]

Not the best FSP unit, and even their best (the Aurums) are nothing to write home about. From their specs it looks like it can do it, though there's no mention as to whether they're measuring peak performance or continuous.

http://www.fsp-group.com.tw/report/FSP450-60EP.pdf

Considering the low cost of a decent Corsair unit you could just move to a 500W Corsair and have peace of mind that it won't in any way damage your computer.

Corsair CX Series

[jazon1]

yea i would defiantly agree with mjw21a corsair are great,you might even want to go alittle higher if you can afford it and get a 650-750watt just to cover wear and future upgrades.

[mjw21a]

No need to go with a 750 unless you intend to run multiple video cards. Regarding future upgrades thats not really worth it either. The ongoing trend is actuallyless power useage with each generation of CPU, video card, RAM etc etc

[jazon1]

true for the most part were newer products tend to use less power as they shrink the dies to 22nm.but at the same time.you dont want to be running your power supply at 100% all the time as it will age it fast and secondly they loose some of there performance as the capacitors age and if your running the supply at 100% as soon as it starts to age it will become to weak for your system,also having a larger power suply wont mean your using more power for instance if your system only needs 500 watts and you have a 750 watt psu its only going to draw 500 watts from the line and will be running more efficiently as its only running at 70% of its rated power.

[mjw21a]

Very true although it's actually incredibly had to max out a 500W power supply running a single video card unless you're overclocking. Most systems are flat out hitting 300W useage in day to day use. It's also important to remember that all components list their peak power use which isn't what you'll be using day to day.

Even playing computer games, its generally the video card that gets maxed, not the CPU.

[jazon1]

true i guess if he listed all his components HHD's and fans we could calculate exactly what he needs but with the limited info provided i tend to air on the safe side=)
if the original poster comes back he can use this to get a better idea of what he might need=) http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

[Bobnova]

Nah you're good. You've got 30a on tap there.
I doubt you'll have any issues.

[mjw21a]

Anything Bob says I'll go with. Him and Oklahomawolf are my preferred experts on PSU's

[Shisno]

Thanks for the replies everyone... I ran through that estimator and it said I would need 430W.

For my specs, I'm running a modified off-the-shelf acer M5802 Desktop (http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/de...M5802sp2.shtml) with a Core 2 Quad chip, and I added three 80mm and one 120mm fans to the case.

I've had this desktop for ~2.5years and the GTX460 has been in there for about a year now. The fans I added around the same time as the GPU.

Everything worked fine, unless I tried to overclock the GPU using MSI's afterburner program - when I did that the comp would sometimes crash. Lately though I've been putting a bit more stress on everything by doing things like playing Skyrim on one screen, and watching videos on a second display (a TV) - when I do this my screens will occasionally blackout for a couple seconds and come back on like nothing happened (gameplay and video playback freezes during this time), or the computer will flat out freeze on a black screen, or sometimes (but not as common) the game crashes with a message saying something along the lines of "The windows display driver has stopped working" (I've updated all the drivers, they should be fine)

I don't know if the above symptoms are a sign of a weak/dying PSU, but hat was my initial guess. If you guys need any more info let me know.

Edit: Bob, I'm still new to a lot of this - how did you come up with the 30A number? is there some sort of formula to determine it?

[Bobnova]

30a comes from the combined maximum wattage of 360 W. 360 divided by 12 is 30. Volts times amps equals watts.

Is it crashing randomly without overclocking the GPU? If so it might be worth taking a multimeter and checking the voltage between a yellow wire and a black wire in one of the HDD power plugs (the big, easy to probe, four wire ones). It should be 12v +/- 0.35v or so. Then run Skyrim and see what the voltage does. If it changes a lot the PSU is wearing out.
That looks to be a decent unit, but everything ages and if it's feeling its age that could be the source of your issues.

[Shisno]

Ah yes, that would make sense.

And yes, it crashes without overclocking. I don't have a multimeter on hand, but I'm sure I can track one down to give it a check.

[Bobnova]

I don't know if you have Harbor Freight up there, but if so check them out. They typically have decent multimeters for less than ten bucks.

[Shisno]

Well I picked up a multimeter and went to test my system today, and the damn thing wouldn't crash. I was running skyrim on my TV while watching a 1080p video on my monitor and it was running just fine. The voltage was around 12.11 while idling and around 12.02 while running everything.

I'll keep an eye on it for now, and if it starts to act up I'll test the voltage again.

[Bobnova]

Problem solved!

[Neuromancer]

Originally Posted by jazon1

true for the most part were newer products tend to use less power as they shrink the dies to 22nm.but at the same time.you dont want to be running your power supply at 100% all the time as it will age it fast and secondly they loose some of there performance as the capacitors age and if your running the supply at 100% as soon as it starts to age it will become to weak for your system,also having a larger power suply wont mean your using more power for instance if your system only needs 500 watts and you have a 750 watt psu its only going to draw 500 watts from the line and will be running more efficiently as its only running at 70% of its rated power.

running the PSU at 100% would almost never happen with a 500W unit on his system. No single app loads cpu and gpu to 100% unless it is just a seriously underpowered system. (Hell my laptop gets borked opening a page with more than one flash ad, Its not really mine so I have not gotten around to disabling flash yet )

Likewise to running 100% once in a while not being the best... running at 20% or less power MOST of the time is not recommneded either as effieicney generally goes into the toilet.

So OVERbuying your PSU is as poor a decision (IMO) as buying exactly what you need is in yours.