Anyway, my question is, has anyone been able to find the amperage required for video cards outside of looking at the retail box?
Did you try Google?
But instead, I use and recommend the
eXtreme Power Supply Calculator to determine your minimum and recommended power supply unit (PSU) requirements. This is a whole lot easier than researching the individual components yourself.
Plan ahead and plug in all the hardware you think you might have in 2 or 3 years. This might include extra drives, a bigger or 2nd video card, more RAM, etc. I recommend setting Computer Utilization to 16 hours per day and CPU Utilization to 100%. These steps adjust for capacitor aging and ensure the supply has adequate head room for stress free (and perhaps quieter - always desirable) operation. These steps also add a little buffer for unplanned future upgrades or added hardware demands.
Note that all PSU calculators pad the results a little to avoid recommending an underpowered supply. But, by far, the eXtreme Outer Vision PSU calculator is the most conservative and therefore accurate. This is also because it is so flexible compared to other calculators with so many input and utilization options. Plus (and this may be the most important factor) they have a group of researchers on staff constantly researching new components for us as they come out, and updating their options lists.
Another nice feature is they include a recommended minimum UPS size to protect your devices from surges, spikes, sags (opposites of surges), dips (opposite of spikes) and brown-outs (long duration sags).
(I was using an 850W, turned out I might not have needed that much power)
Remember, the computer (motherboard, drives, fans, graphics card, CPU, RAM, etc.) will pull from the PSU only what they need. So if all your components only need 300W, they will pull from the PSU just 300W regardless if the PSU is a 550W, 850W or 1200W supply. And the supply will pull from the wall just 300W plus a little more due to supply inefficiencies (typically another 10 - 15% for most 80 Plus supplies). So no harm going bigger than you need, other than maybe a bigger dent in your wallet.
