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mob Category (1) Sheriff



 Joined: Jul 19 2004 Posts: 1521 Location: Detroit, Michigan
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Post subject: What size do you need? (Power Supply Wattage Calculator) Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 9:17 am
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After many searches, and many rejected out of date wattage calculators, I have come acrossed an up-to-date power supply wattage calculator. It includes all processors at all speeds, all GPUs, even SLI and Crossfire set ups, memory, ROMs, fans and even watercooling.
Hopefully this can stop all the "how big" guessing questions.
Power Supply Wattage Calculator
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For reference, Dell currently supplies its XPS 410 system with a 375Watt PSU to power a Core 2 6600, 2x250GB Western Digital Harddrives, a Nvidia 7900GTX, a video tuner, 2 Optical drives and a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic card. (Dell XPS 410: Core 2 Duo for the Masses)
All of this runs on the 375Watt PSU. If you are building something around these specs, do not let the manufactures belly you into thinking you need a 600Watt PSU. The only reason you might need something slightly higher is for overlclocking, but the about link to the PSU Watt Calculator includes an option for that extra wattage too.
700Watts might sound like it is great to have, but remember that in computering, quality usually overruns quantity. A high quality 500Watt PSU will be better for a system than a cheap 700Watt unit.
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_________________ Forget these boring computers, I design M1 tanks for a living now!
Red Knight Computers-
Custom computers for the home and fun

Last edited by mob on Mon Sep 18, 2006 12:40 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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mob Category (1) Sheriff



 Joined: Jul 19 2004 Posts: 1521 Location: Detroit, Michigan
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Post subject: Re: What size do you need? (Power Supply Wattage Calculator) Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:33 pm
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Even Anandtech.com agrees that marketting is the only issue pushing for higher PSU wattage:
Anantech's Article on Ultra High-End PSU Roundup wrote: | As PC systems are demanding more and more power, the power supply manufacturers are reacting by releasing units rated for higher power output. We can all thank NVIDIA and ATI, among others, for this trend, as we have seen an escalation in ridiculously high demands for power supplies with the latest graphics chips. That this power is in most cases unnecessary should be clear to everyone who owns such a card or wants to buy one.
One reason such requirements are overkill is that the resolution you are running is largely responsible for higher GPU requirements, which in turn leads to more power hungry systems. If you are running a top-end video card (or two) at just 1280x1024, much of the performance potential is going to waste. Still, multiple GPUs under load will still require a beefy PSU, generally starting at 400W and going up from there, depending on the rest of the system. If you're running a 30" LCD on the other hand - particularly with overclocking - we have seen power requirements break 600W in worst-case scenarios.
For those people who still believe the marketing hype - or for the extremely rare exceptions where you might actually run a system that needs 800W or more of power on a regular basis (feel free to let us know what you're doing that requires that much power!) - if you're thinking about buying this kind of power supply we are presenting today three of the highest rated power supplies on the market. In increasing overall wattage rankings, we start with the PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 1200W. Next is the Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1250W. Finally, we have the new ITZ 1300W PSU from Tagan. |
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_________________ Forget these boring computers, I design M1 tanks for a living now!
Red Knight Computers-
Custom computers for the home and fun
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