Need help - system wattage usage question

Yeis20 · Post by **Yeis20** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 4:07 pm

Hi all,

Was wondering if anyone had a website that I could go to and find out a wattage identifier based on how my system is configured?

Items:

Nf7-s 2.0
athlon 3200 XP
2 sticks of ocz pc3500 ram (1 gb total)
radeon 9800 pro with artic silencer
HGST 160gb 8mb cache drive
dvr-107 dual 8x burner (memorex dual 8x)
jlms dvd-reader (memorex)
USB canon 1960 printer
USB sandisk 8x reader (all type memory flash reader)
USB logitech dual action game controller

these are all of the items that I think could pull power from system

Thanks in advance for any info!

- yeis

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 2:15 pm

Go to the manufacturers sites and check their electrical specifications for the parts you are using, that's the best way to find the total power drawn by your specific system.
For your CPU you can find info here and over at xbitlabs.com there's an article that deals with power drawn by graphic cards.
If you don't find any information regarding the rest of your system then maybe you can find some numbers in this PDF to make a rough estimate.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 1:36 am

Motherboard power draws are nearly impossible to find. It's been suggested that the average mobo draws around 20W but it really is only a wild guess.

In addition to Tephras' suggestions, I'd recommend running MBM5 and the CPU Power Calculator (available in the links section) to see your CPU power draw.

What exacly is the HGST brand?

USB device power draws are usually listed in Windows USB "properties" in milliamps. I don't know the voltage of the USB line, if someone could point that out, you could calculate the power draw of your USB components.

Post by **MikeC** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 2:40 am

Here's an educated guess: Your system cannot draw more than 200W DC from the PSU with those components running WinXP. A modern 300W PSU with decent 12V rails (say 18A) will do fine. Buy bigger only if you think you will upgrade with the same PSU soon. Or if you are paranoid & want more headroom insurance.

Note: Not a single high power system I've assembled, bought or received & tested could draw over 200W DC under any set of loads & circumstances. If you could make every component run full tilt simultaneously, yes, then it's possible to reach 300W, maybe. But this cannot be done in any OS that's commercially available today.

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 7:57 am

The USB line is powered by the 5V or the 5Vsb rail.