interesting article re real world power draw of systems....

hugekebab · Post by **hugekebab** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 2:19 am

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=635&p=0

At last! a non spcr article that actually speaks sense about the power you need for a system.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 2:24 am

Good.

It'll be ignored though. It's not sending the right message. We need "men with smaller power supplies have a superior success rate with women *FACT*" article before anything really changes.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 4:18 am

Greetings,

Quote from the article:

Legion Hardware wrote:The GeForce 8800 GTX appears to only suck down around 135 watts of power at full load based upon our testing. Which makes sense given our SLI GeForce 8800 GTX system never demanded more than 530 watts. Therefore if you do the maths [sic] roughly, a single GeForce 8800 GTX combined with the latest and greatest Core 2 Duo processor only have a combined power consumption of 200 watts. Then all you have is a motherboard which uses very little power, some memory modules which also use very little power and a couple of hard drives which again are not all that power hungry.

If you were to add all the other components together you would struggle to find another 100 watts, making the total power requirement around 300 watts. Sounds crazy given all the talk about these power hungry components, but itâ€™s the truth. I have said it before and I will say it again, anyone building a computer using the latest and greatest desktop processor along with the most powerful 3D graphics card does not need to purchase a power supply greater than 500 watts. Even with SLI 8800 GTX graphics cards, there is really no need to purchase anything greater than a 600 watt power supply.

(Emphasis is mine.)

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 5:45 am

The message is good, the content not.

1st: "Even with all this high-end hardware installed we were only able to generate a maximum power demand of 530 watts." Is this from wall or from PSU? I guess it's from wall, which makes this question wether a PSU matching this output is enough nonsensical.

2nd CPU TDP ratings are taken as given.

3rd I don't know why the reviewer jumps so heavily on efficiency. "Efficiency is the key here, it is all about efficiency and without it you have nothing." He doesn't seem to be environmentally driven. Looks like he thinks that a effiecient PSU allows more powerful components since you stay within the rated output?

mantralord · Post by **mantralord** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 10:49 am

It's not a great article anyway, but as mentioned, it will be ignored by every gamer/overclocker out there, much like the "inconvenient" parts of this entire site.

Here is an example of a typical thread in an overclocker forum:

Person 1: I'm looking for a quite [sic] 600W+ power supply for my C2D system!

Person 2: Just check out silentpcreview.com, but be sure to selectively ignore any and all of their evidence proving that your system doesn't need anywhere near 600W.

Person 1: Thanks, I'm getting a Seasonic 600W.

continuum · Post by **continuum** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 6:41 pm

That is unfortunately very true. sigh.

Now only if Seasonic or Corsair or someone else who does quality high-efficiency low-noise would do a 350W or 400W PSU with modular cables and, say, up to +30A on the +12v rails with modular cables so that all the modular-cable fans could buy a nice, high quality PSU without 100W of even more overkill...

(yeah, pipe dream I know...)

mantralord wrote:It's not a great article anyway, but as mentioned, it will be ignored by every gamer/overclocker out there, much like the "inconvenient" parts of this entire site.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 8:57 pm

Yeah that would be nice. When I built my PC 18 months ago I wanted to have cables from the power supply to run up to four SATA hard drives without having to do any Y-cables or conversion ends. Although the highest draw I've ever been able to get from my PC with the processor overclocked, 7800GT maxxed out by an intense 3D graphics benchmark program and then generating some hard drive writes to the 4-drive RAID 0+1 array (which means it will hit all 4 drives) was 170 watts from the wall plug.

Nowadays I am running just two drives, undervolted at stock clock speed, and never do any gaming. My average wall plug consumption is about 85 watts now, but anyway, guess which of the Seasonic power supplies was the lowest power model to have 4 SATA power connectors? The S12-330? The S12-430? Nope, the S12-600 was the lowest power model to have 4 connectors for SATA hard drives, so that's what I ended up buying. Now that I'm down to 2 drives I'll bet I could just go back to a 300-330 watt power supply and probably draw even less power just by getting it closer to it's proper efficiency window.

Still, I really wish they would offer more modular cable setups so you could have the option to run 4 or 6 hard drives for example, which doesn't draw much power, but does require enough physical cables to get the job done.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:06 pm

So...Go to the best PSU hardware site (SPCR) and check out their awesome reviews of power supplies, but don't listen to anything they have to say.

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:22 pm

you guys should try that sapphire tech forums... their solution to 90% of the problems there is "get a 600W+ psu!". you wouldn't believe how many people actually go out and drop hundreds of dollars on these unneccessary upgrades.... sad an alarming.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:44 am

Now only if Seasonic or Corsair or someone else who does quality high-efficiency low-noise would do a 350W or 400W PSU with modular cables and, say, up to +30A on the +12v rails with modular cables so that all the modular-cable fans could buy a nice, high quality PSU without 100W of even more overkill...

(yeah, pipe dream I know...)

Nexus has a new PSU coming out that meets all your requirements:

http://www.nexustek.nl/nx8040_80plus_mo ... supply.htm

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:15 am

jaganath wrote:
Now only if Seasonic or Corsair or someone else who does quality high-efficiency low-noise would do a 350W or 400W PSU with modular cables and, say, up to +30A on the +12v rails with modular cables so that all the modular-cable fans could buy a nice, high quality PSU without 100W of even more overkill...

(yeah, pipe dream I know...)
Nexus has a new PSU coming out that meets all your requirements:

http://www.nexustek.nl/nx8040_80plus_mo ... supply.htm

Nice. Hopefully SPCR will do a review at some point

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:50 am

A Nexus rep on these forums stated they will be sending samples to SPCR, so they really should.

kaange · Post by **kaange** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 7:50 pm

jojo4u wrote:The message is good, the content not.

1st: "Even with all this high-end hardware installed we were only able to generate a maximum power demand of 530 watts." Is this from wall or from PSU? I guess it's from wall, which makes this question wether a PSU matching this output is enough nonsensical.

I'm not sure what your problem with this statement is. If the power measurement is from the wall, then the system requirement is less (say 80%) so 500W is enough.

Or are you saying he doesn't go far enough and should be recommending 400W PSUs for single GPU gaming systems and 500W PSUs for SLi/Crossfire? He does state that he recommends a bit of headroom which is why he says 500W for single, 600W for dual GPU.

While his PSUs reviews are pretty lighweight compared with SPCR/JonnyGuru, he is putting across the right message and for a gaming site, that is extremely rare.

samuelmorris · Post by **samuelmorris** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:36 am

The Nexus PSUs do look very good on paper, hopefully SPCR will review one. Is there not a single other website that gives trustworthy noise ratings?
I currently use a Toughpower 750W Modular, and I'm sure it used to be quiet, but at idle (and even more noticeably, for a few minutes after the pc is off) the fan has this annoying "chuffing" like sound. Is this a problem with my unit only, or just a design flaw? It's a decent Power supply, but having thought carefully about how much power I'll actually need, as long as a PSU gives the rating on the box at 50C rather than just at room temperature, I can forsee me only ever needing 450-500W or so from one. I'm looking at getting an R600 graphics card (cooling system dependent, if they're loud with no low noise/silent option, then I may wait, or just find a cooler running card) but I will only ever run one. I figure 100W of headroom should be enough, so a Nexus 600W then?

jammin · Post by **jammin** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 7:07 am

It's an interesting article in my opinion, and at least it's message is in the right direction.

People who rush out to buy the newest, fastest stuff can easily fall into the trap of thinking they need the ridiculously overpowered power supplies.
I can't really blame them, what with the VGA manufacturers essentially inflating their power requirement figures and recommending people buy them.
It just feeds into the attitude they already have anyway.

PrivatePixel · Post by **PrivatePixel** » Thu May 03, 2007 12:01 pm

3dGameMan has a video review of the Nexus 80 Plus PSUs; up-close pics can be found in this forum thread. Not the most comprehensive review (more than half of the video is spent on explaining PSU basics to the viewer), but hey, it's a start.

In short:

The Nexus 80 Plus Power Supplies are excellent for a Home Theatre PC setup or in any environment where a quiet power supply is required. Due to wattage limitations, they are really not intended for a hardcore gaming rig though.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Thu May 03, 2007 3:18 pm

mr. poopyhead wrote:you guys should try that sapphire tech forums... their solution to 90% of the problems there is "get a 600W+ psu!". you wouldn't believe how many people actually go out and drop hundreds of dollars on these unneccessary upgrades.... sad an alarming.

It's the same situation over in the abit support forums...

mantralord · Post by **mantralord** » Thu May 03, 2007 4:03 pm

A fun and cynical history lesson:

In the old days, when someone had an instability problem, people would actually try to individually troubleshoot each of your components on hardware forums. Most of the time, the answer to the problem was found: bad ram, unstable drivers, too high an overclock, generally faulty hardware, overheating, etc. However, in some of those cases both the troubleshooters and the troubleshootee eventually became frustrated after having tried what seemed like "everything" to fix a problem. Along came a random suggestion: "try a different PSU!" Voila, problem solved. People slowly became more and more aware about the importance of a quality PSU. Good quality PSUs were beginning to be recommended, and the PSU was added a possible hardware fault point when troubleshooting problems. All was well, but only for a while....

Along came the dark side of hardware enthusiasm and gaming/overclocking: braindead masculinity, a grandeur complex, addiction, and general stupidity and ignorance. With the increased power draw of new hardware and the "awareness" of the PSU as a fault point (however small the chance it may be) came a new and seemingly elegant solution to all instability problems: get a bigger PSU! Not a higher quality PSU, not a better PSU, but a bigger PSU. Big big big, that's what it's all about in the hardware world. It's much easier to say "get a bigger PSU" than it is to guide someone on the upgrading of a few drivers. And they didn't stop there. In order to continue peddling the idea that a huge power reserve will automatically fix all computer problems, the apparent power draw of a computer was increased almost exponentially as a means to automatically put an end to instability discussion. A quick look at any propaganda-driven hardware forum, though, shows that their assertion has failed them.

We won't ever stop the hardcore hardware enthusiasts from giving the simplest (and possibly worst) advice possible, but perhaps some day we can educate enough of them to come to a good compromise on what sort of PSU actually needs to be purchased.