Why you don't need >500w PSU.

N

NickS

New member
The specs of the rigs are..

Intel Core 2 Xtreme QX6700

ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi/Ap

2x1GB G.Skill 2GBGA (D9GMH) and 2x512MB Corsair 8000ul (D9 Fatbody's; for benching.)

eVGA 8800GTX 768MB; vmodded.

Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic

Many-a-fan

AquaXtreme 50z Pump

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10

NEC SATA DVD Burner

You can view clocks and voltages on each HWBOT Description. GPU is vmodded.

So after a long night of benching, some 4GHz Pi 1M runs, tons of 3d, and more.. the PSU is alive and fine. Over the course of the night I drew about 475w peak from the outlet, with the 12v rail never dipping below 12.00v.

The most power draw I saw was Deep Freeze in 3D06, which was about 471w.

Conclusion: You can overclock the balls off your QX6700 & 8800GTX and maintain a stable, powerful computer with a good quality 500w PSU.

Two right off the top of my head would be..

Corsair HX520w or 620w

Enermax Liberty 500w (620w has some issues..)

..and more

 And pictures.. (click thumbs to enlarge).









And the bench results..











Enjoy this little article/writeup.. and enjoy saving cash on your next PSU purchase.
 
Wow very nice, could the OCZ 600watt handle 8800gts 320mb in SLI? WIth a 4600+ , 2gb of ram, asus m2n-sli?

And can my Antec 550Watt True power 2 SLI handle a SINGLE 8800gts 320mb and a X2 3800+ @ 2.4ghz? Would my PSU BE "quality"?
 
The GameXStream could handle 8800GTS SLi yes. The Antec could handle the single card just fine too.

If it's a Powerstream 600w, don't count on it. They weren't very good units.
 
wld it not be a better test of the PSu to test the 3.3v and 5v?

ya kno the rails that drop more aka the 1s used for voltage sensitive devices
 
now guys pls correct me if im wrong but the 3.3 and 5 are used for electronics and 12 used mainly for motors ?? and so are not a major concern for ocing ??
 
name='darkorb' said:
Yea it is a gamexstream

And also, the 12v rail on my antec is like stuck at 11.70. Is that ok?
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Software or Multi-Meter reading?

name='WC Annihilus' said:
Actually near as I remember almost everything runs off of the 12v
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Yup :)
 
name='WC Annihilus' said:
Actually near as I remember almost everything runs off of the 12v
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hmm that makes lil sense (i think) ... its very hard to finely regulate 12v down to miniscule voltages but 3.3 and 5 are perfect (well they were back when the ATX psu was being devised ). 12 V DOES have a lot of Amperage and can supply a lot of watts .. thats because the motors in your drives and cooling require current and voltage

again im not sure

but nicks u dont use ur 12vs ? rite u have H2O cooling ? hence ur 12vs being stable ... what are ur 5s and 3.3 like ?

<again im not sure but logically it makes greater sense for 3.3v and 5v to be for electronics -- less transforming required>
 
as far as i know the mobo has 3.3 v into it not 12v , even though mine has an molex connector onboard for extra stability
 
the cpu does have a 12v into it but its usually always stable (esp when u dont the other 12v -- eg having a H2o system)

the others use mainly 3.3 and 5 for electronics

|ATX 2.2 Whitesheet|

nicks imho use test ur other rails they may be takin a hit
 
name='Ty07allstar' said:
Would a Rosewill be considered a GOOD 500W PSU?
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No. :(

---->

+5v has about 5w from each HDD (I had one). Mobo uses about 30w-50w for misc things.

+3.3v has about 15w-25w used from mobo (for RAM), and about 3w from each SATA device.

+12v is everything. CPU, VGA, 5w from each HDD, fans, lights, etc etc.
 
What about expansion? What if you felt the urge to go out and splurge on a quadfather rig with sli 8800s? And what about the up and coming r600 cards? with a single card drawing 200+ watts?

Get the best you possibly can with the money you have tbh. No 'oh that'll do the job' with PSUs.
 
name='Ham' said:
What about expansion? What if you felt the urge to go out and splurge on a quadfather rig with sli 8800s? And what about the up and coming r600 cards? with a single card drawing 200+ watts?

Get the best you possibly can with the money you have tbh. No 'oh that'll do the job' with PSUs.
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Sigh. R600 will draw the same as a GTX, maybe a slight amount more. Go look at the back of an 8800GTX. Theres solder points for an 8 pin power connector, and a six. Instead they just made it six/six.

Quadfather sucks, QX >.

I know 500w doesn't cover everything but a 850w will do 8800GTX SLi and Quad with ease. Point being, these 1200w PSU's coming out are dumb :)
 
I agree 1200w PSU's are stupid, but imo if you may want to expand get as much for your dosh as you can and the difference between 500 and 600w isn't much cash-wise
 
> 850w PSU's only exist at the moment because manufacturers know people who want "the best" will go out and buy them (also they are needed for some server setup's).

That said, only a few years ago AMD released the Slot A Athlon that was one of the first setup's to need a 350w PSU iirc. Lots of people moaned and groaned because they had to go out and buy new PSU's. So why not prevent yourself from getting in a similar situation and purchase the best you can afford.
 
The thing is, companies have stated that they are going to focus on efficiency and power consumption...Even in the future, a 800W "midrange" computer will never happen, its just ridiculous.
 
name='NickS' said:
No. :(

---->

+5v has about 5w from each HDD (I had one). Mobo uses about 30w-50w for misc things.

+3.3v has about 15w-25w used from mobo (for RAM), and about 3w from each SATA device.

+12v is everything. CPU, VGA, 5w from each HDD, fans, lights, etc etc.
Click to expand...

Hey NickS - one of the most interesting reads that caught my eye in a while :)

SATA drives haven`t used the 3.3v rail, the channel for it is there to use, but they can run off a molex 5-0-0-12. In the future they may.

I think the emphasis from u`r opening post in "quality psu" - and not a psu that`s badged 500w "cos as a ~350w it peaked at that when a bunch of lab guys tested it for 5 minutes."

name='Kempez' said:
I agree 1200w PSU's are stupid, but imo if you may want to expand get as much for your dosh as you can and the difference between 500 and 600w isn't much cash-wise
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Yep, I think the key is to chose a quality performer vS cash - and the OC3D reviews demonstrate some excellent choices.

I also think customers shouldn`t be put off cos they/some1 they know, bought a brand b4 and it was doa or something. These things can happen with the best of manufacturers. Now if it`s the 2nd/3rd replacement, u`ve got every right to call it shoddy :p

name='XMS' said:
> 850w PSU's only exist at the moment because manufacturers know people who want "the best" will go out and buy them (also they are needed for some server setup's).

That said, only a few years ago AMD released the Slot A Athlon that was one of the first setup's to need a 350w PSU iirc. Lots of people moaned and groaned because they had to go out and buy new PSU's. So why not prevent yourself from getting in a similar situation and purchase the best you can afford.
Click to expand...

There`s looking at future and safeguarding any future purchases u make.

However, users should also bare in mind that electrical components have a life-span in the sense of so-many thousands of hours. From the resistors to capacitors, and anything else that current runs through. I ~believe~ the optimum for a complete unit, that`s electrical in nature, is like 5 years - adding everything up inside and using tolerances.

A 1200w psu purchase could power some1 that stacks 20 or so HDs, a gang of opticals, the best Gfxcards in SLI, max memory, inefficient cpu, full pci/e++ slots and 50 fans. Bit severe for home use.

A home purchase of a 850w+ psu for a home gaming pc, with nothing complicated - I`d want answers.

Excellent thread, nice1 NickS.
 
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