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PC hardware: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best?
- 10/16/09 3:27 PM
Just one more thing PC Power and Cooling
by hamaker - 10/18/09 7:31 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
After you've estimated your power requirements based on CPU, RAM, graphics card(s), attachments running off the box, realize that most power supplies are rated at max output..not sustained output and not output when running hot. There are alot of good power supplies and people seem to have recommended all but one brand. I've been building PC's for twenty years or so, and after trying generics once or twice, I've never used anything but PC Power and Cooling brand power supplies. Pricey but they run forever. My latest rig is stable as heck running quad GPU's,I7 extreme, 12 gig ram, dual bluray burners and four raptors in raid 10.
Video cards
by MKorkowski - 10/19/09 6:36 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Here is the bottom line when it comes to power supplies. First do you have a higher end video card, next do you have a higher end CPU? These are the two items that will bog you down. Are you a gamer? During intense graphical drawing and I don't mean surfing the Internet, the newer video cards really put the screws to the power supply. All the memory, sata/ide drives, DVD burners and sound cards and USB take up "nothing" compared to the video cards and CPU. The usb bus is limited in its power consumption anyway by the nature of its design. Furthermore bigger is "always" better. Why because when you run a slightly larger power supply it will run cooler therefore it will last longer. You buy what you can afford within reason. I work in automation and somebody is always trying to cut corners in estimating "anything" along the power consumption lines. Yes, we must do a good job but is it really worth it for a system to die because you were were trying to squeeze every watt out of a underpowered power supply? The answer is no, it isn't worth the trouble. Lastly the power rails. Each high power requirement device like a CPU or video card requires a certain value of +12volts dc, -12 volts dc and 5 volts dc. Many of the "cheapo" power supplies fudge their number by combining rails. If you hook up a video card to a 12 volt connector that "rail" better have what the card needs, if not then the card will not work properly under load and in fact will overheat and may eventually fail. The "rail" is a single power connector "cable group". This may be 2 , 3 or 4 connectors. But if that "rail" has what your card needs then nothing else should be connected to that rail except the videop card. There will be enough other connectors on other rails for the other components. Also don't forget about input surge protection. Your power supply main power cord should be on some sort of surge suppressor or UPS. This is one area that is most always neglected. Like they say garbage in garbage out.
Power Supplies For PC's
by dronfield - 10/21/09 7:07 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The biggest user of power in a pc is usually the graphics card when you are a gamer it can be quite large. 750 should however be suitable for almost all. It may be a good idea to have your pc checket out for leaky diodes or partial shorts. it is more than likely that you have an on board resistor that has either changed value or become open circuit.
Hope this helps
you have to look at the big picture
by mike0t4 - 10/21/09 9:08 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
based on the cpu and age of your system i don't think it would need anything over 500W (unless you have a raid array). However there are other things that you need to be aware of
outside your system:
-your house wiring needs to have a proper ground (i once rented a room where the outlets were not grounded and made the UPS ineffective against surges) if you know how to check this great, if not find someone who does
-UPS will help deal with outside disturbances on the power lines (spikes, surges, sags, and black/brownouts)
-higher end power supplies will have active power factor correction, while this is a good thing, it may not work well with some UPS units.
inside your system:
-dust: Very bad over time can build up static which can fry sensitive electronics, and it reduces airflow diminishing cooling effectiveness
-electrolytic capacitors: All but the most high end motherboards/addin cards will have them (new enthusiast class motherboards may have all solid caps, which last alot longer). Eventually they die/leak or short out when this happens you will most likely have to replace the part, they may also take another part to the grave with them. Also anything that the capacitor leaks onto may short circuit as well.
in terms of good brands I have a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 910,
it's probably overkill but i upgraded to a OCZ EliteExtreme1000 after my antec 500W couldn't handle the 3rd and 4th harddrives and second burner (I intended to build a new system with the 1000W unit and use the antec in the stripped down version of the original PC (1 hd 1 burner) that unit died (apparently there was a design flaw in it so they gave me a 910))
back to your question having some headroom in your power supply is a good idea since a) it's more efficient when not fully loaded b) it runs cooler putting less stress on its components c) its quieter since the fans run slower.
Psu problems
by wolverineI - 10/23/09 11:26 PM In reply to: you have to look at the big picture by mike0t4Pc Power and cooling,Fortron,Ocz,Seasonic,Mushkin,I use nothing else.I have had PSUs die from every other manufacturer,apevia etc.Currently an OCZ 720 is my Largest running a full tower,4 WD 500gHDs,3 Liteon sata burners,4 120 mm case fans,AMD 955@ 4Ghz,2 4850 Vid cards,4 gigs kingston 1333 ram. heavier PSUs are generally better built and quality components will last longer,the OCZ barely fits in my full tower,LOL.The dust comments,Power surge,and component checks are all good advice especially components.I have seen more PSUs killed by failing or faulty video cards than anything else,besides the dust clogging and overheating.Look for deals on Newegg for Seasonics,affordable quality OEM PSUs.
One thing...
by Jeshimon - 10/24/09 9:17 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
One thing I've not seen mentioned here is the surge supressor and power cord. They can introduce intermittance and other problems. Have they been changed out of the equation?
Vantec not mentioned?
by jave200372 - 10/30/09 10:54 PM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Vantec also make quality power supplies - and at a affordable price as well.
Its about PSUs
by william skinner - 10/31/09 9:00 PM In reply to: Vantec not mentioned? by jave200372I use an ANTEC 600 W Earthwatt psu on an MSI AM2+ board with a Phenom 9850 the board has an integrated nvidia 8200 geforce and I am running two hard drives, and 4 GB(2X2gb). I have 4 fans running and it seems pretty good and reliable. when I first started this computer I skimped on the psu getting a 600W PSU by VOLT. That drove me crazy, I thought I screwed up the MB or CPU as it would act flakey I finally realized to get a good name brand PSU , as with almost anything else you get what you pay for.
With that said here is a slightly off (2part)topic question. I want to understand how the switchable PSU works, and applying one to operate a "non Computer" part in my future projects. first project is a computer with a car stereo installed in the case.(I have already addressed the heat issue)so I need 12V switchable and 12v constant(to maintain memory and clock settings) The other project Is almost underway, I am going to build a Tube stereo amplifier within a computer case, can a computer PSU be used to transform ac to dc?
External Power Issue?
by mstickler - 11/20/09 9:58 AM In reply to: Power supplies for PCs: How much power is enough & what brands are best? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Most people that have serious power hogs for internal components have them for a reason and can usually quote you brand and model of each and every one. Since you gloss over this I have to agree with most of the other replies and assume you are buying too large a power supply. Use the calculators metioned in the other posts to calculate your needs. If you are looking at specific components as future upgrades go ahead and substitute them in if they require more power. Get the final power draw of your "upgraded" system and then give yourself a 25% cushion. Buy a good brand (I like PC Power and Cooling is price is no object or Antec or Thermaltake if it is.) powersupply at or above your calculated needs.
All of that said we still have the problem of what caused your previous ones to fail. The 3 most likely culprits are, poor quality power supplies, external power issues, internal shorts or power problems. While I suspect you have purchased the cheapest power supply available for a given wattage and that is the issue, you probably want to address any external power issues you may have. I had a client that either had the power supply or the entire system fail repeatedly. When I was called in to diaganose the problem I discovered the computer was on the same circuit as the refrigerator. Plugging a UPS into the outlet revealed serious issues (under/over voltage) everytime the refrigerator's compressor kicked on or off. We moved the system to a different circuit and put in a UPS and they never had a hardware issue with that pc again.
A Good Source For Information
by rgakins - 11/20/09 6:17 PM In reply to: External Power Issue? by msticklerI know this is beating a dead horse at this point, and the original poster may have already solved his problem, but I thought I would post a place where you can find actual reviews with thorough tests and examination of many popular models of power supplies. Hardware Secrets http://www.hardwaresecrets.com thoroughly examines and tests every power supply they review, and will tell you exactly what its' limits are, and what its' real world output rating is; as well as any quality control problems they find in the course of testing. They also have several good articles on the operation and selection of power supplies, as well as links to power supply calculators that you can trust.
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