What are amps in a psu?

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xdthevoidxd

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Jun 16, 2014
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I've been looking around for a graphics card upgrade, and for that I need a better psu. I know that gpus require a certain wattage, but what about amps? It never says on the product page how many amps it requires on the 12v rail or whatever, and I want to know what would happen if there weren't enough amps, if anything. Btw, I want to get the radeon r7 260x, if you want to know.
 
Solution
lunyone


Well if you takes Tom's power consumption review of the 260x HERE. You will see it consumes about 124w during gaming.

Doing the math of Voltage x Amps = Power (in watts): 12v x Amps = 124w so extracting the Amps out, you would need ~10A just for the GPU. Depending on the CPU that you have, that could be another 10A or so. I leave a little for capacitor aging (~10% loss/year) and that is where I come up with about 25-30 amps. Most manufacturing websites of the GPU's will list your minimum power requirements Like Sapphire did here under the "System Requirements" tab.

Of coarse they...
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lunyone

lunyone

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Feb 22, 2006
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Yeah that is interesting. The R7 260x is a very low powered GPU and only requires 1 x 6 pin PCI-e power connector from your PSU. Generally speaking you should look at about 430w or better for that GPU. It of coarse needs to have at least 1 x 6 pin PCI-e power connector from the PSU, so you will need to look for that. The Corsair CX 430w (can only find the CSM 450w, but it's about the same) will do that for you, but the 500w version isn't that much more and it will handle a bit more than the 430w version (it also comes with another 6 pin PCI-e power connector).

$60 - $30 MIRc = $30! Has 35.5 Amps on the 12v rail, so you have plenty of Amps and power for that GPU.
CORSAIR CSM Series CS450M 450W ATX12V v2.4 and EPS 2.92 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Currently the CX 500w PSU is a bit too much, IMHO, so I'm linking the 600w version below:

$60 - $20 MIRc = $40!
CORSAIR CX series CX600 600W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

So I think you'll ultimately need about 25-30 Amps for that GPU, but that is just a rough estimate.
 
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lunyone

lunyone

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Feb 22, 2006
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Well if you takes Tom's power consumption review of the 260x HERE. You will see it consumes about 124w during gaming.

Doing the math of Voltage x Amps = Power (in watts): 12v x Amps = 124w so extracting the Amps out, you would need ~10A just for the GPU. Depending on the CPU that you have, that could be another 10A or so. I leave a little for capacitor aging (~10% loss/year) and that is where I come up with about 25-30 amps. Most manufacturing websites of the GPU's will list your minimum power requirements Like Sapphire did here under the "System Requirements" tab.

Of coarse they display the minimum requirements based on a crappy overrated PSU. If you have a quality PSU than you can use a little lower wattage PSU than what the manufacturer suggest. Personally I've powered a 150w GPU with a 380w PSU, but I wouldn't recommend that for any length of time.

Here is the Corsair CX 430w PSU's sticker (see the Amps on the 12v rail? It's 28 amps):
leistcor.jpg


Conversely, here is a Rosewill 500w PSU (note the 12v rail amps at 26A):
rp500_label.jpg


So you can see if you have a lesser (or possibly older PSU) you can have issues. There hasn't been a standardized labeling for quite some time, hence the confusion in what wattage (or in this case, amps) you need for a giving GPU.

Edit: forgot to show you the CSM 450m PSU's sticker. It has 35.5 amps on the 12v rail, BTW:

CS450M-4.jpg
 
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Solution
lunyone

lunyone

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EVGA 500B or even the 600B would be just fine. Also when looking at PSU's, look for the certification values. They go from:
80 PLUS to
80 PLUS Bronze to
80 PLUS Silver to
80 PLUS Gold, etc.
I recommend at least PSU's with 80 PLUS Bronze. this will let you know that you have a pretty efficient PSU and usually that the PSU is of decent quality. I stick with Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, PCP&C, & XFX. I've recently added Evga's 500B and 600B to the list.
 
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