400 watts enough?

[DeathwingX]

i have a antec powersupply of 400 watts for the system in my sig and was wondering if it was enough, i also have an led hooked up that i dont think is drawing to much power, but if someoen could show me a program or caculation to figure this out that would be great

 

[waylander]

If you are looking for a psu calculator I don't understand why you didn't just google "psu calculator".

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/

That is the second one on the list from doing the google search.

 

[DeathwingX]

hehe, neway i put it at 100% usageim using over 400 watts, and its only spose to peak at 400 XD so i guess its time for a new psu

 

[pengwin]

u never use 100% of all components. So the 400w PSu should be an issue, i wouldnt change it until it becomes an issue

 

[nilepez]

If you are looking for a psu calculator I don't understand why you didn't just google "psu calculator".

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/

That is the second one on the list from doing the google search.

Nice utility, but it completely overstates the amount of power I use.

They are worst case scenarios. In short, you need what they say, if you play Oblviion, while burning a CD, running Anti Virus and if that's not using up 100% of your CPU, then run Super Pi or something else.

And really even then it's overstating it, because it implies that I'll use 290 watts, when the reality is that at a full on burn on graphics and CPU I might use 150 to 170. Granted, I'm not burning a DVD or CD, but with a single core CPU who does?

The fact is that 99% of the people on here, even those of us who do some modest overclocking (about 25% in my case) won't come close to using 400 Watts.

Deathwing, if you have a good PSU, it's 400w continuous, not peak. As I say everytime I see one of these threads, go to www.silentpcreview.com and read reviews there. Look at their power guide and it's probably worth looking on the forums.

Their focus is on quiet computing, but they do a better job of testing PSUs than virtually ever other site on the web.

 

[RichPLS]

My PC...
Lian Li PC-60plus Black Aluminum Case (w/TR-3B Black Thermometer/Fan Controller 3.5” bay and a L.I.S.2 (5.5” bay USB LCD Fan Controller))
Opteron 175 (OC’d 2x 2.64 GHz, 2MB cache, Socket 939, .09 micron, E6 stepping, OSA175DAA6CD)
ThermalTake BigWater 745 liquid cooling system complete kit
Asus A8R32-MVP Motherboard (ATI Radeon Xpress 3200 CrossFire, socket 939, SATA2)
HiS X1800XT Graphics Card (625 MHz/700 MHz OC core/1500 Mhz/1600 MHz OC mem, Dual DL-DVI VIVO 512 MB PCIe)
ATI TV Theater 550 PRO Tuner (PCI TV and FM Tuner)
4x 512MB Corsair Micro Xpert DDR RAM (2.5-3-3-8-2T (spd 2-2-2-5-1T) TwinXP 1024-3200XL)
2x 74gig Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives RAID-0 (WD740GD RAID0 150gig Boot Drive)
2x 250gig Western Digital Caviar SE16 Hard Drives (WD2500KS storage and data)
Plextor 716AL Black 16x DVD/CD Burner (IDE slot loading type)
Antec TP-II 550 Power Supply (550 Watt ATX12V v2.0 PSU)
Dell 2405FPW 24-inch LCD Monitor (UltraSharp Wide Aspect Flat Panel Display)
Logitech G-15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan
Case Fans (PanaFlo 120mm intake, Adda 120mm exhaust blower, PanaFlo 120mm internal circulatory Fan, PanaFlo 92mm exhaust and PanaFlo 80mm Fan)

Measurements and Analysis of Power Draw consumed from this Opteron PC using Kill-a-Watt meter.
Based on a brief quick test, and several follow-ups, I preclude that my AMD Opteron rig when over-clocked at 2420MHz from 2200MHz consumes:
≤ 200 Watts at Idle
≤ 250 Watts during Boot Up
and
≤ 350 Watts at maximum load when benchmarking using 3DMark06 (at 75% efficiency, this means that my PC is requiring ≈ 265 watts of true power from my power supply)
Note: This is only the PC measured at outlet from the Power Supply; my LCD Monitor was not measured per these results.

Since then I have overclocked to 2.64GHz now... but have not retested...

 

[DeathwingX]

the only reason i was wonerding is cuz i herd a whine in my psu, my output is somewhere near 450 or so, so i got an OCZ 520 watt, it adds to my overall look, as well as making sure that i have enought power to do SLI if i want to, becuase that was my big thing was that i wouldnt be able to sli with only 400 watts, but with 520 i can, and thanks for all the help

 

[RichPLS]

8) btw... My system hits pretty high according to FutureMark’s results ~
5,040 3DMarks06 and
10,900 marks in 3DMark05
18,900 marks in 3DMark03