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Power Requirements

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I was wondering about power requirements. In reading one of the articles on the Tom's Hardware site, namely this one http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] quirements I saw the power requirements were only at 228 watts at full overclock.

My current config is in an Antec Aria case with a quality 300 watt power supply. Everyone tells me that I would need a much bigger power supply to run the config shown in the article even with using my Radeon 1900GT instead of the more powerful card in the article.

Can anyone confirm that?

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Assuming you are correct on the PSU being good quality, you shouldn't need that much power, even though X1900GTs are based on the power hungry R580 core of the X1900s, they aren't nearly as bad as an 8800 would be for power usage.

Reply to Gravemind123

For the 8800GTS card in the article, it is recommended that you have a power supply capable of supplying 26 amps on the 12 volt rail. Most low wattage power supplies cannot do this. The 1900gt calls for 25 amps.

In other words, in the case of newer graphics cards, it is more about amps, than watts. A power supply that would do it easily without breaking the bank would be this one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139004

Reply to tlmck

The 1900GT consumes a max of 75w at stock speed.

Faster, Quieter, Lower: Power Consumption and Noise Level of Contemporary Graphics Cards

The only way to estimate the max power consumption of the PC is to list all the components you plan on buying.

Current Config
ECS C51G-754 Motherboard
AMD Sempron 64 3300+
2GB DDR400
Western Digital ATA100 7200RPM HD
Sapphire Radeon 1900GT with 256MB
TV Tuner Card

Antec Aria case with 300w PSU (Proprietary)

Upgrade Plans
Gigabyte G33M-DSR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Dua E2160 CPU
2GB DDR2 800 RAM
Seagate Barracuda SATA HD
TV Tuner card
Sapphire Radeon 1900GT card

There are the components I have and the ones I want to upgrade to. The case and PSU I have are great but the PSU is special for the case. I may be able to modify the case by cutting out part of the back and putting in a standard ATX PSU but if I don't have to I don't want to.

So what do you think?

Reply to mt_100

Your proposed upgrade shouldn't really consume too much power. I too have the Antec Aria and it should be able to provide 17 amps on the 12v rail or 204w. It's been a while since I last saw the specs of the PSU, but 17 amps is conservative. The 12v rail is the most important rail because all the power hungry components draw power from here.

The max load on the 12v rail (assuming you are not overclocking) is relatively small under a full load:

Pentium Dual Core E2160.............................60w (most likely less, but conservative)
ATI 1900GT...............................................75w
1 DVD drive...............................................15w
1 Hard Drive..............................................15w
1 120mm Fan..............................................6w

Total 12v rail power consumption..................171w
Total Amp consumption................................14a (171w / 12v)

All other components draw power from the 3.3v/5v rails.

You potentially have 33w left on tap before you max out the 12v rail. But maxing that would be a bad thing. The means (assuming 204w on the 12v rail) you will be maxing out your 12v rail at about 83% which really isn't that bad. So yes, you should have no problems installing the 1900GT.

As for the rest of your parts on the 3.3v/5v rails I estimate:

m-ATX mobo.............................................25w
2GB of RAM...............................................10w
General PCI cards (like the TV Tuner).............10w
Hard Drive read/write head............................5w
DVD read/write head....................................5w

Total 3.3v/5v estimated power Consumption....55w

GRAND TOTAL MAX POWER CONSUMPTION..................226w

That's assuming you are playing a gaming, burning a DVD, and recording a TV program all at the same time. That very unlikely and would hinder gaming performance anyway, thus the video card will not be maxing out all the time because it will be bottlenecked by the CPU trying to do too many things at the same time.

Its more then just wattage...its how much of each(how much 12 the pus pumps)...i think the system you are looking at should be fine on the aria PSU....

The CPU change if at stock adds less then 10 watts(3 according to the extreme psu calc) of power increase(and its a dual core and all....you may not even feel the need to OC...)....For about 20(then your current system) watts more you can use 1.3(may not even need this...) volts and get to 2.4 and call it a day. you don't want it loud anyway I assume...

Some food for though....

my system takes a max of 350 watts from the wall....and about 280 when you take off the 20% loss from conversion ect......so it takes less power then some people think....

Case: Antec 900
PSU: OCZ 700watt
Board: P35 DS3R
CPU: Q6600 @ 3.00
CPU cooling : Zalman 9500 @ ~2200 rpms
Memory: 2x 1024MB ,2X 512MB
Video: 8800GTX 600(core) 1400(shader) 900 x2(memory)
Storage:
2x WDC 250gig (Raid0)
2x Seagate 320gig(Storage)
2x Seagate 500gig(Storage)
1x 500gig Seagate (Backup-external)
Optical drive: Samsung SH-W162
TV card: PVR 250
Sound: Creative SB Audigy 2zs
Screen: Samsung 950b (LCD)
Speakers: Altec Lansing Select 641

Do not include screen speakers or external drive in my 350 figures...

Can you list the psu specs for us to see as well....

EDIT
jaguarskx beat me to it....

@ jaguarskx - nice post

Message edited by nukemaster on 10-03-2007 at 05:12:24 AM

------------------------------

http://tinyurl.com/26uxxb - C2/i7 Temp? http://tinyurl.com/cj3pw - VGA power?
http://tinyurl.com/5v55wk - C2 Mem performance? http://tinyurl.com/6pmbke - SLI/Xfire?
http://tinyurl.com/yfmxdc9 - Part Guide?
Reply to nukemaster

Looks like the 12v rail on the Aria PSU is 18 amps. It seems to handle my current config well, runs 24/7 for over a year now with no problems. I also do gaming sessions that last for hours on end in Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and FEAR with no problems.

Reply to mt_100

well......it looks like you are good to go....enjoy the extra speed.....

------------------------------

I found the complete specs on my PSU right here on Tom's. Here is a link to the complete specs. I wanted to double check that this would be enough to run the config I want to get and be able to overclock it a bit.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/0 [...] page7.html

Reply to mt_100

Yeah, it looks good. Like I said before, I thought 17a was a bit conservative for the PSU.

Just don't overclock and you should be fine.

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