You have
probably noticed the demand for power in PC systems have
increased quite a bit for the last couple of years.
So you might be a bit confused about how much power your new
system actually needs?!
Take a look at this article - you might be surprised!
Power Supply manufacturers are constantly releasing more and
more powerful power supplies into the market.
Not only are these more powerful, but also much more
expensive indeed - So do you actually need to invest in such to run your new "killer"
gaming system?
We have
assembled several systems to represent some of the ultimate
dream configurations of today and measured the power
consumption
for your reference.
This is a
top-of-the-line overclocked hardcore gaming SLI System
featuring two blistering fast 8800GTS cards and a
overclocked top range processor.
CPU at stock speed
2.93Ghz 2x 8800GTS at stock speed 513/1584
PC / Windows Start
up
= 276 W
Windows Idle
operation
= 207 W
Stressprime Orthos
Small FFTs
= 296 W
Full load gaming
(3Dmark06)
= 384 W
CPU Overclocked to
3.45Ghz
2x 8800GTS Overclocked to 650/2010
PC / Windows Start
up
= 305 W
Windows Idle
operation
= 228 W
Stressprime Orthos
Small FFTs
= 312 W
Full load gaming
(3Dmark06)
= 436 W
As the results show, a Hi-End gaming system like this can easily
be run with a high quality real power PSU such as the new
CP-520A4 520W.
Even during full load and highly overclocked, this system
"only" peaked at 436W. During most stress situations and
gaming tests the system barely hit 400W. This Power Supply
provides plenty of power and plenty of spare capacity for
such hi-end configurations.
(It is not recommended to use any of our former series Power
Supplies for
such configuration as the combined 12V performance is not
sufficient enough for such)
The VGA cards are by far the most consuming parts, and the
8800 series are some of the most power demanding VGA cards
on the market today.
If removing one of the 8800GTS in the SLI setup and thereby
only running a single 8800GTS card, the full load gaming
power draw is reduced by amazing ~100W, making the CP-450A4
450W strong enough for such hi-end configuration.
Here is another powerful
top-of-the-line system featuring a popular Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 overclocked to 3.2Ghz and a top-of-the-line 8800GTX 768Mb
VGA card.
This powerful
configuration can also easily be run by a high quality REAL
POWER PSU such as the CP-520A4 520W and still have lots of
capacity remaining. Surprised?
If replacing the 8800GTX with the ATI X1950 XTX power
consumption will be almost similar.
If replacing the Intel E6600 processor with an AMD X2 Dual
Core processor or even the AMD FX-60, the total power
consumption will not be affected that much.
The next system
will become a very popular mainstream gaming
configuration which represents the upper end of gaming systems today.
Are you surprised again? This system
can easily be run by a high quality REAL POWER PSU such as the CP-400P4 400W or CP-450A4 450W.
Even adding
several additional hard drives and optical drives etc.
and/or trying to overclock even more, will
still make this system more than easy to run with a good
quality 400W or 450W Power Supply. If you are not planning
to overclock, the power consumption will be even lower than
illustrated here!
This type of system is also very easy to make very silent.
By using the ultra silent CP-400P4 or CP-450A4 together
with a silent temperature controlled CPU cooler and a
passive cooled 7600GT or 8500GT/8600GT can make such
configuration virtually silent.
Finally we
will here show the PEAK power consumption of some of
the most popular components on the market lately:
AMD Athlon-64 FX-60
= 110 W
AMD FX-60 @ 3006Mhz
at 1.45v
= ~145 W
AMD Athlon-64 X2
5000+ AM2 (2 versions)
= 65/89 W
AMD
CPU Athlon 64 3800+ AM2
=
45 W
Pentium-4 D840 3.2Ghz
= 130 W
Intel Core 2 Duo
E6300 - E6700
=
65 W
Intel Core 2 Duo
E6600 @3600Mhz at 1.45v
= ~113 W
Intel Core 2 Extreme
X6800
=
75 W
Intel Core 2 Quad QX6800
= 130 W
NVIDIA 8800GTX 768Mb
= ~130 W
NVIDIA 8800GTS
= ~106 W
NVIDIA 8600GTS
= ~ 48 W
NVIDIA 7950GT
= ~ 82 W
NVIDIA 7900GT SLI (2x VGA cards)
= ~143 W
NVIDIA 7600GT SLI (2x VGA cards)
= ~ 95 W
NVIDIA 7600GT
= ~ 36 W
ATI
HD 2900 XT
= ~160 W
ATI
X1950 XTX
= ~125 W
ATI
X1900 XTX CrossFire (2x VGA cards)
= ~230 W
ATI
X1800 XT
= ~103 W
ATI
X1800 XL CrossFire (2x VGA cards)
= ~124 W
ATI
X1600 XT
= ~ 55 W
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250Gb
= ~10 W
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ
= ~12 W
Maxtor DiamondMax 11
= ~15 W
Optical Drives (DVD-RW, DVD-ROM, CD)
= ~20 W
All ratings are
PEAK
values. During idle operation consumption will be much
lower.
So as you can see from
all this - The power requirements are of course higher
the more powerful your system is.
But the power requirements are probably much lower than
you expected, right?
The Power Supply manufacturers would of course like you
to buy the high-wattage top models, because that means a
higher profit.
The VGA manufactures need to take into considerations
that many Power Supplies on the market can not deliver
what they are supposed to. So therefore they specify
much higher power requirements on their products than
actually needed.
Even
though hardware becomes faster and faster, the
manufacturers also implement new technologies to reduce
power consumption. As an example most of the new Intel
Dual Core processors actually only consumes half the
power compared to the older Pentium-4 series, even
during full load. Such new technologies are now also top
priority at the VGA card makers - so eventually VGA
cards will also be consuming less and less power.
To summarize on all this, you can say that a Real
400-450W PSU is a good choice for all-round multimedia
computers. For gaming systems featuring a top-range VGA
card or 2x medium-range VGA cards, a 520W should be
sufficient. For hi-end computers featuring several
hi-end VGA cards the 700W or 1000W is recommended. Also
remember, the closer the PSU is to full load, the higher
noise levels. So in some cases you might want to go for
a bit bigger PSU than required in order to get the
lowest noise levels.