http://www.overclockers.com/articles1452/

You be surprised just how much power you need for your pc.

My system is a:

A64 S939 3000+
Asrock Dual Sata 2
x1950GT 512MB
1GB DDR400
X-Fi XtremeMusic
LG DVD burner
160GB Samsung
160GB Seagate
250GB WD
2x 120mm Fans
1 ThermalTake IceCage

PSU = Zeon 460W true power.

Thanx, by reading that article i feel like my PSU can last for more than 5 years.

hrmm. that article uses the same calculator that i always recommend to people.

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

lol.. that's why i end up with 400W..

goldfries, heheh yeah.. dont see why ppl need 700W or 1000W psu... wasting money i tell ya!!! Unless u got 2 quad cores n 2 gc or something...

I skimmed through the article and I'm surprised that they didn't test power draw when switching on the system. I would think that might be one of the times where power draw is close to maximum because all the hard drives spin up etc.

This post has been edited by ikanayam: Jun 29 2007, 10:49 AM

Right -> the highest power draw is during boot-up when all your drives start spinning up/CPU/GC fan etc.
IIRC that's the main reason that you are not recommended to have > 2 peripherals attached to the same power cable OR use Y-splitters.

what about W splitter then?

Basically yes that would be the case but thats why the bios has a certain boot time... to allow all the hdd to spin up.

The spin up process draws the max amount of power that the hard drive ever uses. While that is happening you are also powering up all your other peripherals.

how about the numerous fans (i.e. Delta, Panaflo etc etc) installed and running at full speed? will that will that make use the high amount of voltage?

ikan.. u mean the inrush current rite?

This post has been edited by jinaun: Jun 29 2007, 11:59 AM

actually does those pc modding stuff like CCFL tube use up lot of power from PSU ? == jus wonder

sam0919, more u stick in the more its gonna suck. (EDIT: power)

ikanayam thats why I believe you're never see an instant boot. Unless maybe if its a high end mobo and they expect you to use the most powerful PSU. A HDD spin up only takes the most 2 secs. Your bios hasn't yet begin checking all the devices especially HDD. When you turn on your system (typically) your monitor is black for about 1-2 secs. Then the bios post appears.

The only prob I can see if you were to use my system as an example is that I use a cheap PSU with a rating of 300W or 350W which then one of my HDD won't be detected in time by the bios.

There is a question nagging me... currently with the new mobos, should lets say your HDD didn't spin up in time does the bios still recongises it by just requesting what device is at the IDE channel and doesn't need it to fully spin up? If not will it still recongise it when it does spin up (when there is more power available) BIOS posts (like just before it starts searching for a boot device)?

This post has been edited by RangerRed: Jun 29 2007, 12:21 PM

Hard drives definitely take longer than 2 seconds to spin up. My guess is that a large spike occurs between the time you press the button till about 5 seconds after. I don't believe consumer hardware is smart enough to power on things one by one to avoid current spikes at boot up.

This post has been edited by ikanayam: Jun 29 2007, 12:30 PM

We should pop over the ocforum since they got a thread up on the article n see what were the reactions n comments (its down at the moment for me).

If none of them have the same topic as out discussion we can email the ED n see what he thinks.

How about you email him and suggest he tests boot up power? Pretty sure that would be an interesting study, i never see people testing this.

edit: except storagereview, they test hard drive spin up power.

This post has been edited by ikanayam: Jun 29 2007, 12:35 PM

I'm using the Acbel 550W PSU with LCD that shows real power usage.

With my ASUS P5W DH Deluxe wifi, E6600 @ 3.33GHz at 1.4V, 2GB RAM at 2.2V vDimm, Swiftech MCP 655 WC pump running full speed, a 8600GT, 4 SATA harddisks, 2 x DVD-RW drives, 3 CCFL pairs, 4 x 120mm San-Ace Radiator Fans, 2 x 92mm tt case fans, 1 x Delta high-speed 80mm exhaust fan and 1 x sunon 40mm chipset cooler fan, 1 x prodigy 7.1LT sound card and at least 6 USB devices - the power draw is at 137W idle (24% utilization) and at load does not even exceed 200W (not more than 38%) even during the boot process.

Each CCFL pair I turn on consumes about 12W.

I think the only devices that are power hungry are the 8800 series cards and only need a top-end PSU when running these in SLI consfiguration.

This post has been edited by aloy237: Jun 29 2007, 12:53 PM

well, im getting my silverstone striver 560watt soon! hahahha~ just waiting for price slash now

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=511180

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=512807