psu calculator. sites that have their personal interests vs honest sites

[Shihab]

You people use psu calculators? <insert that meme here>

Seriously though, don't manufacturers vary in how they report nameplate power? IIRC, they don't always match [the equivalent of] 12v rail's current.

 

[wNotyarD]

@wNotyarD - either way, my point is, there is no reason to assume a decent power supply calculator that has a specific GPU (or CPU, or RAM, etc) in its databases does not understand PSU requirements. The folks at Outvision surely know the ATX Form Factor requirements. And they have done their homework to learn what these devices consume. They've done the work for us.

If someone is accurate at entering their hardware in the calculator, and they don't like the result, fine! Add 33%, if that's your thing, and give Amazon your credit card number.

Actually, I've never had the Outervision calculator not suggest an overprovisioned PSU. Yes, it calculates the power budget according to the parts in their database. But whatever model it suggests (with a nice affiliated link, after all they have every right to earn something for their work) at any given efficiency badge is always at higher power ratings than its own budget result.

 

[Dr. Dro]

It is just a tool. A good one, but not one you must use.

No Bill, handling power transients with modern GPU designs has become exceptionally important. It's not a particularly new problem either, for example the RTX 3080/3090 and the 6800 XT/6900 XT were known for tripping the Seasonic Prime TX-850 and they needed to reissue that power supply with a new revised model specifically meant to handle those, for example. Besides, with TDPs becoming increasingly meaningless numbers and hardware running completely wild, simple TDP to PSU wattage recommendations as power supply calculators do are potentially an express ticket to trouble.

I just input my desktop machine's spec on the calculator and it told me my rig needs ~557 W... my CPU alone chugs ~370 W under full load, the calculator instead recommends Intel's rated 150 W TDP. My PC would shutdown a 650 W PSU in an instant if I dare to play Genshin Impact at 4K/120fps and encode a clip on the background, this is the primary workload for my PC.

That's why I said a 33% overprovision at the slightest, realistically if you were to go by TDP, accounting for conversion losses in internal VRMs and the sort, you'd probably be looking at a 75% overprovision over the nominal combined rated TDP of your parts, perhaps more if a i9 is involved in the build.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Actually, I've never had the Outervision calculator not suggest an overprovisioned PSU

As I noted from the beginning, it is the most flexible and therefore, most realistic in its recommendations. And that's a good thing and why I like it over all other calculators.

No Bill, handling power transients with modern GPU designs has become exceptionally important.

Gee whiz dude! Who the hell said they are not important? Not me!

You just quoted me where I said it is a tool you don't have to use!!!! And now you argue with that?

What gets me is how you have summarily assumed you know more than the folks at OuterVision. That they must be incompetent dummies. And how only you know how to compensate for this and compensate for that. TOTAL NONSENSE.

But since clearly you cannot believe otherwise, fine! Don't use the damn calculator then. I don't care. All I will say is I have used it well over 100 time for my 5 computers here, and all sorts of client and forum poster computers and not once has it ever underestimated demands. Nor has it recommended a PSU that 33% more than needed. But hey! You clearly know more than them, or me when it comes to power demands of electronics.

Have a good day.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Sure man I am not saying *don't* use it, or that you're something for doing it, it's just that the more your PC is "out of line" against the most basic of configurations, the worse it's gonna be - to a point I don't really recommend it for anything beyond a basic ballpark, really. That was all

 

[inquisitor1]

Ummm, it does not work like that. PSUs are rated by their output power. So, with all else being equal, a 500W inefficient PSU will give you the same amount of power to your components as a 500W efficient PSU. The difference is, with the efficient PSU, you won't heat up your room with all the wasted energy (in the form of heat) from the inefficient PSU. And the efficient PSU will pull less from the wall too as it will use the available power more efficiently.

maybe use the inneficient one in the winter to warm up the room hahaha

Estimate sum of individual power requirements of components in the build, add 50% to it. Hasn't failed me yet.

50%-you so crazy hahaha. no way. not for me. you do you. for me 20% and thats it. ive never needed more then 550w in any build. that will change soon. these gpu are a crime against energy efficiency. huge size, huge weight, huge price, huge tdp. what shety innovation. most dont pay their own electrical bills so they dont care but for me prices jumped 30% in 2 years and still going up.

 

[dirtyferret]

spend the 180€ for a current gen, well know branded 1000W PSU and move on with your life for the next 6-10 years except if you're planning to do a budget build with a 7600/4060 or similar. grab a 750W unit instead and call it a day.

7600/4060 build is around 250-300 avg in gaming

 

[Frick]

Yes, "INPUT" transients.

I think he's talking about how it recommends a 600W PSU for my system but with a 6900xt, a card that absolutely can pull close to 500W at stock settings, and has been known to be unstable even with good 850W PSUs.

 

[inquisitor1]

7600/4060 build is around 250-300 avg in gaming

and thats still bs. I was using a gtx660 for my daily pc. no hard work. got a gtx970 from a friend. thats 145w and I was like oh, thats getting up there, but the "oh its only 5000w, its not so bad" is really normalization taking place. its just bs. if cpu can stay so small and use so little power, gpu mfr have really gone down the shets with design. im CERTAIN 100000% they can do MUCH MUCH better then the tdp theyre putting. at this rate it will hit 750w in a few years. some massive bs here

 

[stahlhart]

50%-you so crazy hahaha. no way. not for me. you do you. for me 20% and thats it. ive never needed more then 550w in any build. that will change soon. these gpu are a crime against energy efficiency. huge size, huge weight, huge price, huge tdp. what shety innovation. most dont pay their own electrical bills so they dont care but for me prices jumped 30% in 2 years and still going up.

What's crazy about it...? Say your build looks like it's going to draw about 500 watts, so you go with 750. Or it's going to pull about 600, you get a kilowatt. I'm planning for worst case scenarios like GPU transients, stress testing, making sure your component thermals are in line. Is $40 or $50 more that big of a deal? Look at what people spend on GPUs.

 

[wNotyarD]

and thats still bs. I was using a gtx660 for my daily pc. no hard work. got a gtx970 from a friend. thats 145w and I was like oh, thats getting up there, but the "oh its only 5000w, its not so bad" is really normalization taking place. its just bs. if cpu can stay so small and use so little power, gpu mfr have really gone down the shets with design. im CERTAIN 100000% they can do MUCH MUCH better then the tdp theyre putting. at this rate it will hit 750w in a few years. some massive bs here

You can be certain they will. There's a reason some motherboard makers are putting an 8-pin PEG power connector on a fair share of new models. And by all means I agree with you, this power frenzy must come down.

 

[SlumpLord3000]

maybe use the inneficient one in the winter to warm up the room hahaha


50%-you so crazy hahaha. no way. not for me. you do you. for me 20% and thats it. ive never needed more then 550w in any build. that will change soon. these gpu are a crime against energy efficiency. huge size, huge weight, huge price, huge tdp. what shety innovation. most dont pay their own electrical bills so they dont care but for me prices jumped 30% in 2 years and still going up.

You actually want to be at about 50% of the PSU full load to get the best power efficiency. Also better for longevity.

https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/articles/14641912717453-PSU-Efficiency-Ratings-Explained#:~:text=Most%20PSUs%20have%20an%20efficiency,and%20capacitors%20inside%20the%20PSU

Personally, I get the 1000W PSU with 10 year warranty and use it until it fails. My last PSU purchase was in 2015 or 2016. I had 6 different GPUs since then. 2 Different PC builds.

 

[inquisitor1]

You can be certain they will. There's a reason some motherboard makers are putting an 8-pin PEG power connector on a fair share of new models. And by all means I agree with you, this power frenzy must come down.

I havnt been in the know for YEARS for pc gear as I used to be. my last investment was 8320fx, then I got a used i7 6700 pc for peanuts and it had an rx590 and thats 225 and I was panicking. why so high ffs for such a lower end cards. "maybe I can find a stronger card thats more efficient" and then saw toms list https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html and I was shocked.

most here, saw the incremental jumps. I went from 145 to 225, to 300w. twice the power requirement for a decent gpu and prices have jumped 30% in electrical bills. thats simply nuts.

it has be improved. btw, whats the state of the market now for gpu vs the demand/no stock there was before? is it still a thing to not find stock?

the 40 and 70 have been out for some bit, so im sure ok. I have a feeling they will keep creatiing this shortage situation going forward

 

[Bill_Bright]

it's just that the more your PC is "out of line" against the most basic of configurations, the worse it's gonna be

What does that have to do with the price of rice in China in the summer time when it rains? Nothing!

And by all means, don't plug your current hardware in the calculator to see what it recommends. It might blow up your microwave oven.

maybe use the inneficient one in the winter to warm up the room hahaha

LOL - I do have a friend who has two computers with 80 PLUS (AKA white or basic) PSUs. He closes the heater vents in his office in the winter because otherwise, it gets too warm in there. And like my house, on the other side of the wall of his computer room is the hallway and thermostat for the whole house HVAC system. After several hours, that computer room heats up, the wall heats up and the thermostat thinks the whole house is warm. Then his wife yells at him because she's freezing in the living room! LOL

I used to have 4 computers in this room, with two running SETI, 24/7. My problem was not the furnace in the winter but the AC in the summer. Even though I put a 1/4 inch thick piece of Styrofoam behind the thermostat, the room (and thermostat wall) would still get so warm, the central AC ran all the time - freezing the rest of the house, running up my electric bill, and causing me to yelled at by my wife. I ended up putting a window AC in that room. I retired the two SETI computers so now I only have two computers in here, and both have Gold supplies. neither are searching for ET so my thermostat is not affected anymore.

Yeah, I agree that 50% is WAY overkill too. But again, it won't hurt the computer as it will demand only what it needs. And for sure, the PSU should stay cool and quiet. Quiet is good because I hate fan noise.

LOL - I do have a friend who has two computers with 80 PLUS (AKA white or basic) PSUs. He closes the heater vents in his office in the winter because otherwise, it gets too warm in there. And like my house, on the other side of the wall of his computer room is the hallway and thermostat for the whole house HVAC system. After several hours, that computer room heats up, the wall heats up and the thermostat thinks the whole house is warm. Then his wife yells at him because she's freezing in the living room! LOL

I used to have 4 computers in this room, with two running SETI, 24/7. My problem was not the furnace in the winter but the AC in the summer. Even though I put a 1/2 thick piece of styrofoam behind the thermostat, the room (and thermostat wall) would still get so warm, the central AC ran all the time - freezing the rest of the house, running up my electric bill, and causing me to yelled at by my wife. I ended up putting a window AC in that room. I retired the two SETI computers so now I only have two computers in here, and both have Gold supplies. My thermostat is not affected anymore so my power bill is no longer a ball-buster. I got rid of the wife too so two birds, one stone!

Yeah, I agree that 50% is WAY overkill too. But again, it won't hurt the computer as it will demand only what it needs. And for sure, the PSU should stay cool and quiet. Quiet is good because I hate fan noise. Plus it leaves plenty of wiggle room for future upgrades. So for only $40, I agree it is no big deal.

 

[dirtyferret]

and thats still bs. I was using a gtx660 for my daily pc. no hard work. got a gtx970 from a friend. thats 145w and I was like oh, thats getting up there, but the "oh its only 5000w, its not so bad" is really normalization taking place. its just bs. if cpu can stay so small and use so little power, gpu mfr have really gone down the shets with design. im CERTAIN 100000% they can do MUCH MUCH better then the tdp theyre putting. at this rate it will hit 750w in a few years. some massive bs here

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. You could not run a GTX 970 on a 500w PSU? If so, ok. Did someone tell you to do that?

 

[dir_d]

I must have went to three or four different PSU calculators when i was building my current system before settling on an 850w unit which is just absolutely overkill. I could have ran this system with a good 650w unit as it doesnt pull anywhere near 500w when gaming and I always have V-sync on that locks fps to 165Hz. I could run it with V-Sync off but all it would do rinse my wallet when it comes to the electricity bill for no reason at all.

I suggest using the calculators just to get a rough ballpark figure before doing some research on how much power your hardware needs to run (read reviews) and come up with a more accurate figure.

Ill back you up on this, you can see the PSU that i use, no issues at all with a quality 650W.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

On a side note.

A lot of top tier power supplies come with super long warranty. My Seasonic Focus GX 850 comes with 10 YEARS warranty. This power supply can potentially get carried over to 3-4 different builds or more so whatever money I put in NOW. I save money in the long run without having the need to buy another power supply. This to me is very worth it IMO.

(I say potentially because AMD has said they are going to support AM5 for a long long time. So I might not need to build a completely new machine for another 10+ years. All i'll be doing is upgrading the CPU or GPu when those arent doing the business anymore.)

So you get 10 years warranty and a well built quality power supply from a reputable manufacturer. I remember back in the day, when id spend £80-90 on a power supply and id get 3-5 years warranty. because it was a mid-range certified bronze unit. I paid about £99 for this seasonic and im getting so much more for my money.

 

[chrcoluk]

If I was buying today it would need native cables for the newer nvidia GPUs and probably at least 850w. I tend to over spec it a bit as PSUs are swapped very infrequently, so it needs room for future products. I wont go too over spec'd though as efficiency curve has to be factored and of course cost.

 

[Athlonite]

If someone is accurate at entering their hardware in the calculator

Yup I did that it gave a recommended 750W for a 635W total draw but when I was looking for a new PSU I found a EVGA 1000W G2 80+ gold which was on special for less than a 750W other name brand PSU's so I bought it so far it's running cool quiet and pumping out clean power to my parts

 

[Shrek]

You actually want to be at about 50% of the PSU full load to get the best power efficiency. Also better for longevity.

That's where I stand, but easy for me to say as my PC uses less than 250W flat out so I run a 500W supply.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Yup I did that it gave a recommended 750W for a 635W total draw but when I was looking for a new PSU I found a EVGA 1000W G2 80+ gold which was on special for less than a 750W other name brand PSU's so I bought it so far it's running cool quiet and pumping out clean power to my parts

That make sense. And IMO, EVGA Gold G2 are great supplies. I have two from that series here.

 

[DaemonForce]

I just go with my biggest needs and buy accordingly.

SFF Server:
AMD Athlon 2650e ~10W
nVidia nForce 4 Chipset ~10W
2x1GB DDR2-800 ~4W
16GB USB ~1W
4.9TB HDD ~8W
16TB HDD ~8W
10GbE SFP ~15W
------Fair estimate: ~56W
Any sub-250W Delta should work fine but will insta-off over the faintest power fluctuation.

RACK:
AMD FX-8370 ~144W
AMD 970 Chipset ~13W
2x8GB DDR3-2166 ~8W
4xHDDs ~32W
LSI Warpdrive ~15W
Fanbus ~10W
Capture card ~10W
Encoder/GPU ~75W
------Med/Full estimate: ~222-309W
Any antique thru-flow PSU in the 400-500W range should be fine.

TOWER:
Ryzen 5 3600 ~88W
AMD X570 Chipset ~15W
4x16GB DDR4-3200 ~16W
Induction fans ~7W
Exhaust fans ~10W
Pump ~12W
Main GPU ~190W
7900XT swap ~300W
10GbE SFP ~10W
------Fair estimate: ~348-458W
Many systems have fit here and many power boxes have been lunched by junker Pentium 4 and Phenom II X4 loadouts.
The last one to release the magic smoke was 700W. Just throw anything 750W or greater at it. ✔ So I did exactly that.
Antec EA-750 from the multi-rail era has reliably powered my Phenom II, FX and Ryzen loadouts without fail.

Should I be totalling chipset, SFP and memory figures in there? Probably not but seeing how I don't have a reliable guide on how these components behave, I just assume the worst. So far it works fine.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

The old calculator argument.

Looking at my rig, 1050w isn't overkill when using a cpu that can pull easily over 300w and a GPU over 200w. PSU is equipped with a single 87amp rail, so dividing power or trying to balance 12v loads is pretty easy.

But I am shocked certain brains around here just rely on a calculator for (insert number of pc here) the purchase of PSU. That's total Noob non-sense.

 

[Bill_Bright]

But I am shocked certain brains around here just rely on a calculator for (insert number of pc here) the purchase of PSU. That's total Noob non-sense.

And that was a naïve, if not arrogant comment too.

Who said these "certain brains" "just" rely on a calculator? I see no post above that says any one does that.

And it is naïve to suggest the eXtreme OuterVision calculator is "just" a calculator too - as if all calculators are alike. Total nonsense.

If one takes the time to do their homework, to see what the eXtreme OuterVision calculator is about, setting aside biases and pre-conceived notions, and actually give it an honest and fair try, they would actually see how useful a tool it can be, for novices and pros alike.

Note it does not tell you what size to get. It suggest the minimum size and even warns about instability issues should one go with a less capable supply.

If one would bother to take a minute to see what the company behind the eXtreme OuterVision calculator is about instead of remaining ignorant and "just" assuming one is smarter and more clever than these people who do this day-in and day-out for a living, they would learn my (bold underline) added,

The eXtreme Outer Vision's main goal is to help all computer enthusiasts with proper power supply estimation for their PC builds. Not knowing how much wattage and amperage is required to power your computer may result in instability and significant damage of the PC components.

But again, as I have said many times already, if you don't want to use it, don't! I don't care! But don't assume a good calculator like the eXtreme OuterVision calculator can't give a user a good estimate of their minimum needs. It can. To suggest otherwise is pure ignorance, at the very least.

And for sure, there is no shame in using a good tool to help do a task, regardless ones experience level. In fact, enlisting the aid of a good tool is a characteristic of wisdom.

That's total Noob non-sense.

Oh? I note PCPartPicker also recommends an "estimated" minimum PSU size when users use their Builder wizard, warning,

Note: Wattages are estimates only. Actual power draw may differ from listed values.

Does that suggest or mean that information is "total Noob non-sense" too? No. And your disparaging remark certainly does NOT suggest you are the preeminent expert you think you are either.

Knowing how to do something does not make one an expert, or superior to others.
Enlisting other, able people to do something for you, or help you do something, does not make one a "total Noob".

 

[kilo]

More information means a better informed decision.

While I'm sure there are dubious calculators out there, using them isn't a terrible idea. Especially for people new to the hobby. Those who are experienced can use a psu calculator for reference and not an authority.

My personal opinion (uh oh ) is agreeing with @Shrek : 50% overhead at full load and spending maybe 15% to 20% more money than needed. It's not a huge jump between $100 and $120, for example, compared to prices these days for GPU's.