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Will an Antec 380w earthwatts power a 4870..

peter212693

peter212693

peter212693

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Hi all,

Got a mate that wants a new 4870. His system is:

X2 4800
4GB OCZ Ram
250gb WD
640gb WD

The power supply is a 380w earth watts it has 18 amps on both 12v rails will this be enough juice to power it or is it better to get a better psu.
 
You're gonna stretch it to be honest, i would probably get a new PSU seeing as it uses 2 PCI-E 6pin connectors, that's a lot of power being drawn.
 
To quantify my earlier answer:

It should work but not recommended.

You will be pushing the psu to close to it's limits and hence more likely to break or have instable voltages (ripple and noise) on it's lines.

Even worse if you have to use molex to pci-e adaptors as these introduce more noise plus drops the voltages supplied to the card.

At best you might find any overclocks you have start and fail plus minor instabilities. At worse your psu could go bang and take out other parts of your system including your brand new 4870.

Just my 2p worth
 
does the Antec 380w earthwatts have safety protections?

if yes, surely if the psu as safety protections like (Over Current, Over Voltage, Over Load, Over Temperature, Over Power, and Short-Circuit protection. ) the psu would just cut off, not go bang..

because what's the point in having safety protections in psus if it just goes bang.
 
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gareth170 said:
does the Antec 380w earthwatts have safety protections?

if yes, surely if the psu as safety protections like (Over Current, Over Voltage, Over Load, Over Temperature, Over Power, and Short-Circuit protection. ) the psu would just cut off, not go bang..

because what's the point in having safety protections in psus if it just goes bang.
Click to expand...

Very true but only the high end expensive ones have all the ones you have listed.

I have seen big brand name psu's like Tagan not having all the protection you listed.

Plus a lot is down to the components used and whether they are high quality Japanese or cheapo chinese. Components have been known to blow even when within temperature and voltage range.
 
Greebo said:
Very true but only the high end expensive ones have all the ones you have listed.

I have seen big brand name psu's like Tagan not having all the protection you listed.

Plus a lot is down to the components used and whether they are high quality Japanese or cheapo chinese. Components have been known to blow even when within temperature and voltage range.
Click to expand...
my current psu in sig as them safety protections ( Over voltage protection, Over current protection, Over load protection, Short circuit protection) and it was only £60, :D
 
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gareth170 said:
my current psu in sig as them safety protections ( Over voltage protection, Over current protection, Over load protection, Short circuit protection) and it was only £60, :D
Click to expand...

Probably a good job it has them then :p

You read some of the reviews on the link I gave?

I managed to bag a 1000W ocz elitexstream for £69.99 last night on the bay (brand new) and that is meant to be the best voltage regulation and ripple/noise psu tested so far.

My only gripe is that it is not modular but you can't have the best of both worlds.

I should have originally said "only the high end ones tend to have all the protection"
 
the short circuit protection worked great.. the psu as 2 4pin (8pin) 12v's for the motherboard and my gf connected the wrong 4pin 12v to the motherboard which meant the -/+ was the wrong way round and the psu saved my motherboard from being broked because the psu would not power on the system.
 
gareth170 said:
the short circuit protection worked great.. the psu as 2 4pin (8pin) 12v's for the motherboard and my gf connected the wrong 4pin 12v to the motherboard which meant the -/+ was the wrong way round and the psu saved my motherboard from being broked because the psu would not power on the system.
Click to expand...

DON'T LET GF'S OR WIVES ANYWHERE NEAR THE INSIDE OF YOUR COMPUTER
 
gareth170 said:
the short circuit protection worked great.. the psu as 2 4pin (8pin) 12v's for the motherboard and my gf connected the wrong 4pin 12v to the motherboard which meant the -/+ was the wrong way round and the psu saved my motherboard from being broked because the psu would not power on the system.
Click to expand...

You shouldn't let your "Girlfriend" near your pc then. :rolleyes:
 
AbsenceJam said:
It will be plenty, look here - http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3354&p=8 - and that's measured at the wall so it would be 220w from the PSU and that's a higher spec system than yours.
Click to expand...

Higher specced but lower power consumption and less items in it.

Most people have fans (and some lots) hard drives, optical drives, floppy drives etc.

If you look at that graph where one 4870 consumes 278W at the wall and two consumes 421W that will mean each 4870 will consumes 144W. Right?

That means the system without the gfx card is only consuming 134W. As you say that is at the wall and even the best psu is only 85% efficient hence everything in the pc they tested with is only consuming 113W.

My energy efficient cpu needs 95w before I overclock it. It probably with 1.5v in it consuming more than 113w and there is the rest of the system to include as well like other cards, motherboard consumption etc.

The other point is if the 4870 is only consuming 144W at the wall which equals 122W actual. This is only 10amps. Therefore why does it need two pci-e 6 pin connectors only with the pci-e slot giving a total maximum power of 225W or about 19amps? It could just have one pci-e connector and still get 150w of power which would be more than enough if Anandtech's charts were right?

I have always thought of Anandtech power consumption charts to be suspiciously low. On the other hand, some others claiming you need a 1000w supply for two 4870 in xfire is too far the other way as well.



On the
 
Sorry but you don't know what you're on about. HDD's, ODD's, fan's etc all use under 10w
Your Q6600 doesn't use 95w, that's the TDP.

Claiming that Anandtech have fake power consumption figures would be a serious accusation to make were it not ludicrous. But just for fun I Googled for other reviews and most were lower but some were 50w higher. Oh dear.
 
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