Will a 120W PicoPSU power my setup?

broona · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:21

I'm currently running the following on an inefficient old Antec PSU :-

E8400
Asus P5N7A-VM 730i/9300 motherboard, using the onboard sound and video
1tb Samsung Spinpoint F1 HDD
Pioneer DVD-RW
3X 120mm 800rpm Scythe fans
Half a dozen various USB devices

Will a 120W PicoPSU and 100W'ish power brick power this safely? The machine's mostly used for surfing and downloading, with some video encoding/decoding thrown in too.

Kennysevenfold · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:30

why not get a basic 300watt power supply.?

jak731 · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:38

Cutting it fine, i think the processor is only a 30W part on full load, dunno about the motherboard. It may work but the powersupply will likely be running close to or at its limit most of the time...

Probably worth spending 30-40 quid a a decent low powered psu really.

broona · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:38

Kennysevenfold said:
why not get a basic 300watt power supply.?

The only basic ones I can find are from makers that I wouldn't trust to power my watch, the only exception appears to be the Antec Basic 350w, but it only has an 80mm fan, so it'll probably be a lot louder than any of the 120mm fans currently in my system, and I want it to be as quiet as possible.

broona · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:39

jak731 said:
Cutting it fine, i think the processor is only a 30W part on full load, dunno about the motherboard. It may work but the powersupply will likely be running close to or at its limit most of the time...

Probably worth spending 30-40 quid a a decent low powered psu really.

Thanks, any recommendations, as low powered PSU's appear to be out of fashion now?

Kennysevenfold · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:43

you can always get i high wattage psu, you wont use all the power just what is needed by the system....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...PC Power & Cooling Silencer 470W Power Supply

DigitalReaper · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:46

broona said:
Pioneer DVD-RW

Absolute no-no. Full sized optical drives draw quite an insane amount of current. My LG HD-DVD/Blueray drive can draw up to 45.5w on its own, that's nearly half your PSU capacity gone :eek:

Kennysevenfold · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:47

Get a sony NEC

broona · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:48

Kennysevenfold said:
you can always get i high wattage psu, you wont use all the power just what is needed by the system....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...PC Power & Cooling Silencer 470W Power Supply

But is it not true that PSU's are only particularly efficient when drawing somewhere near their rated output? So the higher the wattage, the higher the draw would need to be for efficient running?

broona · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:48

Kennysevenfold said:
why so much on a case.?

and go for some ram like this...

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...z (3x1GB) Triple Channel DDR3 (TR3X3G1866C9DF)

?????

broona · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:49

DigitalReaper said:
Absolute no-no. Full sized optical drives draw quite an insane amount of current. My LG HD-DVD/Blueray drive can draw up to 45.5w on its own, that's nearly half your PSU capacity gone

Thanks for that info, I had no idea! :eek:

jak731 · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:49

If it absolutely has to be as cheap as possible and have a 120mm fan the only suitable thing in stock on ocuk is this.

If you are willing to spend a bit more the corsair vx450 is very good.

Overpowered psus arn't to much of an issue as newer models are over 80% efficient between 20-100% utilization, so even if the components in your system was drawing 100W the psu would only be drawing 120-130W from the mains.

Hope this helps.

Kennysevenfold · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:50

broona said:
?????

wrong thread

and no, power supplies are more efficiant when working on 40-70% of there total max output

Strife212 · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:54

jak731 said:
If it absolutely has to be as cheap as possible and have a 120mm fan the only suitable thing in stock on ocuk is this.

User review

excellent product. im running 2 x 8800 gtxs on this baby with a quad core. sweet price and quality product

;/

Good luck with that

broona · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:55

Thanks for all the replies.

I've looked at either the 385W Enermax Pro 82+ or the 425W Enermax Pro 82+ (if I can find one!), would either of these be any good? I like the idea of a modular PSU, as I hardly have any power connections inside my case, so just tuck the cables into a corner!

The Halk · 25 Dec 2008 at 19:57

Yes, it will. But if I remember correctly these PSUs are loud under load.

Ben M · 25 Dec 2008 at 20:08

broona said:
But is it not true that PSU's are only particularly efficient when drawing somewhere near their rated output? So the higher the wattage, the higher the draw would need to be for efficient running?

the other way around, they are least efficient near to their max rated output.

james.miller · 25 Dec 2008 at 20:12

no, they are least efficiant when underloaded. its true most supplies do drop off from around 90 to 100% output but any decent supply will still hold that at >80% efficiancy.