Would a 1000w PSU be enough?

sWiZzLe

sWiZzLe

sWiZzLe

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And before you all jump on this and say HAHAHA what do you need a 1000w psu for!?

I entered my current my current spec in to the eXtreme Power Supply Calculator:

Silverstone Fortress 2 case which has 3x180mm and 1x120mm fans
Phenom II X4 940
4x2GB DDR2
Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler which has 1x140 and 1x120mm fans
2 4870x2 GPU's in Crossfire
5 SATA HDD's
1 DVD-RW/DVD+RW Drive
TV Tuner - Antenna
7 USB Devices

I wasn't sure what to put for the fans, I assume i should use 'High Performance' fans, but it doesn't have 180mm fans option.

If i choose 4x140 and 2x120mm

It gives me:

Minimum PSU Wattage: 898w
Recommended PSU Wattage: 948w

But if I overclock my CPU to 3.6Ghz

It gives me:

Minimum PSU Wattage: 980w
Recommended PSU Wattage: 1030w

Also, I was considering get the Corsair H80 if it ever come out!

Cheers
 
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the 4870X2 is an incredibly power hungry card because it is actually two graphics cards on one circuit board.

happily, i have found that they use a touch more power than a single GTX480 using anandtech's graphics card comparison:
4870X2 vs GTX480

if you look at the power consumption of the GTX480 in SLI you will see that it needs ~850W, so for your computer it would be more like 930W: GTX480 SLI benchmark

those are both full system power requitements with a more power hungry processor than yours, however, add in your 5 hard drives, TV card, 7 USB devices then it pretty much uses up all the power that is saved from the lower power processor, so 1000W sounds like a good shout to me

one of these should do nicely:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-053-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1098
 
Phew!

Thanks, I can't afford to spend £200+ on a 1200w psu right now ;)

I was thinking about getting the Silverstone ST1000-G, seems to have good reviews and is about £150

Will have a look at that OCZ ZX Series 1000W one too

Cheers ;)

stulid said:
I haver found a far more relevant 4870X2 Crossfire power consumption test.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-4870-x2-review-crossfire/6

Taking into account all your specs, HDD's, Fans etc, perhaps something a bit higher than 1000W is better, especially when a PSU is most efficient at around 60% load.
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Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo LOL
 
Bugger!

Looks like im gonna have to take out one of my cards for a while then :(


I think may risk 1000w for now, not overclock my cpu.. i don't really need more than 3Ghz

If I reduced the number of drives down to 3 or 4, it brings the recommended psu wattage down to around 900w :p
 
I remember a thread a long time ago where someone asked "who needs a 1200W PSU?". Next time I see one I will just point to you:D
 
A 1kw PSU will be plenty for your setup OP. The link to guru3d is total system power draw, not just the cards. How do you think people ran such systems then as 1kw PSU's were the biggest available at that time? I dare say you could get away with 850w but best to go for 1kw 'to be safe'.

Just make sure you buy a quality psu such as Silverstone, Corsair or Enermax. Powercolor, Q-tec, Hyper et al are garbage and quote peak power output, not what they can actually sustain for any length of time thus they are prone to failure.
 
w3bbo said:
<snip> Powercolor, Q-tec, Hyper et al are garbage and quote peak power output, not what they can actually sustain for any length of time thus they are prone to failure.
Click to expand...

Not relevant to the thread, I realise, but didn't Hiper go bust a couple of years ago and are no longer producing? Have they started back up again?
 
Yes but there are still some e-tailors still selling their kit. Don't think they ever made a 1kw psu though thank goodness.
 
Your forgetting that the Guru3d is on a much simpler test system without as many drives and fans etc, and its best to be around 60% of the psu for best efficient use.
 
The second 4870 X2 doesn't add a huge amount of performance in a lot of games.

When all 4 GPU's kick in it works well but in a lot of games the scaling for 4 GPU's is pretty poor.
 
w3bbo said:
Just make sure you buy a quality psu such as Silverstone, Corsair or Enermax. Powercolor, Q-tec, Hyper et al are garbage and quote peak power output, not what they can actually sustain for any length of time thus they are prone to failure.
Click to expand...
I've only ever bought Corsair or Enermax psu's in the past. I had no idea Silverstone made psu's until i read another thread but they look good!

stulid said:
Its best to be around 60% of the psu for best efficient use.
Click to expand...
Yeah i read that, so I would prefer to get the 1200w so im not pushing it to its limit. Think i maybe that Silverstone one tomorrow.

Surveyor said:
The second 4870 X2 doesn't add a huge amount of performance in a lot of games.

When all 4 GPU's kick in it works well but in a lot of games the scaling for 4 GPU's is pretty poor.
Click to expand...
That may have been true in 2008 but 3 years on, ATI must have improved Crossfire performance. Take Crysis 2, with 1 card i get between 30 and 50fps with Ultra settings, but with 2 cards i was getting 70 -100.
 
sWiZzLe said:
That may have been true in 2008 but 3 years on, ATI must have improved Crossfire performance. Take Crysis 2, with 1 card i get between 30 and 50fps with Ultra settings, but with 2 cards i was getting 70 -100.
Click to expand...

100% plus Crossfire scaling with 4 GPU's.

They really have impoved the drivers :rolleyes:
 
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