What is 14a & 16a in total power?

ExoMale · 15 Feb 2017 at 12:36

purchaces a viglen genie case yesterday for a fiver which is a model that supports full height cards, but SFX power supplies and the psu included is a 300w fsb 80 plus bronze that has a dual rail of 14a & 16a and while it says 103w total for 3.3v & 5v I am frustratingly trying to find out the exact remaining for the 12v rails..

I didn't purchase this case for gaming needs, but I did buy it for my computer as the ideal case type I've been looking for and so want to make use of the fsb unit before I decide on a more powerful one.

moogle · 15 Feb 2017 at 15:15

3.3 * 14 + 5 * 16 = 126W

That leaves 174W for I assume the 12V rail, which would be around 14-15a. Can't you get a picture of the PSU side it'll show the rail amperage surely?

pastymuncher · 15 Feb 2017 at 18:56

Does it have a model number on the psu? No sticker on the side which would be very unusual for a FSP unit if it doesn't.

Holst1981 · 15 Feb 2017 at 21:02

Simple enough math.

300watt - 103watt = 197watt left for 12v rail.

197/12 = 16.4amps

So that's near enough 16amps on rail 1

They don't tell you the breakdown on the other rail as its shared between 5v and 3.3.
But it cannot exceed 103watts or 14amps on either 5v or 3.3

5v x 14amps = 70watts
3.3x 14amps =46watts

70+46 = 116watts

But realistically your unlikely to load the 3.3 or 5v to max as modern hardware uses 12v predominantly (socket A used 5v on many boards)

Hope that makes sense.

ExoMale · 16 Feb 2017 at 12:42

Thanks for replies, I've only just looked at the whole thing properly as I'm starting the switch.

It's a fsp300-60ghs(85) unit which from a quick look up it seems like a(or was) a decent power supply and has ' haswell support ' in the specification, but only 1 site put it as 200w max on the dual 12v, but with a 103w for the other rails I don't see how accurate that is.

I discovered I can fit 3 hard drives in this case, so it be a straight swap over, but debating whether to keep the 4650 I have or get a gt 630 or some other dx11 media card in there till I know what I can do about power supplies.

pastymuncher · 16 Feb 2017 at 13:23

Even the pdf from FSP's website doesn't state how much. As there is 103w on the minor rails and it states that at no time will power exceed 300w in total you have to assume that the full 197w that is left over is available across the dual 12v rails. With no information available I can't be any more specific than that and it's a educated guess at best. The good news is that neither of the gpu's you are looking at suck much power so you should be much less than 197w. I just checked some reviews of the HD4650 and total system power was coming in around the 140-150w mark and cpu's have got considerably more power efficient since 2009 when the reviews were done.

ExoMale · 16 Feb 2017 at 13:40

I have seen a gtx 750 for £45, only have half the funds, but thinking I could go back to how my system was when I first purchased it just a different and 50w less psu and a flat micro atx case instead of a ATX case along with added hard drives.

If I thought it be wise selling my seasonic I would, but I'd rather not as it will come in handy in the future.

ExoMale · 16 Feb 2017 at 13:44

pastymuncher said:
Even the pdf from FSP's website doesn't state how much. As there is 103w on the minor rails and it states that at no time will power exceed 300w in total you have to assume that the full 197w that is left over is available across the dual 12v rails. With no information available I can't be any more specific than that and it's a educated guess at best. The good news is that neither of the gpu's you are looking at suck much power so you should be much less than 197w. I just checked some reviews of the HD4650 and total system power was coming in around the 140-150w mark and cpu's have got considerably more power efficient since 2009 when the reviews were done.

Thanks for the reply, yeah not much information on specific power like some companies list for theirs, but being 80 plus bronze is should be decent enough anyways.

I don't know the power of either graphic cards, but my i3 is like 54w or something which I did think of replacing with the likes of a i5 4430 so I had the hd 4600 graphics as well as 4 cores, but as it's looking like I can get away with a decent dedicated card I probably should scrap the i5 idea?.

pastymuncher · 16 Feb 2017 at 19:47

No, you should be fine. The i5 4430 won't suck much power. So far during gaming the most I have seen my pc pull at the wall is 258w and that's including the watercooling, several fans, 2x fan controllers, 2x temp displays and some led's. A i5 4430 with a low end gpu won't get anywhere near that.

Holst1981 · 16 Feb 2017 at 19:55

You will be fine

200watts is plenty of power on the 12v rail.

ExoMale · 16 Feb 2017 at 22:21

Ah cool that's good to know, mean I'm only looking at the 4430 because I've seen it used for £100, I don't actually know what a decent price is for a lower end sort of i5 as used my i3 could potentially fetch £60-70, but I need the i5 first otherwise I'd be without and with no guarantees of finding the replacement, would you say the 750 or 750ti be on the limit? I know they only draw from the slot, but still lol.

I have seen this silverstone unit on scan

SFX Series SST-ST30SF 300W

The image of the label says 300w for its 25a 12v and has a 6 pin, would something like this be a good replacement? Would I be able to get anything beefier than a 750 more so if the old generation? This case has a removable caddy that could fit bigger cards too.

ExoMale · 16 Feb 2017 at 22:41

For anyone thats interested, this is what the fuss is for lol, for a branded case like viglen it's actually quite a good layout other than the restriction to power supplies and very basic case cooling options, not fired it up since fitting to make sure I connected properly ha, but got to find my molex to sata adapter for my extra 2 drives or go buy one.

pastymuncher · 17 Feb 2017 at 13:58

The Silverstone does indeed have the full 300w available on the 12v rail and is a fairly decent unit. There is a review here. Just make sure it's the SST30SF v2 and not the original that was phased out last year. The v2 has a bigger fan (92mm compared to the v1 80mm) so is quieter. See here about half way down the page for how to tell the difference between the V1 and V2. We had several reports on here and elsewhere that these were noisy units but hopefully that's why they introduced the v2 units with the bigger fans.

You should be able to run a RX480/GTX 1060 along with a i5/i7 quite comfortably off one of these.

ExoMale · 19 Feb 2017 at 17:30

Thanks for the reply, I didn't see what V that silverstone was, but it's handy to know they are good units and that a rx460 up to 480 would run off it no problem as that the 460 is what I would buy as far as new purchase and near the £100 mark.

If the images actually work(having issues copying from photo bucket via iPad) then yesterday I came in to some money and purchased a used gtx 750 1gb like I used to have apart from this one is an msi version and has a full size hdmi port(not that I can use it with the style of this case :rolleyes:

) and for a quick fire up it all seems to be running fine, only did it for a few seconds for testing mind, don't think I couldve got a better card for £45 and that was available, The old 5870 kept staring me in the eye, but I know this psu wouldn't run it even with adapters, so for now once I get everything set up I will see how it goes, but will be keeping my eye on those silver stones or even a corsair.

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/h471/Reaper85/IMG_0706_zpsmgvjlh0l.jpg

http://s1111.photobucket.com/user/Reaper85/media/IMG_0707_zpspti6nbgp.jpg

http://s1111.photobucket.com/user/Reaper85/media/IMG_0708_zpsunwt1yzc.jpg