80W passive PSU enough for my setup? (mini-ITX board with 45W TDP CPU)

eriksmith200

eriksmith200

eriksmith200

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17 Dec 2008
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I'm planning to build an htpc using the following hardware:

CPU: AMD Athlon X2 5050e (tdp 45W)
Motherboard: Jetway NC62K (mini-ITX with onboard GeForce 8200)

I am looking at buying a Noah ITX case (the black version):
http://www.pcicase.co.uk/index.php?pag=productd&cid=77&pid=98&p=crsnoahminiitxgreenpcsolution.html

CRS3988B-80HA-BK-1.jpg


It is available with an optional 90W DC-DC board and 80W AC/DC external adapter.

I was wondering if this PSU is powerful enough for the hardware I am planning to buy, or whether I should get a 120W picoPSU with 80W external adapter? (I was told by someone that going higher than 80W for the external adapter would be of no added value as this is the maximum the picoPSU can actually use).
 
agent_paul said:
i think it'll be fine if u manage to put it together with an adapter that provides around 100w. theres a power estimation tool on epiacenter.com that you could use to guess how much watts u need
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip :)
Since my motherboard and CPU is not listed I used the following items in the PowerSimulator:
AMD Mobile Sempron, 1x 2.5" HDD, 1x slim optical, 2x 40mm fan, 2x USB
When selecting DVD playback power consumption is estimated at 69.74 Watts.

Is this a good estimate for what I'm planning to build? I wonder how the onboard GeForce 8200 factors in.
 
I think I found my answer on the mp3car forum here:
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/review-palace/123163-jetway-nc62k-review-2.html

User kross writes:
I measured the current on the 12V input to the M2-ATX. This will be slightly higher than the amount of current output by the M2, since it isn't 100% efficient.

During bootup, it fluctuated between 5 and 6 Amps, with a peak at 7 A. After bootup, with the computer relatively idle, it was drawing about 3.5 - 3.9 A. Playing music with vis enabled, it fluctuated between 3.6 and 4.2 A. With a virus scan also running, which used about 70% CPU, the power consumption went up to between 5 and 6 A.

To convert those measurements to Watts, multiply by 12.

Items attached to the PSU during test:

Mobo w/4850e CPU, 2GB RAM, 2 mobo fans
1 case fan
160 GB 2.5" SATA HD
USB keyboard and mouse
Wired LAN connection (no Wi-Fi)

The monitor was using external power supply.
Click to expand...

As long as I use a slim optical drive instead of a regular 5.25" one (which doesn't fit the noah case anyway), I should be fine :) (never knew regular dvd drives use so much power :eek:)
 
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