Best way to measure how many watts my PC is using? And which PSU calc would you recommend?

4737Joker

4737Joker

4737Joker

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I made a thread before but i couldn't find it.

Basically i want to crossfire a HIS iceq 7950 with my current HIS iceq x2 7950. My current 7950 is clocked at 1150/1500 and my CPU is clocked at 4.5ghz.

But i am not sure if a 650watt PSU is enough, it's a corsair TX650 enthusiast model. IIRC someone said it would be fine but generally i see people speccing 750watt plus for dual card setups.

It would be handy to measure the actual amount of watts my system is using, but im guessing that would require some electrical testing equipment.

I have used a couple of online PSU calcs only to get substantially different results, so i was wondering which you would recommend and find to be the most accurate.

The other alternative is to sell my card and buy a 290/290x depending on pricing, im sure 650 will be fine for that setup.
 
Only way to definitely know is to buy a kill-a-watt meter, its a little plastic screen you plug your psu cable into and it measures your systems power draw. They are available online for about £10.

Just for info, my pc with a 3770k oc'd, gtx 670 oc'd and stock gtx 570 only draws 451 watts with the 3770k and gtx 670 folding.
 
Hard to say, depends on the quality of the power supply I feel.

A decent one might have the ability to withstand higher than capacity loads, I know some power supplies will sustain overload. Whereas a cheap power supply might not be capable of this.

For the sake of 10 quid I think its better to be safe than sorry dont you?
 
Yeah i don't want to risk anything, that could be £10 towards a new PSU or 290x though :P

I might get a tester tbh so i can see what my power usage is during certain games/tasks :)
 
4737Joker said:
Yeah i don't want to risk anything, that could be £10 towards a new PSU or 290x though :P

I might get a tester tbh so i can see what my power usage is during certain games/tasks :)
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Well think of it this way, do you want to spend £10 on a tester or hundreds on a new system when your psu goes because you overloaded it
 
there is a site in which you put all your components in via tick boxes and it tells you good approximate wattage of system so you know which psu to get. I cant think which one it is atm but ill add it later if no ones links it by then.
 
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window said:
there is a site in which you put all your components in via tick boxes and it tells you good approximate wattage of system so you know which psu to get. I cant think which one it is atm but ill add it later if no ones links it by then.
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Or you could go to ************ and put your system components in, it gives you approximate wattage numbers IIRC.

joeyjojo said:
That's not even remotely likely though, this PSU can do 52A on the (single) 12V rail = 624 W. Absolutely plenty.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/articles/psu/corsair/tx650/corsair_tx_650_2.jsp
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It was a figure of speech to be honest, one thing you never cheap out on is the PSU in a system.
 
I use a 2700k at 4.8ghz and a heavily overclocked 7970 and have never seen over 500W including the monitor. So you'll be fine with your setup.
 
think ill order a tester and the card tbh, its the only way to be 100% sure im not going to overload it :)

I will run the system with each card and without to calculate how many watts each card pulls when overclocked and playing bf3/4. Then fit them both if the numbers add up in my favour.

Thanks for all the advice, if it goes **** up ill share the pictures lol
 
You will have plenty of juice available at 750w save your cash and just power the beast up, it should work fine, if not the machine will just crash the os or reboot.
 
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