How many watts does your PC really pull when gaming? got UPS?

[arknor]

12700k + 4090
Game Cyberpunk @ 3440x1440 120hz, I had DLSS or whatever and frame gen on.
probably how most people game

Also have 2 speakers pulling about 30watts each at low volume (both have built in amps)
34inch ultrawide monitor that seems to pull about 50watt in SDR and an extra 70+ in HDR
BT Smart hub that seems to pull 0watt
so real load is probably about 100watt less


I doubt my PC's PSU alone could ever pull 700watts unless I tried gaming at the same time as CPU and GPU benchmarks

PC on it's own pulls around 90-150 watts browsing the web and watching youtube.

so I guess the most important part of the efficiency curve on a PSU in reality is going to be
low end of 100-200 watts netflix and chill mode
around 300-600 when gaming.

and no one probably needs more than a 900watt psu as a gamer

 

[5abr3]

Not sure off the top of my head what mine draws.

The key thing to me is you don't want to over draw any single rails output. If you try and draw 30A from a rail that can only supply 20A then you're going to get issues whether the total load is below the PSU rating or not.

I dramatically over species my PSU up avoid the fan tp need to spin up.

Edit: yes have a UPS, will use it to see load states tomorrow afternoon for you

 

[ATIorNvidia]

Ryzen 7700 + 4070 12GB, i hit around 280-300W under typical gaming loads where my GPU is hitting 99% and I'm running an EVGA 550GM SFX PSU.

The key thing to me is you don't want to over draw any single rails output. If you try and draw 30A from a rail that can only supply 20A then you're going to get issues whether the total load is below the PSU rating or not.

This is a really outdated mindset as most PSU's are either single rail or do load balancing automatically. The only other issue is overloading single wires (i.e daisy chaining PCI-E cables on high TDP GPU's)

 

[5abr3]

Ryzen 7700 + 4070 12GB, i hit around 280-300W under typical gaming loads where my GPU is hitting 99%



This is a really outdated mindset as most PSU's are either single rail or do load balancing automatically. The only other issue is overloading single wires (i.e daisy chaining PCI-E cables on high TDP GPU's)

It's a side effect of working with power connectors all day at work on my part coupled with the way I usually have to explain current limits to customers.

Being pessimistic by nature: I'd rather be cautious and generic than specific for one circumstance and have it miss-applied by accident

 

[arknor]

The key thing to me is you don't want to over draw any single rails output. If you try and draw 30A from a rail that can only supply 20A then you're going to get issues whether the total load is below the PSU rating or not.

isn't that what people were seeing with high end cards either this or last gen, some PC's were just shutting down during gaming because the PSU's couldn't handle a big mini spike in load.

I'd imagine any current gen PSU has the capacitors etc to deal with it.

Trying to monitor my UPS whilst gaming It didn't ever seem to have spikes in the load, so I'm assuming any or smoothed out by capacitors in the comps PSU..


Really surprised by how low power the PC is just browsing the web or watching videos, almost tempted to get an old PC out and see how high they idle..


also if any of you have a UPS what current are you seeing? mines anywhere between 239-245 volts depending on time of day.

I guess my areas electric grid didn't get altered since 2000, when we switched to 230 +10% -6% or whatever it is

 

[5abr3]

isn't that what people were seeing with high end cards either this or last gen, some PC's were just shutting down during gaming because the PSU's couldn't handle a big mini spike in load.

I'd imagine any current gen PSU has the capacitors etc to deal with it.

The size and type(s) of the capacitors on both the power supply and load (assuming they have smoothing caps) coupled with where they are positioned in the PSU will determine how long a PSU could potentially handle a spike like that for (for a given size of spike); assuming said spikes don't ovrr time derate the cable insulation to the point of creating other problems.

We don't tend to get that info on PC components, we get the voltages up to a given load per output voltage as per the PSU label and sometimes split per group of connectors or something similar (which is what I was meaning by rail in my original post) & maybe peak current data or a wattage value for a load or a need for it to be a dedicated power cable like for graphics cards in the device installation instructions.

Trying to monitor my UPS whilst gaming It didn't ever seem to have spikes in the load, so I'm assuming any or smoothed out by capacitors in the comps PSU..

Possibly, could also be the spikes are much smaller than your UPS's sampling rate or the sampling method could be average over the last x seconds. Mine only updates the display roughly every 5 seconds.

My money is on capacitors smoothing it out mostly.

 

[arknor]

Possibly, could also be the spikes are much smaller than your UPS's sampling rate or the sampling method could be average over the last x seconds. Mine only updates the display roughly every 5 seconds.

HWinfo seems to poll the UPS more often as the number doesn't match the number in my UPS software.
I guess it's possible to setup an OSD through HWinfo that shows the watts on screen

Seems having hwinfo sensor panel open shuts out nvidias own OSD though as all the numbers on the NV OSD say NA or null whatever it was if HWinfo is open

 

[5abr3]

I set a more regular load reporting rate of 1 second which gave 38W to 236W reported by the UPS whilst streaming (tower and a monitor measured). Monitor on its own (PC off) reported 36W to 130W during the startup then go to sleep cycle, monitor datasheet says 88W so I suspect there's some measurement misreporting or inaccuracy.

It isn't clear if the load is what the whole unit is drawing when on mains or what it is outputting, will try and find the manual and see what it has to say...

 

[arknor]

monitor datasheet says 88W so I suspect there's some measurement misreporting or inaccuracy.

will depend on brightness, contrast, refresh rates and other settings on your monitor, as well as what colours it's displaying at the time.

 

[5abr3]

will depend on brightness, contrast, refresh rates and other settings on your monitor, as well as what colours it's displaying at the time.

It was just the "no connection detected screen" right before it went to power down state.

Anyway, will try to measure just the PC when I get chance.

 

[Grim5]

7950 + RTX4090

Typically 550w for the PC

Then another 200w for TV, monitor and sound system

And then another 400w to run the air conditioning to keep the room at 19c all year

 

[BUDFORCE]

I have a (very slightly) overclocked 5800x, AMD 7900XT GPU, running on an old Corsair hx850, and my pc only uses about 300w whilst gaming, a lot less idle.

I have a home battery (linked to solar) inverter that monitors power draw, provides graphs etc, if I get up early in the morning to play games, you can see the difference, but it's really not that much.

 

[jinxpad]

I'm currently in the market for a U[PS, Glad I stumbled across this thread before making a new one, So if I'm reading right I really don't need to go crazy with a UPS which has a rated output of 900w?

My intention is basically to just have my pc and my nas attached to the ups, So would I be perfectly fine getting something which is rated for 750 to 800w? Or is even that overkill?

 

[arknor]

My intention is basically to just have my pc and my nas attached to the ups, So would I be perfectly fine getting something which is rated for 750 to 800w? Or is even that overkill?

perfectly fine, you realise a UPS will only provide battery for 5-10 minutes right? enough time to safely shut your PC down, well maybe 20-30mins if you only browse the web

you don't really need one in the UK, unless you live somewhere with power issues.

unless your spending over £1000 then they are all line-interactive UPS
mine only intervenes if the power drops below 180volts or goes above 260, although I think they still do some EMI/RFI filtering

They really are a waste of money on our power system.


I have the UK version of https://www.cyberpower.com/eu/en/product/sku/cp1300epfclcd I got on ebay sold "as new" I think they are about 250 on amazon for the same model.

There's also another aimed at gamers

https://www.amazon.co.uk/APC-Protector-Consoles-Midnight-BGM2200B-UK-black/dp/B0CW6H8W57

which has even worse tolerances than the one I have, only kicking in if the ac mains voltage going outside of 179-293

I've never seen my input voltage outside of 239-245 so far.


the really good ones are double/triple conversion which is expensive.

Double Conversion UPS – Benefits & Comparison | Mitsubishi Electric

Learn how double conversion UPS deliver a cleaner, more consistent signal than line-interactive by taking in AC, converting to DC, then back to AC.

www.mitsubishicritical.com

I think the APC smart range are double conversion as long as you turn the eco setting off

maybe you can find one second hand somewhere that just needs new batteries for super cheap.
I'm up North so the second hand market is grim up here, looks like down South it's easy to get good deals though.
Companies must be getting rid of them all the time, they are heavy as hell too, even my small one is something like 12kg

The good ones are probably 15-25kg, although you can take the batteries out and not move the whole weight at once.. but it's not exactly economical to post them, I bet there's a lot of "Collect in person" adverts with UPS that cost 2k+ new going for a few hundred and all they will need is new batteries

 

[Pottsey]

I'm currently in the market for a U[PS, Glad I stumbled across this thread before making a new one, So if I'm reading right I really don't need to go crazy with a UPS which has a rated output of 900w?

My intention is basically to just have my pc and my nas attached to the ups, So would I be perfectly fine getting something which is rated for 750 to 800w? Or is even that overkill?

Depending on setup 600w when gaming might be too low. My old UPS was around 570 watt and even with the monitors and speakers unplugged I used to break past 570 watt and constantly trigger the UPS overload alarm in certain games. Now I use a 1600VA 960W with main monitor on UPS and 2nd monitor in surge protector socket. With a UPS I think its better to go a little over spec then right on the limit of what you need. Being over spec not only stops that overload alarms but it gives you a little extra time to shutdown when the power does cut out. Although 99% of the time its brownouts and Automatic Voltage Regulation that kicks in over blackouts for me.

EDIT: Removed link in case it breaks the forum rules. This is the one I use the 1600 VA BR1600si its saved me a number of times over the years.