Power supplies

Quad SLI might get close to using that much, but that's probably all. You always have to allow some headroom though as PSUs are not generally designed to be run under full load for long periods (you'll find voltages tend to get a bit unstable if you try it).
 
I'd say this is pretty close to a quad sli setup in terms of power usage, and the corsair hx620 apparently handled it fine.
Your right about the headroom, but some people like to have 400w of headroom and thats just a waste.
 
shadowscotland said:
@ stan - If you brought it with plastic or cheque then your bank statement is acceptable as proof of purchase :D (receipt is just a bonus)
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I bought it from here along with a load of other stuff, I may have the receipt somewhere. The receipt would help things happen smoothly I would imagine.

I'm nipping down to Edinburgh today to visit some friends but I'll have a look tomorrow when I get back.

Stan :)
 
Nobody needs a quality psu over 700w currently, because no current pc will draw more than 500w.
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How did you get 500w Joe42?

To get my brother up & running again we went into town & got a Trust 420w [v light] rather than a drive an hour to a superstore(sic) for a Jentec.
The Trust is only putting out 11.5v under load:( according to Asus probe.

I hope you get yr prob sorted, Stan.
 
Wouldn't do that for longer than you have to - I suspect those types of PSUs are the type that take your hardware with them when they fail.
 
Pilgrim57 said:
How did you get 500w Joe42?

To get my brother up & running again we went into town & got a Trust 420w [v light] rather than a drive an hour to a superstore(sic) for a Jentec.
The Trust is only putting out 11.5v under load:( according to Asus probe.

I hope you get yr prob sorted, Stan.
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Well, 450w is what a dual fx74 system with dual 8800gtx graphics cards draws, and i added another 50 just in case someone has that setup and decided to add a handful of scsi drives to prove me wrong or something. :p
Tech Report said:
The thing uses nearly as much power at idle as the Core 2 Extreme X6800 system does while rendering, and when both FX-74s are rendering, power use peaks at around 450W. I believe that's the highest we've seen for any PC system. Yow.
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That does not mean that no-body needs a psu more than 500w however. Even the best psus need some headroom for whatever reason, so thats why i'm saying no-one needs a psu more than 700w.

That is only true for decent psus however. A 500w rubbishy psu does not equil a 500w decent psu.
So a cheap psu of the same rating as a decent one will not provide anywhere near the same amount of power. The wattage figure doesn't tell the whole story.

Do not buy a PSU from any brand except the following: OCZ, Seasonic, Corsair, FSP, Enermax, Tagan, Antec.
Only those brands above are known to be good.

Your trust 420w may be ok, or it may not. If it isn't, you can forget the 420w figure, as it was mostly picked out of thin air. I don't know who jentec are either, but they aren't on the list above so i'd say avoid them.

Berserker said:
Wouldn't do that for longer than you have to - I suspect those types of PSUs are the type that take your hardware with them when they fail.
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Absolutely right.
Personally, i'd rather have my pc out of action temporarily than have something damaged if that psu decides to die and take something with it.
 
Up until 1.5 years ago my job was testing/repairing PCs. If a PC was out of warranty and the PSU went faulty I always tried to sell the customer a Tagan PSU. I must have put over 50 Tagans into systems and I never had one come back to me faulty. I have Tagan PSU's in both my systems too. The company I worked for didn't stock Seasonic but they are supposed to be top notch too.

All Tagans and all Seasonics have quiet fans which is a bonus.
 
Agreed verbal, tagan 4TW!!

Don't forget Q-tec have always, and probably will always continue to purposefully mis-label their PSU's. A 500watt psu from anyone else = 500watt sustained output, on a qtec the 500watt label = peak output, not sustainable. This is why qtec never advertise anything about their wattages or voltages on their webby etc, because they rely on people just reading 600watts in big gold writing on the box and assume its the sustainable output.

Octigen use the same trick also.
 
Thanks for the elucidation Joe42.
I would appear that my misgivings that my 620w would struggle to run an 8800GTS are groundless (SLi?)

Do not buy a PSU from any brand except the following: OCZ, Seasonic, Corsair, FSP, Enermax, Tagan, Antec.
Only those brands above are known to be good.
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Sparkle used to be on AMD recommended list but I haven't checked in over a year. I've only ever had Enermax & Antec & the latter are the ones that have failed so it will be a while before they get back on my shopping list.

I thought of Stan when I saw this as I'd always though Hiper were a "budget" choice: Hiper review

Thanks again, guys, for the intersting/informative comments.
 
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Pilgrim57 said:
Thanks for the elucidation Joe42.
I would appear that my misgivings that my 620w would struggle to run an 8800GTS are groundless (SLi?)
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Providing its one of those brands, preferably the corsair, it should run anything.

Sparkle are i think part of FSP, if that's correct then sparkle psus are probably ok.

If it can't run that setup, as long as its one of those brands all it will do is shut off, so you can ship it back and get a refund under distance selling providing you've had it for less than 7 days.

I've shorted out my seasonic several times while its running, and every time it just dutifully shuts off and i can switch it straight back on again.
 
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I also shorted out one of my now destroyed Antecs when it was new and it did the same (shut off and just needed power cycling).
 
Yes - what was at the time my main and only rig, a Celeron 2GHz system. I was plugging the CD drive in with the system running and somehow slipped with the Molex connector, touching the 12V pin to a chassis corner.

Made a big spark but it's still running and that system is now my server, running fahstat amongst other things (though it has an X-Pro 400w now instead - which funnily enough is the replacement I recieved from when I RMAd the one I mentioned earlier).

null :)
 
null said:
(though it has an X-Pro 400w now instead - which funnily enough is the replacement I recieved from when I RMAd the one I mentioned earlier).
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What a tangled web we weave :D

I've also done this with my enermax - droped a screw on my Gpu :o - Big spark followed by silence :eek: But luckly all rebooted fine :cool:

Worth twice what I paided for it that day alone.
 
Forgot to the mention that Q-Tec is still going strong now 6 years since purchase (and it's served for 5 of those at a guess), it's currently running my dad's PC and has been for about a year now.

null :)
 
My Antec Trueblue would have been 3 years old next month but it blew up this morning, aged exactly 2 years and 11 months (bought it May 10th 2004 according to the invoice). Switched the rig on as normal but 3 seconds into POST there was a pop and the thing just died.

Took the X-Pro 400w out of my server and put it in my main rig, everything's working fine again. Server is now running off a 5+ year old 225w generic thing.

So I've had both Antec and X-Pro PSUs blow up on me but not the old Q-Tec!

null :)
 
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Unlucky mate, not the only one with psu problems, the 400w in my monowall cooked itself about 2 hours ago, kitchen was full of smoke and the smell of burning pcb, had to replace it with my p4ht set-up which im not pleased about. :(:mad:
 
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