How big of a Power Supply do you REALLY need?

Many noob and experienced builders find it often confusing on how much wattage you REALLY need for your power supply. Today we do some tests to see just how much power an overclocked system is using.

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About JayzTwoCents

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How big of a Power Supply do you REALLY need? | JayzTwoCents

JAYZTWOCENTS

[dkg]

Jay, we need a 2019 edition, please!

[akibanu]

your definition of 80+ is totally wrong dude. from a 1000w psu under full load u will get at least 1000w no matter weather it is 80+ or not. but a 80+(80% efficient at 100% load) psu will draw ~1250w or 80+ gold(87% efficient at 100% load) will draw ~1149w from your wall socket ...thats all

[shaban]

would be nice if you could redo this in 2018 with current hardware

[rainmaker]

Just as small comment on the facts in the video: If I remember correctly the 80+ mark does not mean that if you have a 1000W you will get 800W effect out of it in to your computer. What it means is that with a 1000W power supply you will draw a maximum of 1250W from the socket. This means that the efficiency rating is only valid when the concern is how much power you draw from your socket in your house. A 1000W quality power supply will thus deliver 1000W to your components, the efficiency rating does however mean that you will have an efficient conversion of 240V/120V AC (in your house) to 12V/5V/3.3V DC in your computer meaning you will get a power draw closer to what you actually use.

I might be a bit off on this but this is what I was told when I claimed the exact same thing as in this video.

Also I would personally use something like Kombustor or Furmark combined with Prime95 to get a maximum power draw. You could also max out FAn speeds and do a full system backup to all tyour drives to see the absolute maximum that your PC can draw.

[stephenbrothers]

Check your description of what the 80 plus certification means. A good quality 1000w unit will output 1000w. The efficiency comes in with how much it draws from the wall. A higher efficiency unit may draw only 1100 watts from the wall for a 1000w load, where as a less efficient one could draw 1200 or more.

Otherwise, love the channel and keep it up.

[jordantiller]

1:50
He is wrong about how power efficiency ratings work. If you have a 1000 Watt power supply running at 80% efficient that means at 1000 watts it is drawing 1200 watts but only delivering 1000 watts.

[BarryG]

Im running my pc with no Psu and it works fine. Instead of wasting 60$ or more you can easily put this money for a better GPU.

[randoman]

what you said is wrong. a 1000 watt power supply at full load with 80 % efficiency will deliver 1000 watts but draws 1000/80*100=1250 watts from the wall 

[hollyc.n.]

I love, love love love, that you actually KNOW what you're talking about and take the time to not only research the information, but explain it in a comprehensive manner. It's been a real hassle for me trying to find reliable reviews and information while researching the right parts for my first ever build. Thank you so much for doing these.

[SilveradoNL]

Don't waste your money on a PSU, just put a hamster wheel in your computer, might need 2 hamsters for SLI or Crossfire though!

[martinheuts]

08:33 I don't fully agree to that. I do litecoin mining and I don't think that a 1200 watt PSU likes to deliver 1200watt 24/7. Using a PSU with 10 or 20% of spare power, gives your PSU a longer life. Just my two cents.

[CknSalad]

They really need to make more lower watt power supplies. It would be nice if there were more 500-550w psus for high end single gpu rigs, as well as more 450w psus for mid to mid-high end single gpu rigs.

[JustKanji]

This video is straight to the point, no bullshit ~ Subbed.

[AtomicAJ]

It's nice to see someone talk about a trend I've noticed for years. I've seen so many responses in various forums where other helpers say "You need a bigger power supply" when the power supply is clearly fine. I saw a comment at one website where the guy was running a GT 730 (about a 30 watt card) and someone told him for that graphics card he should have a power supply of at least 500 watts, preferably 600. The guy's system couldn't have been pulling more than 150 watts. Go with the minimum power supply you NEED plus a healthy (10% to 25%) margin unless you know you're going to expand.

[omichelini]

Hey Jay, that is one nice video! It did help me to actually see how much power a rig actually uses. But, with due respect, I'd like to point something you've said that I think is incorrect, acorrding to some (erm, quite a bit) readings I've been doing.

When the certification of a PSU is, for example, 80+, it means it has 80% guaranteed efficiency. However, differently from how you explained it in the beginning of the video (1:59), it doesn't mean that the PSU is guaranteed to deliver at least 80% of it's written capacity. It actually means that from the total ammount of watts it is draining from the wall plug, 80% is the minimum ammount that is actually being carried out into the system, and 20% is wasted (fan, heat and noise mainly).

So, for example, if a 500w PSU is running at full capacity, it is delivering 500 watts to the system, but it is sucking 625 watts from the wall plug, being 500w 80% of 625w. If that PSU had 90% efficiency, it would still be delivering 500 watts to the system, whilst sucking only 555 watts from the source.

Still thanks a lot for this video. It is really helpful. 


And if anyone disagrees to this, please tell me your point of view/understanding.

Peace!

P.S.: I'm probably not the first one to point this out in this video, but I didn't go past the first comment page to check all of the comments.

[kevinthai]

i have a i5 6500 and a r7 265, but only a 350w psu. After 2 years, still everything fine :D

[matteotarocchi]

Great video!

So... an RM650 should be able of running a SLI of 970s and a 4670k with some OC, right?

[louisrsanders]

@jayztwocents thanks man. I am upgrading to a 970 GTX this weekend and a sales guy tried to tell me I needed to update my 650 W supply to a 1000. Appreciated sir.

[Shadowstray]

The sweet spot for your PSU is running at about 50% maximum output, so for a system typically running at 350W, you may want to look into a 700W PSU. Efficiency graphs are typically provided for individual PSUs. When your PSU is running at the maximum efficiency - you convert the most energy from the socket into electricity usable by the system, as opposed to pure hear inside the system.

Another factor to consider are semi-passive PSUs. Mine does not need to switch the fans on until it's running at around 40% it's maximum output, so that's less noise from the PC tower. Something I can really appreciate.

[Shaxigaming]

I think the issue for many is that lower wattage PSUs tend to be either of poorer quality than higher wattage PSUs or they'll be semi-modular or they might not provide the right cables for your system. That is why people generally aim for at least 550 or 650, because that's where the better units start showing up.
For my new build, I'll go for a Seasonic P-660 most llikely even if it's only for a GTX 970, a 4790K that I'll likely do some OC'ing on and a pretty basic system overall, because the unit is of freaking superior quality and shouldn't really get to a load where it needs to turn the fan, in turn making sure that some more noise is gone from the system, making me a happy consumer.

Sure, I know it's way overkill for my system, but I should have enough headroom to slap in another GTX 970 should I ever want to. After all, the GPU and the CPU are by far the components drawing the majority of the power in a system. Not even a high-end water cooling setup will draw all that much. Take Jay's system, 12 fans and a pump. That's basically the things drawing power in the loop, right? That might add up to somewhere around 50-60 watts quickly calculated. Not a big deal. In the meanwhile, a 680 might draw something in the neighborhood of 100 watts, give or take some, making it a far more power hungry component by itself. The same just might go for the CPU at that frequency and voltage. So those two alone stand for the large majority of the consumed power.

If this is incorrect, pardon me, but this is correct as far as I understand it.