How close to the limit have you pushed your PSUs?

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RamonGTP

Supreme [H]ardness
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Nov 9, 2005
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I typically spec out my PSU's so they are at 30-50% load in my primary machine, but over the years I tend to accumulate and acquire all kinds of hardware and every once in a while I decide to just toss together a "new" system from old parts.

The current victim is a 350watt Antec PSU serving:

i7 860 @ 3.5GHz
2x4GB+2x2GB @ DDR1600
Radeon HD 6950 using all manner of adapters for PCIe power
1xSSD + 1xHDD

Don't know exactly how much i'm pulling, I still need to connect it to my KaW but these old pieces of hardware weren't known for their efficiency!
 
I ran my 4790K and 980GTX on a 450W Seasonic for along while. Mild overclock on both. The 450W hung in there for a long time. I did eventually upgrade to a 600W, but that 450W still works in another rig.

UPS showed a peak of 400W draw from the wall if pushing it hard (that includes monitor and speakers, those aren't plugged into the PSU obv), but normally while in use was <225W.
 
I was having hard resets with my 660W Seasonic unit after I installed a Vega 56 into my system. That card seems to use a hell of a lot of power.
 
RamonGTP said:
I typically spec out my PSU's so they are at 30-50% load in my primary machine, but over the years I tend to accumulate and acquire all kinds of hardware and every once in a while I decide to just toss together a "new" system from old parts.

The current victim is a 350watt Antec PSU serving:

i7 860 @ 3.5GHz
2x4GB+2x2GB @ DDR1600
Radeon HD 6950 using all manner of adapters for PCIe power
1xSSD + 1xHDD

Don't know exactly how much i'm pulling, I still need to connect it to my KaW but these old pieces of hardware weren't known for their efficiency!
Click to expand...

Old hardware wasn't known for its efficiency, but it still generally consumed less than modern hardware does, with a few notable exceptions, like nvidia's Fermi and AMD's "pacific islands" architecture, and even those might not raise an eyebrow these days.

Experience has taught me that it really is possible to kill some components by using a weak power supply (see: GTX 690), so I do my very best to avoid this, if at all possible.
 
RazorWind said:
Experience has taught me that it really is possible to kill some components by using a weak power supply (see: GTX 690), so I do my very best to avoid this, if at all possible.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't even think about pushing the limits on a machine I intended to keep or actually use. These are all components that were going to go to e-waste anyway but decided to have a bit of fun with them. I found another PSU floating around that's an Antec TRIO 430w (from back in the day where they thought taking one powerful rail and splitting it into a bunch of weak ones was a good idea) so I just swapped that in as an upgrade to the 350watter. Now i'm seeing how high I can push the CPU. I'm at about 3.8GHz now
 
Seasonic M12D 750 watt powering an overclocked i7 920 D0 and SLI GTX 580s, mostly at stock, watercooled. Probably was hovering around 600 watts when gaming.
 
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