Colonel_Panic
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2009
- Messages
- 328
Recently while doing various upgrades to my workstation and a friend's triple SLI GTX580 rig, I've had to learn a lot about power supplies. I had a few questions, though, that I think other people might have and want to see if we can pull some answers together.
I have an OCZ Series Z 850W PSU in my workstation, powering 2x GTX470 and an i7 950 (normally overclocked). According to my wall power meter, I was drawing a peak of 711W playing some games (BFBC2 seems to push it the hardest) and occasionally the system shuts down. No BSOD, just black screen. Is this indicative of insufficient power? The same thing happened to my friend's system after we installed the 3 GTX580 in SLI (he went from a 1kW to 1.2kW unit). I brought my CPU back to stock speeds, and there hasn't been a reboot yet (wall meter says ~600W now).
For a bit of math, this 711W represents ~83% of the max sustained power load of my PSU. Using a high percentage of available power output will likely reduce the life of the supply, but would this usage be "too much" on a daily basis?
Finally, what method do you folks use to estimate required power usage? I tried a number of online calculators, and they all fluctuated when I entered my info (One had 650W, Newegg suggested 860W).
TL;DR
I have an OCZ Series Z 850W PSU in my workstation, powering 2x GTX470 and an i7 950 (normally overclocked). According to my wall power meter, I was drawing a peak of 711W playing some games (BFBC2 seems to push it the hardest) and occasionally the system shuts down. No BSOD, just black screen. Is this indicative of insufficient power? The same thing happened to my friend's system after we installed the 3 GTX580 in SLI (he went from a 1kW to 1.2kW unit). I brought my CPU back to stock speeds, and there hasn't been a reboot yet (wall meter says ~600W now).
For a bit of math, this 711W represents ~83% of the max sustained power load of my PSU. Using a high percentage of available power output will likely reduce the life of the supply, but would this usage be "too much" on a daily basis?
Finally, what method do you folks use to estimate required power usage? I tried a number of online calculators, and they all fluctuated when I entered my info (One had 650W, Newegg suggested 860W).
TL;DR
- What typically happens when a computer draws too much power from the PSU?
- What percentage of the rated power output of a PSU is safe to use on a regular basis?
- How can PSU requirements be safely estimated?