I think I hit my PSU limit

[Creepin_D]

I recently added a 3rd video card and twice now playing games my system powered down for no apparent reason.

After doing some testing I figured out that at full CPU load my system draws around 250W, and at full GPU load and only 20% CPU load, my system is drawing around 920W.

I guess when the game requires more than 20% from the CPU my system is drawing well over 1000W.

Thoughts on this and what is the minimal PSU I should be looking for, for my current rig and future systems?

 

[Nenu]

Yep your PSU is pushed beyond its limit, it may not be capable of 1KW unless its fairly new.
Your system maxed out will push somewhere around 1100 to 1300W if you overclock.
Although your average wont reach that under gaming, probably 100 to 200W less.

I would get a 1300W or higher PSU for your system.
Then you have plenty of headroom for PSU ageing.

For a future system, its hard to gauge power requirements, a die shrink can drop power requirements.
But that is offset by higher clocks and higher component count on silicon.
If a newer beast of a card comes out on a die shrink, it may need more power, but I would expect power requirements to drop for most components.
Thats assuming you use 3 of those too.

 

[Tsumi]

It should be able to provide more than 1kw for more than 3 years if it's a quality power supply. Granted, I wouldn't run it at 1000 watts for 3 years, but it should be at least capable of that.

As for your system power consumption... Techpowerup has the Sapphire R9 290 maximum power consumption at 311 watts. That's in furmark. Average gaming is 290 watts, so 300 watts is a good estimate per card, especially with the Sapphire tested at 1030 mhz and yours at 1100 mhz. Assuming no overvolting, power consumption shouldn't be significantly different. Your CPU is not a 250 watt CPU, that's reserved for FX 8-cores and SB-E 6 cores. Your Haswell overclocked is probably around 100 watts. Rest of system is probably around 50-100 watts. 300 watts per GPU is also a good high end estimate for high end overclocked GPUs to be released in the future.

Given that, you're looking at 900 watts in GPU alone. For the CPU, as long as you stay on the mainstream socket, you're looking at 100-150 watts. For the rest system, you're looking at another 50 watts. That's approximately 1100 watts needed right there.

Since there are plenty of good 1200 watt PSU options, and it's slightly more difficult finding 1300/1350 watt options, I would go with a good 1200 watt PSU. And don't worry about PSU aging, modern PSUs with good capacitors don't age to any significant degree for at least 5 years, and most at least 10 years.

 

[Creepin_D]

Thanks for the great reply's...I'm actually leaning towards the EVGA Supernova 1300G2. I read some reviews online, and everything I read seems to be positive.

 

[Jorona]

Thanks for the great reply's...I'm actually leaning towards the EVGA Supernova 1300G2. I read some reviews online, and everything I read seems to be positive.

That's a good bet. It's where I'd be going if I were you.