• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

power mangement in mini itx case

R

ReillyRoo

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 26, 2008
Messages
76
hi all.
im looking into a mini itx case because i found this mobo on new egg that seems to support all the parts that are currently in my standard case.


the mini case comes with a 300w power supply and surprisingly has the space for a fullsize 9" card. (the reviews say that it stays cool and that its a good case even with a fullsize gpu.)

my video card (nvidia 9800gtx) says it requires a minimum 450w power supply.

i have an external, self powered, esata hard drive dock that i would use for my 1t hdd.
but i figure i will put a smaller hdd in the case just for the os.

my question is, if i have just two sticks of ram, one small internal hard drive, a laptop thin internal dvd drive, and i use an external self powered esata hdd station will there be enough power for my video card with 300w?

so i guess my deeper question is what is drawing all the power in the case. if i remove the internal hdd will it work? how about using an external dvd drive instead? what about using a 2.5" hdd instead?

or does it not matter, and will it never work?

thanks for your help guys.
 
so i guess my deeper question is what is drawing all the power in the case.
Click to expand...

cpu and video card are the big draws. , you told us about the video card but you did not mention your CPU and if it is overclocked but alluded it is the one in your sig.

If so I get this for a quick analysis (from product reviews where power draw was tested)

cpu - TDP is 95 W (assume 105W for fudge factor etc.- stock speed )
gpu - 156W -Nvidia (assume 170W for blah )

The other components are almost nothing compared to the above. But trouble is with just the above we are looking at 275W if you manage to get everything working as hard as it can. Not difficult with a modern game.

I would not recommend a 300W supply you are very close (likely over when you add +50W for the board etc.) to running the supply at 100% capacity. 350W might do but you would be running it hard which means increased internal temps = shorter life. Me personally I would want 380W min. But I like headroom and another thing to think about is that with a 300-350W supply the fan should spin up to full speed due to the load/temps and could bother you noise wise.

As usual I over estimate/engineer everything. You maybe could squeak by with that 300W, it would work, but for how long etc. etc. With that video card I have to assume you game and typically that means full loads for hours at a time. 350W (and a strong one 350W on the +12 regardless of other rails) would be the least I would go.

Get some other opinions.
 
I haven't found a single itx board that supports pci-e x16 and amd cpu's

I have found a zotac board that does intel lga 775 cpu's and has a single pci-e x16.

OT: you would need a better psu for sure. or downgrade your graphics.
 
The TDP is always much higher than actual power consumption. For example, the 4890 has a TDP of 190W but only consumes about 120W of power under load, which is actually less than the 4870 which has a lower TDP.
 
ok guys, new issue.

the PSU seems to be fine with most all 9" GPUs because it was designed that way by the manufacturer:

Regarding your concern with SG05’s PSU, this unit was selected and tuned by SilverStone engineers for improved quietness and performance (300W continuous power at 50C). It has dedicated +12V rail for graphics card (16A, peak 19A) to provide more than enough power for any 9" long dual slot graphics cards. We actually do not recommend using off the shelf SFX PSUs at this time as they may not be designed to work well in the SG05 environment as we have done with the included unit.
Click to expand...

my next issue is that it apparently comes with way to many wires sticking out of it for such a small case.

can i simply snip the excess wires that i will not be using and put wire caps on the ends of them? or is there a more difficult procedure i would have to do to make more space in the back of the case?

thanks guys.
 
ReillyRoo said:
can i simply snip the excess wires that i will not be using and put wire caps on the ends of them? or is there a more difficult procedure i would have to do to make more space in the back of the case?
Click to expand...
You can just snip them off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top