Who needs more than 550 Watts really

kensiko

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 5, 2011
Messages
136
There are so many power supplies over 550 Watts, but I wonder who really needs that, unless you have a quad SLI/Crossfire. I have 16 and 24 cores here and I'm fine with 550 Watts.
 
There are so many power supplies over 550 Watts, but I wonder who really needs that, unless you have a quad SLI/Crossfire. I have 16 and 24 cores here and I'm fine with 550 Watts.
A 3080 or 3090 graphics card can pull 300-400 watts when oveeclocked by itself. Many CPUs themselves can pull up to 200 watts or more when overclocked. A threadripper system can pull a magnitude more. Also your PSU shouldn’t be run over 80% capacity or it loses efficiency, (and as it ages encounter stability issues) so yeah there’s plenty of reason for over a 550 watt powersupply for an enthusiast overclocker. For a standard Dell or HP that isn’t overclocked so the CPU and GPU are running at rated TDP - a 550 watt would have plenty of headroom. Power draw depends on loadout, but overclocking quickly raises the requirements.
 
Just throwing it out there. If your Video card needs a lot of power, you system could become unstable and reboot when playing COD. Not worth the risk. A reboot when you are tea bagging/taking dogtags is a risk I am not going to take.

I am on a 450 watt PS, but I don't have a 3080 or a 2080. I have a 5500XT with only one monitor. Slumming it, I know.
 
There are so many power supplies over 550 Watts, but I wonder who really needs that, unless you have a quad SLI/Crossfire. I have 16 and 24 cores here and I'm fine with 550 Watts.
Cause people run stuff that is maybe more power demanding then a cheapo dell? Sure SLI/CF is not much of a thing nowadays but we have single GPUs that take as much if not more then old cards in SLI. The Nvidia Pascal cards were a anomaly. They were very efficient for the performance you got. I would assume the 30xx cards would also be a lot more efficient if they were on a better process nod then Samsung's.
 
There are so many power supplies over 550 Watts, but I wonder who really needs that, unless you have a quad SLI/Crossfire. I have 16 and 24 cores here and I'm fine with 550 Watts.

Even if you don't need it now, how long do you plan to keep your PSU? Do you buy a new PSU every time you upgrade your motherboard+CPU and/or GPU? Otherwise how do you know how much you might need 5-15+ years from now? My current 1000w PSU is over 13 years old now, and still going strong. Turned out to be a great investment. If I had gone with something like a 650w instead because "that's all I need right now", I can almost guarantee that it would have already been replaced a long time ago. If you're one of those people who are super paranoid and junks any PSU more than 3 years old then you might as well stick with the 550.
 
There are so many power supplies over 550 Watts, but I wonder who really needs that, unless you have a quad SLI/Crossfire. I have 16 and 24 cores here and I'm fine with 550 Watts.

I do.

My Core i9 10900K can pull 330w or so overclocked. The motherboard pulls probably about 35w or so. I've got 4 physical drives, each of these pull around 10w or so. Then there is my RTX 3090 FE, which at stock clocks can pull around 350w under load. Overclocked, it goes to around 380w or so. That doesn't count what the SSD's pull (4x of them) or my water pump and the eight fans that are in the system either. RGB LED strips are plentiful in my machine as well. They don't consume allot, but there are five of those. They add up. I'm basically at 800w under full load. Which, Cyberpunk 2077 achieves that.

I have also run HEDT setups like the Core i9 10980XE which can pull over 500w by itself when overclocked.

Next question?
 
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Even if you don't need it now, how long do you plan to keep your PSU? Do you buy a new PSU every time you upgrade your motherboard+CPU and/or GPU? Otherwise how do you know how much you might need 5-15+ years from now? My current 1000w PSU is over 13 years old now, and still going strong. Turned out to be a great investment. If I had gone with something like a 650w instead because "that's all I need right now", I can almost guarantee that it would have already been replaced a long time ago. If you're one of those people who are super paranoid and junks any PSU more than 3 years old then you might as well stick with the 550.
I've had my 550W Kingwin Platinum (can do 650 Watts as Gold) for more than 10 years.

1000 Watts isn't always good as it's less efficient at lower power draw.
 
Irony.
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I've had my 550W Kingwin Platinum (can do 650 Watts as Gold) for more than 10 years.

1000 Watts isn't always good as it's less efficient at lower power draw.

I certainly wasn't implying that lower wattage PSUs have shorter lives, only that you can't always predict how much power you might need in the future, and having more headroom is a safe bet. Also, as core counts increase and GPUs get larger, there becomes an ever bigger gap between idle and full-load power consumption. So you can have a lower-wattage PSU that is always within it's peak efficiency range when your system is idle but has to be pushed to it's limits any time your CPU and GPU are at high load, or you can get a PSU that is perhaps slightly less efficient at idle but not stressed at high load. It's difficult to achieve both, and I know which I prefer.
 
ahahah ! I have my answer, people who need more than 550Watts are people buying top of the line video cards or overclocking 10+ cores CPU.

BTW I need privileges that's why I post hehe, but I'm asking things that I had in my mind for a while
 
I've had my 550W Kingwin Platinum (can do 650 Watts as Gold) for more than 10 years.

1000 Watts isn't always good as it's less efficient at lower power draw.
Efficiency is over rated. You not saving much not being in the curve.
 
I have old potato hardware and even I need more power than that, lol. My overclocked Vega & FX combo would be having An Extremely Bad Time on a 550W PSU.
 
I'm 3900x (150w), 6900xt (300w), eight fans (25 watts), d5 pump (25w), some lighting (10w?), two NVMe drives (10w?) and a HDD (10w?). 550 would be out of the efficiency range for me. You should advocate for people to get an appropriate power supply. Plenty of setups hit ~500 watts rather easily.
 
Mostly due to the video card.

As I said I got 2 computers here, 16 cores and 24 cores, no issue with power supply, both have 550 Watts, but they only have a RX-580
 
Mostly due to the video card.

As I said I got 2 computers here, 16 cores and 24 cores, no issue with power supply, both have 550 Watts, but they only have a RX-580

It depends. CPU's can pull a crap ton of power. Your 10, 12, 16 etc. core CPU's can pull well over 300w when boosting or when overclocking. A lot of GPU's don't pull near that much power. There are certainly some that can, but that's normally relegated to highly overclocked cards, NVIDIA 30 series, and some of AMD's more laughable past efforts. There are of course plenty of HEDT parts that pull close to 400w without overclocking, which is more than the vast majority of GPU's need.

550w PSU's just don't cut it for high end or even some mid-range systems anymore.
 
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558 watts of power from the plug. This is my system at load, and I have both my processor and videocard UNDERvolted.
 
During gaming my CPU+GPU alone pulls on average 430 watts with spikes to 460 watts. Then add motherboard, cooling system (around 25-30 watts) and 4 SSDs then you are looking at typically 480-500 watts on average and 530 in spikes from the PSU. You would need a seriously high quality 550w PSU for it to be able to supply high quality power at those loads. Most wouldn't survive long either. Another issue few if any companies make a high quality 550w PSU as the price skyrockets so most would rather buy the 750w lower quality PSU, which is why most of the top notch PSUs start at 750w+. There is also lifespan to consider. Having excess PSU power means lower load on the PSU. My 8 year old 850w PSU (that sits in my old computer) could easily supply a 3080 while I doubt an 8 year old 550w supply would manage.
 
Even if you don't need it now, how long do you plan to keep your PSU? Do you buy a new PSU every time you upgrade your motherboard+CPU and/or GPU? Otherwise how do you know how much you might need 5-15+ years from now? My current 1000w PSU is over 13 years old now, and still going strong. Turned out to be a great investment. If I had gone with something like a 650w instead because "that's all I need right now", I can almost guarantee that it would have already been replaced a long time ago. If you're one of those people who are super paranoid and junks any PSU more than 3 years old then you might as well stick with the 550.

You do know how much you will need in the future because power consumption is related to how much you are willing to spend on the hobby.

If you know you will never spend big bucks on high end high wattage hardware, then you know you don't need a PSU to match it.

If there is a chance you will, then yes, get more wattage.
 
You do know how much you will need in the future because power consumption is related to how much you are willing to spend on the hobby.

To a certain extent, sure. But there are also technological trends that change over time. Intel over the last 20 years has constantly see-sawed between CPU designs that are relatively power efficient (Pentium 3, Core architecture back when their fabs were still competitive, etc) and designs that are relatively power hungry (Pentium 4, current 14nm+++++ CPUs, etc). CPU core counts are increasing to the point where a hex-core CPU is now considered a budget CPU. GPUs have increasingly become more power hungry over time. If you go back and look at something like an old ATI 9700 Pro, it's more like the size of a soundcard in comparison to today's GPUs and only used a single molex connector for power. Or even if you are budget-minded, maybe you want to start with an APU but still have the option to upgrade to a discrete GPU later. Maybe at some point you want to try overclocking to squeeze your budget even further.

But yeah, most of the people on this forum don't do all of their computer shopping at Dollar General. If your budget is such that your computer will always suck, and you are content with that, then by all means wing-it when it comes to the PSU.
 
Thays why we are no longer using a 300W PSU with a strong 5V rail from Pentium 3 days.

Meanwhile PSUs haven't changed much in the last 10 years.

Doesn't really matter though since anything that can be powered by 500W sucks.
 
Doesn't really matter though since anything that can be powered by 500W sucks.

You're being mean to my 5950x.

And I'll get a ThreadRipper zen3 when they are out and I'll be fine with 550 Watts. The GPU are what is taking high power mostly.
 
You're being mean to my 5950x.

The GPU are what is taking high power mostly.

Again, not true. The CPU TDP numbers are essentially meaningless as they don't account for boost clocking. Again, I've done the tests and the 3950X (as an example) can pull around 300w on it's own. Total system power consumption with an idle GPU was almost 400w. Yes, you can be fine with a 550w PSU if you never do anything that would tax a GPU and a CPU simultaneously, but modern CPU's are pulling a lot of power these days. It's not just the GPU. The only GPU's pulling the kind of power higher end CPU's do are among the highest end models. Let's put it another way, according to the Steam Survey, one of the most popular GPU's out there is the GeForce 1060. It's a 120w part. Therefore, most GPU's don't pull the kind of power a high end CPU does.

550w is only sufficient for high end CPU's when a lean system configuration is used. That is, one without a power hungry GPU and tons of storage to go with it. You can eclipse the capabilities of a 550w unit rather easily. So easily that I wouldn't recommend a 550w unit for anything but the most anemic budget builds.
 
Thays why we are no longer using a 300W PSU with a strong 5V rail from Socket A days.

Meanwhile PSUs haven't changed much in the last 10 years.

Doesn't really matter though since anything that can be powered by 500W sucks.
Fixed that for you. And yeah. You're being mean to my Palomino voodoo4 DDR system with 300w Fortron PSU. Damn fun. Think I'll go pay some more Quake2 GZ. Maybe some Red Faction and Max Payne too.
 
A 3080 or 3090 graphics card can pull 300-400 watts when oveeclocked by itself. Many CPUs themselves can pull up to 200 watts or more when overclocked. A threadripper system can pull a magnitude more. Also your PSU shouldn’t be run over 80% capacity or it loses efficiency, (and as it ages encounter stability issues) so yeah there’s plenty of reason for over a 550 watt powersupply for an enthusiast overclocker. For a standard Dell or HP that isn’t overclocked so the CPU and GPU are running at rated TDP - a 550 watt would have plenty of headroom. Power draw depends on loadout, but overclocking quickly raises the requirements.

My 3090 has seen over 460W !!
Peak will probably be 50% or more higher.
Luckily PSUs also have peak power higher than rated but both RMS + peak drop with age and use.
A decently oversized PSU is needed if you value stability over the long term.

OP
You failed to consider your gfx card uses a lot more power than your CPU and can be easily beat.
I would never have run my 1080ti system with a 550W, simple sense.

If you dont do much with your PC you might get away with less.
 
My 3090 has seen over 460W !!
Peak will probably be 50% or more higher.
Luckily PSUs also have peak power higher than rated but both RMS + peak drop with age and use.
A decently oversized PSU is needed if you value stability over the long term.

OP
You failed to consider your gfx card uses a lot more power than your CPU and can be easily beat.
I would never have run my 1080ti system with a 550W, simple sense.

If you dont do much with your PC you might get away with less.
3080 and 3090 are power limited. Founders edition and "standard" for 3080 is 320, but quite a few cards ship with higher factory powerlimit, typically in the 340-370 range. They will not go over the powerlimit set so the peak you see when pushing the card is pretty close to max. For the 3090 is "standard" power limit is 350 while the higher end cards will be in the 370 to 420 range from factory. Increasing the power limit for overlclocking will give you a bit more, but only a few 3090 cards allow 450 or more. A modern intel CPU with a factory OC 3090 is probably the worst case "stock" though as it will gladly boost with 250 watts in the early stages for the CPU and add that to 420w for the 3090 and you can easily pull around 700 watts with just ram, cpu, motherboard and GPU.
 
3080 and 3090 are power limited. Founders edition and "standard" for 3080 is 320, but quite a few cards ship with higher factory powerlimit, typically in the 340-370 range. They will not go over the powerlimit set so the peak you see when pushing the card is pretty close to max. For the 3090 is "standard" power limit is 350 while the higher end cards will be in the 370 to 420 range from factory. Increasing the power limit for overlclocking will give you a bit more, but only a few 3090 cards allow 450 or more. A modern intel CPU with a factory OC 3090 is probably the worst case "stock" though as it will gladly boost with 250 watts in the early stages for the CPU and add that to 420w for the 3090 and you can easily pull around 700 watts with just ram, cpu, motherboard and GPU.
Yes, my power limit is higher ;)
 
You're being mean to my 5950x.

And I'll get a ThreadRipper zen3 when they are out and I'll be fine with 550 Watts. The GPU are what is taking high power mostly.

I'm using a 550W as well for the reasons mentioned. I'm not dropping $1000 on a CPU or GPU that will pull big wattage, so I already know how much I will need in the future.

I don't think affordable hardware will get too power hungry as well since manufacturers are also under the pressure to be "green". Not just for environment but cost as well.
 
I'm using a 550W as well for the reasons mentioned. I'm not dropping $1000 on a CPU or GPU that will pull big wattage, so I already know how much I will need in the future.

I don't think affordable hardware will get too power hungry as well since manufacturers are also under the pressure to be "green". Not just for environment but cost as well.

There is more than one way to buy "affordable" hardware. You can buy new budget hardware or you can buy older used hardware. Imagine someone trying to decide between a new 2060 or a used 1080. The 1080 is actually faster in almost all cases. If someone buys a 3080 or 3090 a few years from now, used, it's not going to use any less power than it does today. All these mining cards will get dumped on the market eventually, and it will be an affordable hardware Christmas. But if you want to limit your options, again, more power to you. Not sure how many posts you need to make here claiming that your limited budget makes you prescient about the power consumption of future hardware.
 
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