Gadgetory

how does it feel power I need more power bagels here oh how to pick the correct wattage power supply this is a tricky question especially for first-time builders who might not be familiar with how power hungry some of their system components are but I will also say this once you do select that first power supplies subsequent PC builds become much simpler that comes with the territory you're going to dia for how power hungry systems are and they can choose a power supply wattage higher than that according to a specific buffer zone which we'll also discuss in this video so that's what we're going to do let's talk about power consumption and how to select the perfect power supply let's start first with a common misconception this is something I want to get out of the way first and foremost because I see it quite a bit I see people recommending power supplies based solely on TD piece now this is a good way of kind of gauging roughly what your components will be desiring in terms of power but it's not just a surefire thing like if the CPU has a TDP of 91 watts that does not mean that CPU will only consume 91 watts in fact if you want to overclock a CPU you might consume upwards of 150 watts of power under full load and even with stock frequencies in mind sometimes those power spikes do jump well beyond at 91 Watts TDP stands for thermal design power and as such describes the cooler capacity needed to keep that CPU or GPU or whatever you're talking about a well within its thermal limits so you can see how TDP and total power consumption are somewhat proportional as you increase total power draw the heat output must also increase but there's a small margin there for the work to be done most of it is lost in the form of heat because no system is 100% efficient so in summary adding TDP s is actually an underestimation of total power draw it would make no sense for a component to lose more energy in the form of heat than it is drawing energy from the wall that just doesn't add up so we're going to run through some in general rules of thumb and then we will talk specifics first and foremost it is important to note that the two most power hungry components in your system will almost always be your graphics card and your CP usually in that order so when it comes to picking a PSU you'll want to refer to these two first and foremost it makes sense the base your power supply wattage unload consumption of course but there are several scenarios to consider gaming load editing workload torture load the list goes on depending on what you do your power consumption will vary if you play quite a few video games on a daily basis you're probably pulling more power from the wall than if you were editing on a daily basis usually editing software if you want to do video editing photo editing that will usually leverage your CPU more than anything else but gaming workloads will leverage CPU and GPU horsepower in different ways and usually they're both being used around 5060 percent if the games will optimize and have a balanced system now a torture loop is a bit more extreme than a gaming loop because you're using unrealistic benchmarks in most cases to determine how stable your components actually are so I'll put unrealistic workloads on your CPU and GPU to ensure that under the worst-case scenario those components will be stable at given frequencies and voltages prime95 is an excellent example of a CPU torture test it just adds an unrealistic workload to the unit itself it's a good indication of how stable your system is with said overclock think of it as a worst case scenario when GPU and CPU usages are maxed out at 100% which rarely happens at least both at the same time so a gaming workload is a pretty safe underestimation of what your power supply wattage should be but I also recommend choosing a wattage higher than the torture load power supplies can often supply wattage above a rated limits ie 750 watts pulled from a 700 watt power supply it is possible but it isn't recommended for long term use as transformers and rails can become extremely hot so there is a surefire way of determining how much power your build will pull from the wall under any given workload use a watt meter stick it between the outlet and the power supply and boom that's how much power your system is pulling under any given load but keep in mind that some of that power will be lost due to the inefficiencies of the power supply itself so somewhere between 80 and 90% of that in most cases is actually being used by the computer but the problem with that of course is that you need the computer built beforehand so how would you know what power supply to use in a build if you have to have the PC built before you can determine how much power it's pulling from the wall that contradiction is why I recommend a site like Tom's Hardware I trust their reviews 100% and all of their power supply investigations all of their different component power consumption graphs are super helpful for first-time builders I've linked their site in this video's description take this one for example this graph depicts CPU torture test power consumptions we've got the rise in seven CPUs here the Intel Core i7 7700 K and a few other hungry counterparts I recommend starting here or at a graph similar to this one for your CPU of choice just Google something along the lines of Tom's Hardware horizon 5 1600 X power consumption just to insert your CP or GPU of choice and that's the beauty of their testing they've tested and compared almost every mainstream component on the market so if for example your CPU GPU combo is arisin 5 1600 gtx 1070 search for both of these graphs similar to this one and add them up in the case of this example roughly 90 watts + 170 watts for sum of 260 this is a very low figure however and it would be unwise to shove a 260 watt power supply into this system several factors should be accounted for including overclock ability whether or not the graphics card is referenced or AIB and how many other components are peripherals are in the system addressing overclock ability first this is a slippery slope generally speaking over clocks tend to drastically increase power consumption so 5% initial frequency overclock might increase power consumption by 5 percent followed by 10 percent for the next five percent overclock followed by 20 percent for the next 5 percent of the clog and so on CC outs they're not directly related they're not linear by any means so the i 970 900 X that was a notorious power hog but lower core count chips will usually manage power in a much more civil manner and that's what most consumers will go after something like a 2 4 or 6 core CPU so it really depends on what you're sporting in your rig and what your overclock or intended overclock is but as a general rule of thumb I recommend at least a 50% load power consumption buffer for your CPU unless your reference is already showing overclocked consumption so for our example multiply 90 watts by 1.5 for a 135 watt overclocked torture workload following suit then our 1600 X 1700 combo now has a power buffer of 135 watts + 265 for a 400 watt total power consumption this is a pretty bare-bones recommendation but I'd be willing to bet my lunch money that a proper 400 watt PS you could handle this combo in a full system is it recommended though no absolutely not unless your power supply is 100% efficient which is impossible higher power demand will result in more of it lost in the form of heat which explains why power supplies get hotter and louder under load so it's a safe practice to include an additional buffer I swear by 50% but you're free to throw in something higher I recommend higher don't go much lower than that for a 400 watt calculation like ours a 50% additional buffer zone yield 600 watts which should also account for hardened solid state drives LEDs peripherals and fans most of these smaller components usually won't consume but a few watts each so if you put together a system like this one here which I would consider well balanced it's linked in the video description by the way a 600 watt power supply it with a solid efficiency rating from a reputable brand would put you in a great position your supply should stay rather quiet if it's built well and sharp power spikes shouldn't trip your system feel free to apply this rule across the spectrum by the way introducing a second CPU which would be weird for a gaming system or a second graphics card which I imagine most consumers would be more interested in would only require that you repeat the affirmation process just one more time for said component I will say though if you're going to SLI or crossfire two graphics cards you don't just multiply the original load power consumption for the single card by - that's not how those configurations work actually SLI and crossfire are pretty inefficient when you want to look it from a power consumption standpoint so if one cards consuming 200 watts under full load and you stick a second card the exact same one in there you're not going to have a 400 watt load in fact you might have something along the lines of a 300 or 350 watt load and that's under like a best-case scenario so really if you add a second graphics card you don't even really have to add that 50% buffer it could be something lower just keep in mind like don't be surprised if your system is not really pulling that much more from the wall if you add a second card for most builds with a single graphics card and CPU it will be perfectly fine on a 6 to 800 watt power supply I would say upward towards 800 watt would be well within your safe zone you could even upgrade at a second graphics card and still be ok generally the more expensive the components inside though the higher the wattage should be again just for peace of mind wouldn't make much sense to pair a $40 PSU with a $1,500 system while in many cases your system would run perfectly fine as I've proven in this video right here it's just not good practice to pair an ultra cheap power supply it with an ultra expensive computer even if your computer isn't that expensive you would really hate yourself if your power supply took your entire system with it because you decided to cheap out on the one component that you should not have a simple analogy don't pair a 600 horsepower Ferrari with a set of $20 tires that you picked up at a junkyard makes no sense if you liked this video be sure to give it a thumbs up thumbs down for the opposite be sure to click a subscribe button if you haven't already in stay tuned for more content in my original studio in Florida and still in Germany but I'll be home very soon along right ahead not looking forward to that one this is science studio thanks for learning with us