Enough juice?

436 Views 6 Replies 3 Participants Last post by Zerohero1024, Mar 10, 2009

Zerohero1024

Discussion Starter · Mar 4, 2009

It seems like I'm always in a bind when it comes to power, I think I have enough but I never really know what to expect. I recently purchased a TOXIC HD 4870 and it's running fine, no voltage monitor has reported my Hiper Type-R 580Watt power supply even twitching even under load. I'm looking to unbottleneck my GPU by giving it a Phenom II 920 but I know it's going to take alot more juice than an X2 5400+ 65watt CPU. Any opinions on whether or not my power supply could take this kind of punishment would be highly appreciated

here are my specs now

CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 5400+ 2.8GHz CPU
RAM: 4GB DDR2800MHz G.Skill Dual Channel kit
MB: ASUS M3A78 Pro rev. 0702
GPU: Sapphire TOXIC Radeon HD 4870
PSU: Hiper Type-R 580Watt Power supply
HD: 1 250GB SataII HD, 1 640GB SataII HD
Sound: Onboard and Audigy 2
8 fans, 10 if you count the power supply's
2 3 watt cold cathode lights
OD: Toshiba DVD-RW/CD Combo drive

This is where I'd like them to be

CPU: AMD PhenomII X4 920 ~2.8GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR2800MHz G.Skill Dual Channel kit
MB: ASUS M3A78 Pro rev. 0702
GPU: Sapphire TOXIC Radeon HD 4870
PSU: Hiper Type-R 580Watt Power Supply
HD: 1 250GB SataII HD, 1 640GB SataII HD
Sound: Onboard and Audigy 2
8 fans, 10 if you count the power supply's
2 3 watt cold cathode lights
OD: Toshiba DVD-RW/CD Combo drive

here's my Power supply specs, it's gibberish to me though

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=257&num=1

See less See more

Save

1 - 7 of 7 Posts

mothergoose729

· #2 · Mar 4, 2009

That power supply should be fine. If you upgrade to crossfire you might have to look into a replacement.

Save

Reactions: 1

Nenkitsune

· #3 · Mar 4, 2009

580 should be ok, BUT you can only have a maximum of 360 watts on your 12v rail, so really it seems you should look for a better psu.

like the PSU I have, it has 744 watts maximum and 64 amps maximum on its 12v rails and it's only an 850 watt psu, so most of its power is dedicated to those 12v rails.

though mine is massively overkill for my system, I did find that my 500 watt rosewill was very weak, and on my system it was overloading the PSU (that was with a single 9600GT)

if you really wanna see some high load, get OCCT 3.0 and run its power supply stress test. on my setup I pull over 520 watts under load (my old setup would pull up to 380 watts, only difference were the cards)

all of those ratings were pulled from a Kill-a-Watt meter. I bought it simply because I wanted to know how much power my system would pull. on a certian overclock I was pulling 420+ watts, which actually was high enough to where I was worrying about how much my 12v could take (it would go from 12v down to 11.84, within standards, but too much for me)

my new setup would make that rosewill explode

See less See more

Save

Reactions: 1

Zerohero1024

Discussion Starter · #4 · Mar 4, 2009

Hey I really appreciate the replies guys. I'm going to go ahead and get the CPU, and if it starts giving me fits with power needs (which upon further investigation it really shouldn't, cousin's got similar amperage in his 750watt Thermaltake and he's running 2 3870's and a Phenom 9500) I'll get the 850 Watt Power supply by Hiper.

Save

Zerohero1024

Discussion Starter · #5 · Mar 9, 2009

Just an update for anyone else who was curious, the chip is in and running nicely, I ran 2 instances of Prime95's CPU torture test along with Vanguard Saga of Heroes with my GPU running as much filtering as it could (Overclocked HD4870) and not only did it drop a meezly 2 frames per second, it stayed the CPU stayed under 44c and the GPU just over 50c, but the miraculous thing is the Power supply's 12v+ rail never dipped under 12 volts, it went from 12.16 to 12.03 but that was to be expected. I honestly thought a new power supply was going to be a nessescary expense in the near future but I don't anymore.

Save

mothergoose729

· #6 · Mar 9, 2009

Good, glad to here it. Looks like you got lucky with a good unit. For future reference though, if you get a quad core or go crossfire you probably should upgrade. You should also probably test again once every few months to check if the power supply is degrading. Seems you are going to be just fine

See less See more

Save

Reactions: 1

Zerohero1024

Discussion Starter · #7 · Mar 10, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by mothergoose729

Duely noted. I'll probably get a new power supply sometime this summer, or if she starts humming to me. The power supply is about 2 years old and with the way I tax my computer, I have a 3 year max policy on pretty much everything save the fans. Anyway thanks again for the help.

See less See more

Save

1 - 7 of 7 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.

Top Contributors this Month