I saw an article on how much amperage was used by certain devices somewhere and I believe that a burner while burning may draw 2 amps but while just operating as a ROM it draws less than 1 amp. A DVD-ROM draws close to an amp, a high-end video card can draw up to 3 or 4 amps, small low rpm fans draw in the neighborhood of 1/3 an amp while bigger fans or high rpm 80's may hit 1-2 amps.
Hard drives draw less than 1 amp (remember that your drives are running off of 5v as well and I'm just talking about 12v here) and CCFL's draw about .8-1 amp per light.
These are the amperages that I remember and these were max amperages so that means in real world use the numbers could be lower.
I wish I could remember the site that had that chart posted and I wish I was totally certain on the amperages in 12v but I believe they are essentially correct.
Running what you are running on a 600w psu is basically a minimal load Leo...considering that 600W psu's are used for dual cpu servers running several high rpm and high draw SCSI drives plus CDRW's tape back-ups and other assorted goodies that are all feeding off the 12v rail 24/7 and they are designed to keep that function going for 50,000 hours mtbf
I just figured it would help to have it as a guide as to what the maximum power consumption would be in general.
I know that it's not perfect but it's better than trying to tick it all up on fingers and toes
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Geeky1University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
edited November 2003
Yeah... besides, I ran out of digits before I even got to the drives...
The Antec True Control might not be quite as well built as a PC Power & Cooling psu, but it's more affordable and it's warrantee is 3 years, which is much better than what Enermax has on theirs. My True Control 550 is reliable as all get out, high/low on the +12v rail 12.04-12.16v, +5v rail 5.03-5.00v, +3.3v 3.23-3.31v. All those voltages from MBM's high/low log. That's plenty stable enough for me. It's not a cheap psu by any means but it sure is nice to be able to adjust your rails from the front of your computer. The Enermax 651P-VE in my daughter's dually rig isn't nearly as stable on the +12v rail, dropping down to the 11.9-11.85v neighborhood every once in a while.
be interesting to know what a DVM says about the voltages. i have two Antec PP403X 400 watt psu's. both read low on one of my NF7-S systems. down to bouncing at 11.50-11.60 on the 12v rail when a cpu is clocked at about 2.3-2.4ghz. my DVM however shows the 12v rail at 12.06 at the mobo connector and molex's.
ive not had very good luck with Antec myself. I ordered the two PP403x's at the same time, one died not an hour after being turned on. i RMA'ed it, Antec sent me a 400 redundant supply by mistake. i called'em back, they shipped another and was supposed to send a call tag for the redundant supply and never did. I've since had to repair both these 403's, seems as though one of the resistors was unrated (wattage rating). luckily i caught it before they went totally out, so i was able to determine the value. i replaced them with higher wattage rated resistors and they've been fine since.
I will only buy Enermax. Do not care about the cost. I had a cheap PSU in one of my computers and when it went, it took everything with it. MB, CPU, RAM, HD, and video card. That was a very expensive mistake.
Enermax is very good. Antec is better. PC Power & Cooling is the best on the market. I use both Antec and Enermax and have no problem with either. I would use PC Power & Cooling, but I flat out refuse to pay the kind of money they ask for their power supplies.
Comments
Hard drives draw less than 1 amp (remember that your drives are running off of 5v as well and I'm just talking about 12v here) and CCFL's draw about .8-1 amp per light.
These are the amperages that I remember and these were max amperages so that means in real world use the numbers could be lower.
I wish I could remember the site that had that chart posted and I wish I was totally certain on the amperages in 12v but I believe they are essentially correct.
Running what you are running on a 600w psu is basically a minimal load Leo...considering that 600W psu's are used for dual cpu servers running several high rpm and high draw SCSI drives plus CDRW's tape back-ups and other assorted goodies that are all feeding off the 12v rail 24/7 and they are designed to keep that function going for 50,000 hours mtbf
The power specs are based on the cpu's tdp, which is slightly lower than it's actual power consumption.
Also, it does not support dual-cpu systems, or a large number of fans, etc.
However, my dual CPU system (according to that thing) draws >500w with both CPUs, with everything @ 100% load.
I know that it's not perfect but it's better than trying to tick it all up on fingers and toes
That is with everything installed incl. my not yet install ccfl lighting.
be interesting to know what a DVM says about the voltages. i have two Antec PP403X 400 watt psu's. both read low on one of my NF7-S systems. down to bouncing at 11.50-11.60 on the 12v rail when a cpu is clocked at about 2.3-2.4ghz. my DVM however shows the 12v rail at 12.06 at the mobo connector and molex's.
my 300w and 550w Antecs have been ok however.
Check that out.
The "550w" PS on the right is an Enermax.
Enermax is very good. Antec is better. PC Power & Cooling is the best on the market. I use both Antec and Enermax and have no problem with either. I would use PC Power & Cooling, but I flat out refuse to pay the kind of money they ask for their power supplies.
How about TASK psu? anybody who's familiar with this? may i have some feedbacks? thanks!