Rough approximation of power usage for my computer components

[Ilmiont]

Hi guys,

 

I was wondering if anyone could aid me in my rough calculation of the current wattage used by my computer parts... here is what I have with my rough approximations of power usage. Underlined values are official ratings, please post the absolute maximum a component could use.

 

• AMD A10-7850K - 95W
• ASRock FM2A88X Extreme4+ --- using obviously a 24-pin ATX + 12V ATX
• 3 SATAs - Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD / Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB 7200RPM HDD / DVD drive
• PCIe Wi-Fi card

This is coming off a 500W power supply so I'm fine right now but will this continue to delliver once I have added the below soon-ish:

• Asus Radeon R9 270X 4GB - 225W
• NZXT Sentry 3 fan controller

 

I am not really sure how much the SATA connections are using you see or how much the motherboard takes -- which I imagine is a lot.

With just the graphics card I'm about to add in (assuming I have the power!) and the A10 its at 315W so I only really have 185W for the other components... motherboard/3 SATAs/a PCIe card and hopefully fan controller. Am I safe?

 

Any advice appreciated,

Ilmiont

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Get a 650/750W, be done with all the math. You don't want almost the amount of power, if you ever upgrade, you don't need a new PSU.

[spikey_richie]

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp (not used it for a long time so I don't know if it has your components in). But as Mind* says, just get a larger PSU then you have more scope for upgrades down the line.

[Andre S. Veteran]

You should be ok. You could upgrade just for the sake of future-proofing as others have said, but there's no real need for it at the moment.

 

What's the brand and model of the power supply by the way?

[greenwizard88]

I have a 95w CPU and a 7770ghz edition in an otherwise typical setup (SSD, HDD, Wifi, Motherboard....). I have no idea how much power I need, but I use a 350 watt "silent" PSU that's never given me trouble. People like to jack up the PSU wattage because OMG!!!!1!!eleven!! but in reality most of the recent Dell's that I've purchased for Work came with a 300watt PSU, and the only thing they don't have in them is a dGPU.

 

In your case, you're looking at 180 watts for the motherboard and components, which should be more than good enough - that's almost 40watts per component. Considering even the maximum draw (during startup) for your HDD is around 16 watts, and your wireless card is only a few watts, you're looking at almost 120 watts for the motherboard and RAM. For comparison, a Macbook Air has a 45watt charger, so theoretically you could run 2 (almost 3) computers off of the amount of headroom you have for your motherboard alone. Granted the Macbook Air is designed to be power efficient, but still, hopefully I'm making my point.

 

I wouldn't add much more, but as long as you had a good quality PSU I see no reason to upgrade it unless you also add more power draw.

[Phouchg]

Efficiency and +12V rail is what matters, not total wattage. Not all 500W power supplies are alike. Additionally, I somewhat doubt R9 270X eats 225W. I really do. 180 to 200 for OC versions, but not more. So you're totally safe.

Also note that most of the time your PC spends idling about (that includes most web browsing), so it will sit at the very bottom of the efficiency curve.For overkills like 650W+, that's your money very slowly venting out the window.