hi,my pc was custom built in 2010

AMD Phenom DDR3
4 Port Firewire 400 IEEE 1394 & Free Cable (PCI)

Antec 1000W TruePower Quattro Modular
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (6 x 3.2 GHz) AM3 9MB - Black Edition
CPU & GPU Overclocking (sent back shortly after recieved,as was causing major issues,no overclocking now,motherboard was changed from non usb 3 version to usb3 version)

Corsair Hydro Series H50 V2 (Advanced Liquid Cooling)
Asus M4A89GTD PRO USB3 5200MT/s (AMD 890GX) AM3
Cooler Master Centurion 590
1.5 TB (1500 GB) SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 32MB
1.5 TB (1500 GB) SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 32MB (Recently added MX500 CRUCIAL 1TB SSD)

Corsair 8GB XMS3 PC3-12800 1600MHz (4x2GB) (Now has 16GB Ram)
LG (GGW-H20L) 10x Blu-Ray Re-Writer/Reader & 16x Dual Layer DVD +/-RW Writer - Black (SATA)

ATI Radeon HD 4350 - 1 GB - VGA/DVI/HDMI (Asus) - Silent

my question is did i really need that power supply,or would less have been ok?
only recently started thinking about it as electricity is so costly these days.
thanks.
i know you folks will just love replying to this! hehe

 

Last edited: Jun 23, 2024

Your "excessive" power supply is not going to cause any more power to be drawn than if you had a smaller one. Not a significant amount, anyway.

 

Could've done with considerably less than half the wattage. As clone said, your PSU is not blasting away at 1000w constantly, but at some percentage of that, the quality of the 80 plus seal (bronze to titanium) indicates how efficient the PSU is at various load percentages.

 

thanks for replies,i dont understand "he quality of the 80 plus seal (bronze to titanium) indicates how efficient the PSU is at various load percentages."
are u saying there is a way i can check how efficient it is?

 

from what i recall bronze is the least efficient, titanium is the most efficient. so thats how you tell, less so based on the pure wattage it supports.

 

Yeah, if you Google your PSU + 80 plus, you get a bunch of reviews saying "just about meets 80 plus requirements". In other words, it's at least 80% efficient at 20%, 50%, and 99% loads. Modern "80 plus Titanium" PSUs can reach up to 95% efficiency.

 

if you really want to know your actual power draw, then invest into some proper power metering plug,
actual power draw should be what your PC HW specs demand + bit more because of power efficiency loss (your PSU converts 230V to 12V and 5V rails for the PC),
apart from what others said, I wouldn't underestimate overall lifespan/age of your PSU, efficiency does drop overtime, and likehood of failure increases exponentially - I would definitely not re-use it for new PC build in case you're planning to refurbish your spec for new PC upgrade

 

thanks for all replies,so basically if i had 500w PSU i wouldnt be using any less electricity,is what i think im taking from replies.

 

You aren't going to save any real money on your electric bill by downgrading your psu. Most of these efficiency concerns are pushed by manufacturers who are moving the goal posts against one another to compete for sales. I probably save about $100 a month on gas by switching to hybrid car. You'll be buying a new gen computer before you save that $100. Now, if you were talking about something with 4 gpus and a massive psu in it; that's a different story. You'd also be dimming the lights. Nothing you are doing is drawing enough power to even matter monetarily, in the greater scheme of things. You aren't managing a lan with 100 of them running.

 

OoOOOOH


What a Build

Im near salivating

 

it probably wasnt bad back in 2010

 

thanks,now i can get back to not making music! hehe

 

I wouldn't buy a cheap PSU, there have been a lot of nasty cheap ones over the years that are fire hazards. I would go with a decent specced one from a reputable brand for that reason alone.

 

I have no idea whether that's a decent computing spec or not nowadays, as Moore's Law bcame meaningless a long time ago!

Since you didn't mention in the OP why you need a lot of computing power ... then only you would know what you use a computer for, and hence what your requirements are.

Personally, I've gone from a builder of muscle flexing humungus boxes of component overkill to using a small microsmall box that does everything I need it to do.

Good luck in your assesment of whether you do or whether you dont need what you have.

 

Heh "Your absolutley right"

My bad
I skimmed over the specs and my brain for whatever reason read Ryzen 6 x 3.4 ghz blah blah 2018 or later
Well thats defo taught me to take more time whilst somewhat hammered to fully read what im responding to!

Never let it be said that i wont take responsibily when called out

 

He is talking about replacing a working existing PSU with a smaller one to reduce power draw of the running computer, in effort to reduce his electric bill.

A smaller PSU may not supply enough power to the system when it is under load. The existing one is already bearing the full load.

This is basic low voltage electrical principles. Let's use a generator as an example. Say I have a generator, and it is rated as max output 10,000 watts, and I have a 100 watt light bulb. The draw on that genset is still going to be 100 watts. It does not matter if I hook it up to a 1000 watt generator or the power plant at Niagra Falls. It is always going to draw the same amount of voltage from the genset. If the draw is above what the genset can output to a GFCI outlet, it will trip it and need to be reset.

The computer could be a hair dryer. It doesn't matter. Buy a multimeter.

 

Last edited: Jun 26, 2024

The way I look at it is, a power supply is like a water tank. It just has to be big enough to give you what you need. If it is bigger than that, great- you're covered if you ever need to pull that much. But its extra capacity doesn't somehow force too much water into your system when you don't need it, and you still only pay for what you use.

(I know it's a flawed analogy in some respects, don't beat me up )

 

Water can be a great example for people who are trying to learn about electricity, machines, and software. And signal flow and signal chain in audio.