Mel's Gaming Blog

How to findout how much power you need for your new or next RIG (RIG is a nick name for personal computers)?

Some might go for the PSU Calculator or equipment that counts watts used and connect to your PSU but let’s face it, we’re not all computer experts.

So how do we know what PSU to use? How much watt do i or you actually need? I found out an easy way for us noobs to findout how much power we need for your new RIG.

First you got to decide what hardware you have or going to have. Example:-

AMD FX 8120

AMD 6870 (How many?)

Everything else is not really that important. Why? Because they don’t really eat up a lot of power but if you want a safe zone I suggest adding an extra 50 to 100 Watts after we come to a conclusion.

So now we have a 8120 & 6870 in our sights. Now what you got to do is find reviews on this technology and look for the power consumption page. Most review will have this an example of this sites are 3DGURU, Hardwareheaven,techpowerup, tomshardware and many others, these site will have a power consumption for a particular hardware. Now in power consumption you’ll see many figures, now what you will be needed to look for is the power consumption for LOAD test and only LOAD test.

(LOAD means the maximum amount of power it will eat up in watts)

Now take the LOAD test results, and add your CPU and GPU power consumption and add them up together. Example:-

AMD FX 8120 has a total of 233 Watts on LOAD

AMD 6870 has a total of 288 Watts on LOAD

Please Note that all reviews vary from each other and look at more than one and take the average you see among the LOADs.

So AMD FX 8120 & AMD Radeon 6870 total sum of power consumption is 521 Watts. If you like to add a safe margin of power just add an Extra 50 to 100 Watts which will total up to 621 Watts.

CONCLUSION

So now you’ll want a total of 550 or 600 Watts Power Supply Unit (PSU) or if you added the safe margin of a 100 Watts than you’ll want a 650 Watt PSU.

Please look for PSU that has an 80 plus logo on it, preferably a 80 Bronze, Silver or Gold. There is a differences and it’s a story for another time.

And my recommend brands are as follows – Seasonic, Corsair, Silverstone and Coolermaster.