650 Wattage PSU and Q6600 Quad Ok

[hal515]

Will a 650 Watt PSU be ok with one 8800GT and Intel Core 2 Quad. Thanks

hal515

[hal515]

Its a Thermaltake 650watt modular cables.

[Rick]

Yes it should be

[hal515]

ok, just making sure because it said compatible with Dual-Core but nothing about Quad Core

[Rick]

I have one Q6600 running on a 530watt
4gig of ram,3 HDD,2dvd,Sound blaster,nic and 4 case fans

No power supply problems with it

[Heartborne]

CPU isn't even your main concern when it comes to power consumption. My Q6600 likes my 610 watt psu just fine.

[hal515]

So the CPU is fine with 650 Watts what about a EVGA 8800GT Superclocked 512mb.

[jlreich]

Everyone seems to think you need a 1000w PSU to run a basic system these days. :( No! With the exception of video cards everything is using less and less power.

Yes, any X2 video card is a power hungry card, but did you know that even with on of those in the system your total watts used during load is going to be about 300W or so!?

Now figure in that PSU's should never be used at the max rating, with the exception of very high end PSU's, 550-650W is plenty with room to grow and room for the PSU to degrade over time for most systems.

If you were running two quads, SLI/Crossfire'ed X2's, a few Raptor's or Cheetah's, and 16GB ram you might think about getting an 800-1000W PSU. ;)

Everyone just needs to stop with all these massive power supplies. ;)

Take a look at my profile to see my system. With everything in my system I am running on a 550w Seasonic power supply. I don't think I would have a problem throwing in a 9800GX2.

[hal515]

Thank you very much for clearing that up, I always though Quad Core's needed alot of power, I can under stand that Video Cards may need alot but I never knew that little power for a Quad.

Thanks

[mjc]

Quads use a smaller die process...smaller die=smaller circuits=less power consumption.

[jlreich]

I don't remember exactly but the Q6600 is rated around 110W. But that's max with all four cores running 100%. That will never happen. The latest Q9xxx 45nm series is rated at 95W. The 6xxx and 8xxx series dual cores are rated at 65w. Yes, the Extreme series is 130W, but that because they are cranked up and rated for higher voltages for extreme performance. It wasn't long ago at all that we had single core CPU's rated up to around 150W. ;)

[mjc]

Jl, have you seen the power ratings for some of the newest dual cores? A few of them are even lower than 65 W...and I thought I just saw a Quad for about 95...

Also SATA drives tend to use less power than their PATA counter parts.

About the only thing that hasn't really changed much over the last few years is the power consumption of fans...and that is fairly low to start with, anyway.

[Rick]

The reason for all these new PS ratings is the new Video cards

They are power hogs
or the older lower powered units don't have the line watts or even the needed 6 pin connections

However
Having that extra 100 to 200 ( 400 to 550 watt PS) doesn't hurt
It gives the unit all the power it needs without using the PS max output

A Little extra reserve never hurt anything

[jlreich]

Absolutely Rick. If I were to get a 9800GX2 I would think about moving up to a 650W to have a little extra room. Although I am pretty confident my 550W Seasonic could handle it. But there is no way I would need an 800 or more like many people are going for these days.

I just think it's ridiculous that most of those that have an 800 or 1KW are probably using no more than 350-400W at high load. They might pay $200-$300 for an 800W or 1KW and all they really need is a good quality 550-650 for $100-$150.

When we moved out of the early socket A and s478 days we needed more power because not only was everything increasing in power requirements, but the way the power was used also changed. We needed much more power coming over the +12v rail than previously, and multiple +12v rails at that. So I think everyone got used to having to have bigger and better units and it hasn't stopped. This together with heavy marketing has had people running to extremely high W's for no good reason other than "they" say you need it.

Jl, have you seen the power ratings for some of the newest dual cores?
Yeah the new AMD dual cores with the "e" at the end of the model number are rated at 45W. That's as low as the current single core AM2 Sempron's. :cool:

But that's max with all four cores running 100%. That will never happen
You know I was thinking about this. The only time you see a modern system with all cores at 100% is when it is infected with malware. Why is it that malware writers can somehow fully utilize a quad core but programmers can't? :confused: :p

[mjc]

You know I was thinking about this. The only time you see a modern system with all cores at 100% is when it is infected with malware. Why is it that malware writers can somehow fully utilize a quad core but programmers can't? :confused: :p

Or compiling the latest Linux kernel, from source...

[jlreich]

Yeah I guess that might do it. :D