How to Choose a Power Supply

How to Choose a Power Supply Hello YouTube, I received a lot of questions lately regarding what to look for when purchasing a power supply, so in this video I’m going to briefly go over some of the technologies, certifications and how to calculate the base wattage if your system when used. Starting off to some of the technologies and certifications, the power supply you purchase should include active PFC with the rated value of it’s close to 1.0 or 100% as possible. In terms of energy efficiency, I recommend the 80+ certified which means that it certified at 20%, 50% and a 100% load to be above 80% efficient most mid to high and power supply will be between 85 and 95% efficient. Your power supply should include over current, over voltage, under voltage and circuit protection. It should use Japanese capacitors that are rated at high temperatures. It should follow the ATX standard, and it should be the most current standard which is version 2.2. On the side now it can also follow the AP standard as long as it also includes the ATX standard, though the AP standard isn’t really required and it’s more oriented around servers. It should be able to receive an input voltage of a 115 volts to 230 volts for American and European standards. Most power supplies will include a red switch on the back to change between this two voltage settings though if you prefer some do yourself with auto switching capabilities a lot of high end ones comes standard now with that. The power supply should be sufficiently cool and of course sound once a preference. Usually the larger the fan in the power supply unit the quieter the unit will be I recommend most of units with 120 millimeter fan or a 140 millimeter fan well there’s some very high quality 80 millimeter fan units out there. Also, the unit should be thermally controlled, so as the temperature of power supply increases so as with the air fans of the fan. You should keep in mind the dimensions for the power supply. Mostly ATX power supplies are roughly 90 millimeters tall x a 150 millimeters wide and will go usually between a 150 and 200 millimeters deep depending on again the power supply. Usually the high rated power supplies with more wattage are larger, so keep in mind the dimensions so that the power supply will fit in your system. Also, keep in mind the connectors you’ll be using. You’re going to want a 24-pin motherboard connector either a 4 or 8-pins CPU connector. Most quite of course required an 8-pin CPU connector. You can want as many Molex as you require which are usually for some hard drives or optical drives. As you may see this as you require and the PCI Express is depended on what graphic solution you have. A lot of single colored solutions are required one to two 6-pin connectors or some of the high ends resolutions and multiple video card characters may it require so an 8-pin or of course multiple PCI Express connectors, so keep in mind your specific needs. Also, if you’re using multiple video cards it’s best but not necessary for to be certified by the vendor or by the technology you prefer if using SLI best support to be or meet the SLI certification and the same goes for CrossFire. You can want a high meantime between failure rating roughly I see a minimize use usually a 100,000,000 hours is best. You don’t want your manufacturer to buy a high quality long term warranty usually up to three to five years and you still want to consider cable length. If you have a water case especially or if you’re routing cables behind motherboard you may need to purchase separate cables standard separately or just purchase a power supply that comes with longer cables, so they can reach their proper devices. Also, some preferential things you may want modularized cables, so that they can be removed and this helps eliminate some of the cable mess inside the case and increase air flow. You may want to keep in mind the aesthetic appeal, the color of the power supply, how to paint it maybe if it has specific lights or a mere recording or something of that nature, also, if it’s slave or not which helps with the aesthetic appeal as well as some cable management and air flow. There are other noise reducing methods as well such as silicon pads or rubberized edging on the power supply that can be an added bonus. Now, I briefly go over how to calculate the wattage. Now, we’ll go over simply means to estimate the peak power consumption of your system. If you have a dual core CPU expect your processor to draw no more than 95 watts. If you have a quad core CPU expect your processor to draw no more than a 130 watts also, if you plan on overclocking your processor at all take this into account usually increasing your estimated peak CPU power draw by about 50% should more than account for any OC. In order to determine how much power your graphic card will used consider the following. If your graphic card has no additional power plug on it, it will not use more than 75 watts. If it has a single 6-pin power plug it will not use more than a 150 watts, but if it’s two 6-pin power plugs it will use less than 225 watts and if it has a 6-pin and an 8-pin power plug then it will use less than 300 watts of power. Keep in mind that most cards will consume a lot less power than is able to reach the card. If you plan on using a multiple GPU set up then simply add this number for each graphic card you intend to use in your system. For 7200 rpm hard drive add about 10 watts to total system power consumption. For every 10,000 rpm hard drive add on 15 watts per drive. For every optical disk drive you use add about 15 watts for both drives and for every fan add about 3 watts per fan. Lastly, taking into account the following: your system motherboard and memory will usually use less than 50 watts of power, also, add about 20% to your final total. This will help account for output depreciation of your power supply overtime deferring operation environments. Additional expansion cards, USB and FireWire power devices as well as possible system upgrades in the future. Don’t get hang up entirely on how many watts you will need as the estimates we went over are just that their estimates. For the most part they’re over exaggerated quantities to help prevent you from purchasing a PSU but it’s underpowered for your needs. Also, there are other things to consider that I won’t be discussing here such as rails. For the most part you shouldn’t have to worry about the differences between the single and multiple rail power supplies, so long as you heed the following. You’re almost guaranteed to have a power supply that were great for your system as long as you purchase a high grade power supply made by a reputable manufacturer. It has all the leads that you require. Also, use cushion when using adapters such as Molex to PCI E for a graphic card as you may over stress one of the rails in your power supply or potentially cause other issues if you’re not careful. The following are some reputable manufactures. Note, they are not in any particular order. Corsair, Thermaltake, PC Power & Cooling, Silverstone, Antec, Enermax, OCZ, Xclio, Seasonic, Tagan, FSP, Fortron, Hipro, Sharkoon, Sparkle, HEC, Xigmatek, Zalman. Keep in mind that these are basic guidelines to follow for determining what power supply you will need for your system, so always do your research before buying. As always let me know if you have any questions or comments and thank you for watching.