Will this PSU hold up?

[Skychan]

I have a friend upgrading his CPU and GPU and he has the same PSU as me and I told him it will power it, but I want to see what others think.

Full system:
Enermax Liberty 500w (32A (384w) combined across the two 12v rails)
Q9400 (with aftermarket cooler, hoping to OC it like mad)
GTX 460 768mb
Asus P5QL Pro mobo
4X1GB DDR2
a couple HDDs, fans, nothing intense

I've research that video card heavily, since I bought it too, and it appears to draw 109w as a realistic gaming consumption, and peaks at like 140w in Furmark, which is unrealistic consumption. Mine OC's 30% so I assume it to consume that much more, so I figure about 140w.

The rest of the components I throw into the PSU Calculator (including 15% capacitor aging and guestimating an OC of 3600mhz at 1.45v (giving 173w CPU)) and get recommended 324w (not including video card since the site doesn't have GTX 460 yet). So that's 464w and he's got an excellent quality 500w PSU. CPU and GPU add up to 313w and the two 12v rails max out at 384w, but I don't know what else runs off the 12v rails.

Since this is a budget upgrade (he's only purchased a CPU, GPU, HSF and another 2GB of ram) he doesn't need a PSU to "futureproof" him, the idea is that we're hoping his purchase of this PSU indeed futureproofed him for this upgrade.

What do you think?

[Zero82z]

It will be fine.

[Skychan]

Oh right I was going to mention that I'm comparing his newly ordered system to my current system because about the only thing different between them is the CPU. I have an e7200 running at 3850mhz at 1.56v (I know I'm really pushing the limits!) which works out to a 167w CPU. Since he won't want to fry his CPU anytime soon the max I'll overvolt it will be 1.45v and as I already said, with the guestimated OC of 3600mhz and 1.45v it works out to 173w, which is almost identical to what my CPU is pulling.

My Enermax Liberty 500w CPU hardly even warms up during gaming (new games like Crysis, Just Cause 2, Mirror's Edge) or if I run Prime95 while Ati-Tool is Scanning for artifacts. This last scenario gets both the CPU and GPU running only 5 degrees lower than their max temp when I'm burning one or the other (CPU or GPU). No crashes or errors in these benchmarking apps either.

Sooo... I feel like my advice to him is sound.

Does anyone (dis)agree?

[_dangtx_]

around 380 watts on the 12v rails , worst case scenario furmarked 175 watts lets say for the video card i think 200 watts left for a duallie or even a quad and mobo should be fine, as long as its not a heavy oc'ed i7 or something


edit i have its little brother running an oc'ed duallie and dual 9800gt's

[fenixsaint]

Should be fine. Even with a heavy OC you should be under the 400W mark. The real question isn't the power rating, it's how tight the tolerances are. Lots of variance means you'll need a higher voltage to get a stable OC.

[Bond007]

I would agree with others that it will be fine. Only potential problem I could see would be PSU fan noise as it gets loaded up closer to its limits (if you care at all).

[Skychan]

Ok, thanks guys. Ya, PSU fan noise would potentially go up. With my system, the fan only hits about 1500 rpm under the most demanding situations I give it. It idles at 900rpm, but I don't even notice the difference in noise level.

Another thing that could matter is something I remember hearing from SKYMTL or someone similarily reputable. PSUs lose their capacitance (hence the capacitor aging option in the PSU Calculator). However, I remember hearing that when a PSU spends a couple years with very low load the caps hardly age. If they spend a couple years with a load that is closer to it's max then the caps do age.

So these rigs potentially will reduce these PSU's lifespans more drastically than normal.

[_dangtx_]

that and the fact that with time there is dust accumulating inside which will make cooling less effective and in extreme case of,with high humidity shorts could happen.

[Zero82z]

Originally Posted by Skychan

Another thing that could matter is something I remember hearing from SKYMTL or someone similarily reputable. PSUs lose their capacitance (hence the capacitor aging option in the PSU Calculator). However, I remember hearing that when a PSU spends a couple years with very low load the caps hardly age. If they spend a couple years with a load that is closer to it's max then the caps do age.

So these rigs potentially will reduce these PSU's lifespans more drastically than normal.

Capacitor aging is really not something you need to worry about.