Power supply amps

[Waddle Dee]

Hello! I was just wondering how many amps would be required on the 12v rails to run a Radeon 4850, maybe a 4870. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[FreakingHell]

Amps = Watts/Volts

I think 24 is the recommended minimum for the 4870, although you're better off leaving yourself some headroom.

(+12V1 Amps) + (+12V2 Amps) != Total Amps.

 

[Jubei]

Get a PSU that has one, big, fat rail instead of a bunch of smaller rails.

 

[FreakingHell]

Get a PSU that has one, big, fat rail instead of a bunch of smaller rails.

I'm interested in hearing your reasoning for this recommendation.

 

[xKodiakx]

Yeah, I've heard for most systems with vid cards and whatnot multiply rails were better


and Servers that have say lots n lots of harddrives are better off with single rail.


Isn't the point of multiple rails supposed to be to give certain devices more dedicated power or something like that ?

 

[Waddle Dee]

Isn't the point of multiple rails supposed to be to give certain devices more dedicated power or something like that ?

I think so but if you only have one gpu its better have one strong 12v rail

 

[Jubei]

I'm interested in hearing your reasoning for this recommendation.

Sorry, just got back to this thread:

Anyways, you may end up with some amperage "lost" on underutilized rails. For example, if the 12-volt rail that powers the CPU is rated for 17 amps and the CPU only uses 7A, the remaining 10A is unusable, since it is isolated from the rest of the system.

 

[bakerthree]

Get a PSU that has one, big, fat rail instead of a bunch of smaller rails.

I keep seeing this person post this so I looked into it below is three example I found by googling it. These are not the best examples but I was not going to spend a day looking for something I don't need.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/bfg-ex-1200-power-supply-review-test/6

http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/glossary/power-supplies/multiple-power-supply-rails-explained/

http://www.pcpower.com/technology/myths/#m8

the bottom line is buy a good power supply and you will not have a problem with it. There are several sites I like the way they test things some of them are:
http://www.tomshardware.com/us/#redir
http://techreport.com/
http://www.anandtech.com/default.aspx

this isn't all but some.