How to choose the power supply？ Old drivers may not be able to tell you.

How big is the power supply? I believe this is a problem that many DIY players will encounter when purchasing power. Most people’s solution is to follow the crowd, and I will choose how big others choose. In addition to seeking help in forums and post bars, the sales volume and evaluation of e-commerce platforms are also one of the reference standards.

Although this method can solve the problem of "which power supply to buy" temporarily, it can’t answer the fundamental question of "how much power to buy" in the long run. You can’t ask others for help every time you install the machine, can you?

So is there a way to do it once and for all without asking for help? Today, I will teach you a trick to easily choose the power supply suitable for your computer.

Let’s popularize the basic knowledge before teaching you how to choose the power supply suitable for your computer.

Our computer isIt is composed of CPU, graphics card, motherboard, memory, hard disk, peripherals and other hardware. When the computer is running, all parts of the hardware need to consume a certain amount of power. Generally speaking, the power consumption of CPU and graphics card is the highest, accounting for the vast majority of the overall power consumption of the computer.

Whether the computer can run stably is not only affected by the hardware itself, but also by the power supply that provides them with electricity.

Simply put, if the power consumption is higher than the overall power consumption of the whole machine, the computer will run stably; When the power supply is lower than the overall power consumption of the whole machine, it will be unstable. Therefore, it is particularly important to choose a power supply with sufficient power.

In fact, the solution is very simple, just buy a power supply with high power supply, but don’t forget that the higher the power supply often means the higher the price, and you need to pay more money for the high power supply.

The power calculator is good, but the update is not in place.

So, how can we calculate the overall power consumption required by the whole machine?

There are two ways, one is to calculate the overall power consumption of the whole machine through the known power consumption of each part of the hardware. Obviously, this method is time-consuming and laborious, and it is necessary not only to find the power consumption of each part of hardware, but also to add them one by one, which inevitably leads to the risk of mistakes.

The second method is obtained through a power calculator. There are some power calculators on the Internet. You can automatically calculate the required power by selecting the configuration of your computer, which is very convenient.

But most of these calculators are old, and the support for many new models of hardware is not in place. You may not find your own hardware at all.

PSU Calculator to find out.

The following is the key point that the author wants to talk about. Since the power calculator is more convenient than manual search, is there a power calculator that supports the existing hardware better?

The answer, of course, is yes, which is also the purpose of this paper. It is a power calculator from Cool Extreme.

This power calculator is called PSU Calculator, which can only be found from Cool Extreme. The English interface is not very friendly to us, but fortunately, the support for new hardware is good, and it can be found in 8-generation Core and 10-series graphics cards.

After opening the link of PSU Calculator, you can see a very detailed table, including motherboard, CPU, memory, graphics card, hard disk, keyboard and mouse, fan and other devices, and you can even overclock the frequency of CPU and graphics card to calculate the appropriate power supply. I have to say that this power calculator is very careful and worth learning from domestic manufacturers.

How many watts of power do the high, medium and low platforms need?

After knowing that there is a good thing called PSU Calculator, let’s try to calculate how many watts of power are needed for high, medium and low platforms based on the current mainstream hardware configuration.

1. High-end platform: i7-8700K+GTX 1080

Let’s take a look at the high-end platform of i7-8700K+GTX 1080. Other configurations are fixed as two 8GB memories, a SATA SSD+ and a 7200 rpm mechanical hard disk.

After selecting the configuration, click Calculate in the lower right corner to calculate the required power supply.

It can be seen that there are two powers in the lower right corner, one is Load Wattage, and the other is Recommended PSU Wattage. Load Wattage refers to the typical load of this configuration, such as the power required for running a 3D game, and Recommended PSU Wattage is the recommended power, which we shall take as the standard.

The typical load of this configuration is 401W, and the recommended power is 451W W. It can be seen that the power required by this high-end configuration is not as high as we thought, and the power supply of 500-600W can meet it.

For example, Hangjia’s JUMPER500 power supply has a rated power of 500W, and has passed the 80PLUS white-label certification, with 12V single-channel 40A current output and active PFC+ dual-transistor forward scheme. The price of 299 yuan is very cost-effective.

2. Mid-range platform: i5-8400+GTX 1060

For the mid-range platform, we take the i5-8400+GTX 1060 as an example. Other configurations are still fixed as two 8GB memories, a SATA SSD+ and a 7200 rpm mechanical hard disk. Calculated by PSU Calculator, this configuration only needs 362W W.

We can choose a 400W power supply for this mid-range configuration. For example, this Longba 400 power supply of Jinhetian has a rated power of 400W, adopts an enhanced 12V output (18A), double copper PCB design and a 12cm hydraulic fan. The power supply is stable and the heat dissipation is more efficient, and the price is only 159 yuan, which is very affordable.

3. Low-end platform: AMD Ruilong 2200G+ set display.

Here we positioned Ruilong 2200G as the living room entertainment center, so we didn’t increase the solo display. The recommended power calculated by PSU Calculator is 212W, and the power consumption is very low, so it is enough for us to choose a 300W power supply.

For example, the C5 power supply of Xingu, a nuclear-powered cruiser, has a rated power of 300W, a 12V output of 252W(21A), accounting for 84%, and the peak power can reach 400W W. Moreover, it adopts a 12cm PWM intelligent temperature control fan, which can reduce noise while providing large air output. The price is more affordable, only 119 yuan.

Well, the above is the author taking the current mainstream configuration as an example, and calculating the required power through PSU Calculator to choose the power supply he needs.

The purpose of this paper is to tell you that you can use PSU Calculator as a small tool when purchasing power supply, so you don’t have to ask for help from others or calculate manually. Interested friends may wish to collect it and try it first.