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Debunking Power Supply Mythsby Christoph Katzer on 9/22/2008 3:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
97 Comments
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Dancer - Thursday, October 22, 2009 - linkOn the face of it, this article seems an excellent, well-researched contribution to a highly vexed question. I do have a concern, however: We know that the power output of a PSU drops as it ages. We also know that this drop depends partly on quality and partly due to random chance. If I'm buying a PSU to last 3, 5 or more years, will this seriously affect the capacity of the PSU I should buy for a given machine?
internetrush - Saturday, June 06, 2009 - linkOk, lets low ball it, im running 200w (average) per graphics card, about 50w cpu (core i7) and three hard drives.
Lets see
200 x 2
+50 + 50 (motherboard chipset)
+30 Sound card
+10 cd drive
+20 (fans)
During a game, much less a stress test, im lowballing a 600w load on my PSU.
If i had an 800w PSU that would be 80% of its total output, which thereby increases its heat and decreases its life.
When you buy a 1000w PSU, not only are you ensuring that you will never watch your computer go up in smoke (had a friend do that to a 350w on an old P4) but you are also not having to replace it whenever you buy a new processor or add something to your system.
This article is good, however, on a tech website i would expect a bit more consideration for the higher end gamers and common sense.
Common sense says, if you are a higher end system user, you WILL expand said system!
For gods sake! Some cards today use up to 500w power (the 4890X2 and new 295 SuperCard).
As a gamer, id rather have a 2000W PSU that id never have to replace than a 400w that would FRY as soon as i threw on a new video card. Reply
Christoph Katzer - Saturday, August 08, 2009 - linkSorry for the late reply.
You are probably right when you see it from the perspective of a high-end-hardcore-gamer... But do you know how small the percentage of people is who actually own a real high-end system? Reply
JohnMD1022 - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - linkIt would be nice if you could periodically update this with newer components. Reply
lopri - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
BillyBuerger - Sunday, October 26, 2008 - linkAnyone have any info on that Thermaltake QFan 300? That thing looks great efficiency wise. Not normally a Thermaltake fan. And the fan controller looks like it sucks. Just keep it below 150W... Or fan swap. Reply
Christoph Katzer - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - linkI will have a review up soon! Reply
Cincybeck - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - linkCouple of "knowitall" friends were trying to tell me I was going to need a larger power supply when I built my new system. Which in turned incited the Microcenter sales person saying oh yea you're probably going to need that too. I turned around said I estimated these parts to draw at most around 200, 250 watts, and I have a 500W Seasonic M12. Shut him up pretty quickly, but my friends were still pushing it the whole way home. So now if they ever bring it up again I can print this article and shove it in their face. Thanks =D Reply
0roo0roo - Sunday, September 28, 2008 - linki like the graphs:)
keep it up!
this is the info we need!
normally the psu market is just lousy because of the lack of any real information. Reply
mark84 - Friday, September 26, 2008 - linkFor those quoting that old link for the AtomicMPC graphics card power thread, the new/current one is being maintained here http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic...">http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic... Reply
nilepez - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - linkI've seen this site and countless others constantly promoting the benefit of 750 watt+ PSUs.
The reality is virtually nobody needs 500W, much less 750 or 1KW.
AnAverageJoe - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - linkThank you for this article, it is really one of the more organized efforts at getting this kind of info out there that I have read and hopefully will save folks from overdoing it (saving $$ in the process). Couple of comments:
1. p.1 "If people really took the time to examine system power requirements": From the perspective of building a new rig, where does one find this information? Any sort of figures, short of the very few articles such as this and public power supply guesstimators, appear non-existent. As stated in the article something is better than nothing but getting precise information appears impossible for any given component. Both Intel and AMD publicly provide technical data on their parts but the only single figure one can really get out of that data is the TDP for the processors. I have failed to find any similar technical data for GPUs and although most graphics card reviews now include power draw it is for the system and not the graphics card itself thus there is is no way to get the discrete graphics card power draw. Ditto for every other component. In sum, I don't see any way for one to gather the required data to compute the power requirements for any planned build short of actually building the thing and putting test equipment to it.
2. I was left wanting a statement to the effect of "one important goal of choosing a power supply is to maximize efficiency under expected operating loads." The examples do make the point just took a bit longer for me to get it thru my dense skull.
Again, thanks for spending the time to put this together because this really is I think one of the most overlooked areas of system integration and in my experience impossible to more than generally guesstimate.
Cincybeck - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - linkTry searching "power supply calculator" in Google. The one, eXtreme has, provides a pretty complete list and quite a bit of options. I punched in the low end and mid range computers from the article. The calculator is high according to the article's results, but close enough to give you a good idea. Reply
Johnniewalker - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - linkI have been waiting for an article like this for years, thanks! I always suspected people were buying PSU's that were too big. Reply
rvikul - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkAnandtech is back! This is exactly the kind of information Anandtech excels at providing. very relevant and very useful. Thanks and keep it up (and please dont go back to discussing social issues etc).
OddJensen - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - linkStrange figure for the 2900XT. Knowing it's one of the most powerguzzling single GPU cards, it should have been much higher, right? Reply
CSMR - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkI'm going to repeat myself because I feel this is important.
The tables claim to represent actual power consumption of processors and chipsets but the figures are very exaggerated. (There are even people who run whole systems on one or two of the chipsets listed on less power than the power the article claims for just the chipset.)
Here are more accurate CPU measurements from xbitlabs:
Behardware gets similar results. (Can't find the link straight away.)
Must fix this as Anand needs to keep its reputation for good information. You can't have figures (CPU idle power) that are out by a factor of 10!
The graphics idle power data are better than the CPU data but also too high, by a factor of about 2, compared to existing measurements:
http://archive.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&...">http://archive.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&... Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkThe question is: did Christoph measure power incorrectly, or did someone else? From my understanding, he's measuring the current on the various wires leading from the PSU to the components. HDD is of course easy to measure. The ATX12V/EPS12V connector supplies the CPU, so that's simple as well. PCI-E gets 12V from the PEG connector along with the extra four pins on the 24-pin ATX connector. The remaining pins on the 24-pin ATX feed the chipset, RAM, and other motherboard components. Sum all of that together and you get the power draw for the entire system.
Perhaps the CPU power draw numbers are high and the chipset/mobo numbers are low, but worst case the point of the article is to show that higher wattage PSUs are not required for most systems. A midrange system with similar components might use a bit less than what we estimate, but I'm quite sure it wouldn't need more power than our high estimate.
I won't guarantee that the individual numbers are 100% accurate, but I doubt that desktop C2D processors are idle at only 7W or less. I know on my own C2Q Q6600 8800GT 4GB system it idles at 176W power draw, and if I put a load on just the CPU (Folding@Home SMP) the draw increases to 262W. Guessing at 80% efficiency, the components are consuming 141W to 210W, which means CPU (and mobo, chipset, and RAM) power use went up 69W. That's pretty close to the QX6850 result (fudging on the 65nm vs. 45nm and Penryn vs. Kentsfield). The Fur benchmark also gives ~262W average (one core is 100% load on the CPU), so the GPU + one CPU core increases power consumption by the same 69W, but some of it goes to the CPU and most of it goes to the GPU. That jives with the 51W increase in power Christoph measured on the 8800 GT. Running both - a "worst case" test - gives a power draw of 315W to 337W, with an average of around 324W.
So a system somewhat similar to Christoph's "midrange" setup (and estimating efficiency) uses 141W idle and 260W load. That doesn't include trying to tax the HDD or DVD, which might increase the load by another 20W, and it uses a single GPU instead of a 3870X2. What's the specific amount used by the CPU, the GPU, the RAM, the chipset, and the other motherboard components? I can only guesstimate, but stepping back to examine the whole picture I don't have any serious problems with the tables on page 1. CPU power is probably lower, since it sounds like Christoph measured the current going through the ATX12V lines and some of that will feed the VRMs and other bits and pieces on the motherboard. Reply
Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - linkThanks for the explanation. The point being is that I measured how much current is going to the CPU through the 12V rails. What happens later doesn't matter since the power supply needs to deliver X current at that specific time.
That doesn't mean however that the CPU is actually using all of this delivered power since we loose power at the VRMs and CPU itself. SO if there is X watts going to the CPU it doesn't mean the CPU actually needs that much power but since it is being delivered it should be called the "actual power consumption".
For example the 6000+ which needs quite too much obviously. We know now it had something to do with the different VRMs at the AM2 and AM2+ boards. The power is being delivered, meaning the power supply needs to provide this amount x. If the CPU actually needs it or not is irrelevant. Of course if I would have known from the difference between AM2 and AM2+ I would have measured it in a different way, no one is perfect and I know now how to do it better next time.
As for the Chipset it is indeed tricky since every mobo vendor has different additional chips installed that take a different amount of power. So if we do publish an article about this we will have to mention the actual manufacturer of course.
It's just funny that everyone says the results are too high but I get an Email from Taipei that my numbers are far too low... Reply
Barack Obama - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkNotch one up for the great AT team :D Reply
computerfarmer - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkGood article! Based on the number of comments, this has many of us thinking. This gives a way of figuring out our needs vs bigger is better.
This article gives us enough information to make educated choices. Looking at the 12V rails is a good place to start along with total power. With a single 12V rail like Corsair VX series, the amount each rail carries is a non issue.
A rule I have always followed is to use a power supply with at least 20% more power than the maximum required. Reply
dragosmp - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkHey, I just wanted to say that after posting this link on OCN, there were tenths of replies. People want to know how much various things consume, as all this 1kW PSU hype hype is getting very tiresome.
I for one would be curious how did you measure the current thru the PCIe slot - have you modified the slot to access the power lines? Soldering geeks would really like to know :)
And lastly, browser compatibility. This comment is very hard to write in Chrome (writing overlapping), maybe you or google will fix this.
Dragosmp Reply
Fudus - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkI am stupid and run my 4850 off a 300W power supply, with a sata power>molex>pci-E power connection. Go Go overloading!
It seems to work at stock speeds under stress as well for some reason. I really didn't expect it to work this well (C2D e6550, Radeon 4850,300W power supply, 2GB RAm, G33 motherboard, 1 HD/DVD+RW) Reply
marc1000 - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkyou are not stupid, Fudus. if you sum the power for your c2d (never more than 65w), mobo (40w), ram+HD+DVD (5+15+10) you have 135w. then add the 4850 and you are still fine with a 300w PSU. Like i Said before, I have a 90W CPU (that old Pentium-D, argh!) but run a radeon 3850, so my system consumes about the same energy as yours. and the 300w is working fine with me too. or else I would be a stupid too =P Reply
dragosmp - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkWow, this gives me hopes to mount a 4670 on a 120W pico-atx powered rig.
How is the noise, the +12V level? Reply
oopyseohs - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI have seen upwards of 700W while testing on old QuadFX systems with 8800Ultra SLI. I would imagine that Skulltrail overclocked to 4.0GHz (easy) and 2x Radeon HD4870X2's in CrossFireX would demand significantly more than 700W. Of course these systems are rare, but they do technically validate the "need" for power supplies that output 1000W+.
In any case, thanks for this article. I think it does a great job of showing why ultra high-output power supplies are not even close to necessary for 99.9% of the computing world. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI have a Q6600 @ 3.42GHz with dual 3870 cards, and that peaks at around 650W at the outlet. Certainly there are plenty of overclocked PCs that can draw more than 700W... but once you take efficiency into account, my PC is only really using around 520W. I've also tested high-end water-cooled setups with 8800 GTX SLI that topped out at 650-700W power draw as well. I personally think with ultra high-end PSUs that having six 12V rails isn't very useful as well - some of the problems people experience with lesser PSUs simply comes from 12V rail distribution.
If you're running dual GTX 280 cards and a quad-core (probably overclocked) CPU, I don't think there's anything wrong with 1000W PSUs. In fact, I know Gary has blown a few 1000W PSUs with his overclocking testing in the past. However, I'm running perfectly happy now with a 3.2GHz quad-core and really don't need even that much CPU performance; it's all about the GPU for games, and CPUs are only really taxed in 3D rendering and video encoding it seems. Reply
Griswold - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkNow that you made that clear, give us some of your great reviews for reasonably dimensioned PSUs instead of these 600-1000W bricks. :P Reply
whatthehey - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkMaybe it's just me, but I sort of got the impression that the reason for this article is precisely that Anandtech is tired of only getting the highest-end power supplies for testing. It's all marketing BS of course: they don't want to limit sales of the $300 1000W PSUs so they only send those out for testing.
Or maybe the truth is more nefarious: they figure if they send out a top-quality 1000W PSU that has great efficiency and voltage regulation, unsuspecting buyers will buy their lower wattage parts that might not be all that great? The first is more likely, but it wouldn't surprise me if some of the less expensive 400-500W PSUs (even from major brands) use much cheaper components. Which is why we all want to see them tested, and probably also why the companies don't want to send them out for review. Reply
Martimus - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkSince this article is about choosing a PSU for a new computer build, it would have been nice to include new components like the P45 chipset, or the new nVidia or AMD graphics cards. I started reading it with the hope of knowing how well the Antec Earthwatts 500W PSU that came with the Sonata III case I bought would be do with various build options. The problem was that with only old equipment being used, I couldn't come to any real conclusion. It seemed to read more like a report to prove a point rather than an actual guide written to help with a new computer build. I am not trying to berate the article, but I just don't see the point of it. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkIf you look at all the included components, it should be pretty clear that the latest parts won't be drastically different from the tested components. Sure, 4870 might use 30W more (or 30W less) than the 3870, and the P45 might use +/-10W relative to the P35. Does that really change anything with the information the article conveys? I don't think so. Midrange PCs are still going to use 150-250W for the most part, whether with last year's components or with the latest stuff. If you want to look at the top-end, then GTX 280 will use more power than the listed GPUs, but even then you're not going to break 600W without overclocking. Reply
Martimus - Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - linkThanks. I have since calculated out what is needed for the processor and chipset (for a E8400 and P45 MB) and it came to about 8A. I went on the AMD website to find what the current draw was from the 4870. It doesn't say, but does recommend a 500W PSU. I am a little concerned though, because the EA500 isn't on their approved PSU list from Antec, and I have had issues with their power supplies before, plus they only have 17A available on each rail. that should be fine, but I would like to make sure I am not loading the 12V rail too heavily as well. If those components don't work (those are my plan for the moment), then I can always adjust, but I would like to have that peace of mind before I make the purchases. (the computer is a present, and I bought the Sonata III to save money because I heard good things about the Earthwatts brand, but now I am starting to get worried about this particular model.) Reply
Matt Campbell - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI would also point out that in addition to all of the data Christoph has pulled together, we have some power consumption numbers on overclocked systems with GTX 280s as well, which seems to be one area people are asking for.
4.0 GHz QX9770 with SLI GTX 280s: 579W Max
4.0 GHz QX9650 with Triple 8800 Ultras: 671W Max Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThose figures are power at the outlet, though, right? And they're not tested in the same fashion as what Christoph did. Still, if you max out at 671W at the outlet, even with 88% efficiency you're only using 590W - nowhere near 1200W, which is what NVIDIA certifies for 3-way SLI. Quality over quantity, naturally, but there really aren't many terrible 1000W PSUs out there (which is why they all cost over $200). Reply
Torched - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkFor all the hullabaloo about the 12v Rail why nor just recommend a PS that has a single rail. More and more manufacturers are going in that direction anyways since it eliminates the whole power trapping issue. Reply
gramboh - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkGood article. The underlying point is that you do not need 1000-1500W PSUs to run your system like I see many people claiming you do for SLI setups. I see lots of people with 700-800W PSUs with one graphics card. Insane.
I've been running a Corsair HX520 (520W) for a year and a half now. My current config is:
Asus P5B-Deluxe (P965) mobo
Q6700 G0 @ 3.3GHz (1.42v actual voltage reported by Speedfan)
4x1GB PC2-6400 DDR2 memory
EVGA GTX280 video card overclocked (675-1350-2422)
3 hard drives (7200.11 1TB + 2x 7200.10 500GB)
1 optical (18x Samsung DVDRW SATA)
3 case fans ~1500rpm + CPU fan 1200rpm
SB X-Fi XtremeGamer audio
Zero issues and I'm sure I have headroom to spare. Some people on forums told me I should upgrade my PSU to at least a 650W Corsair or 750-800 of other brands to run the 6700/GTX280, just goes to show people have fallen for the marketing hype of PSUs. Reply
cesthree - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI have had a few different systems in the last 6 months. Using the Zalman MFC-2 I can see the wattage being used in real-time. How accurate it is, I do not know, but it gets me in the ballpark.
All systems have had the same 4 WD1600YS HDD, Lite-On DVD burner, 700W OCZ GameXStream PSU, and OCZ DDR3 1333Mhz 2x1 GB RAM. I also run 4 x 120mm fans including the one mounted to my TRUE-120.
1. EVGA 790i Ultra (JUNK) w/ Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz 1.35VCORE, 1400Mhz FSB, 8800GTS 320MB SLI
Idle Load: 225W, Prime Load: 275W, 3DMARK06: 325W.
Never saw higher than 400-425W during highest loads.
2. DFI X48-T3RS (PWNING 790i ULTRA) w/ Q6600 @ 3.0Ghz 1.32VCORE, 1333Mhz FSB, EVGA 9800GTX
Idle Load: 200W, Prime Load: 250W, 3DMARK06: 290W.
Never saw higher than 350-375W during highest loads.
3. DFI X48-T3RS w/ E8400 @ 3.0Ghz 1.245VCORE, 1333MHZ FSB, EVGA 9800GTX
Idle Load: 175W, Prime Load: 200W, 3DMARK06: 250W.
Never saw higher than 300-325W during highest loads.
BTW, all Watts are averages. Prime Load is averages between blend testing and small FFT's.
I really like the meter on the MFC-2. If it is at all accurate, then it supports the logic that it isn't always necessary to have a 2000KW PSU.
I could see needing a higher wattage, QUALITY PSU, for CF or SLI + the latest GPU'S, non-extreme CPU, with everything OC'd 25-50%, and maybe a single loop WC as well.
Just my 2 cents. Reply
Spacecomber - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI was wondering if it might have been helpful to add some comments on the importance (or not) or having 8-pin 12-volt motherboard connectors, instead of the more standard 4-pin motherboard connector. I don't think that this motherboard connector, which I think largely powers the CPU, was given much attention relative to the discussion of the additional 4-pin connector for the main motherboard connector (20 + 4) and the PCI-E power connectors.
Overall, this was a very good article. I like how it places technical details about power supplies into a context of everyday use. Reply
CSMR - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThe power consumption data on page 1 is completely overblown.
The tables claim to represent actual power consumption of processors and chipsets but the figures are completely exaggerated.
There are even people who run whole systems on one or two of the chipsets listed on less power than the power the article claims for just the chipset.
Here are actual CPU measurements from behardware and xbitlabs:
I haven't seen measurements of chipset power but here is a list of TDPs:
Must fix this soon as Anand needs to keep its reputation for good information. Reply
Zoatebix - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkSeriously. This guy didn't go too far our of his way to make a 30-40 watt system: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php...">http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/vi...tdays=0&... Reply
BernardP - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThe following paragraph from the article has me puzzled:
"It's important to have one 12V rail supply the CPU with power and the second rail for the PCI-E slots and 6-pin connector. Unfortunately, many companies make a tremendous mistake when it comes to power distribution. We have seen several power supplies that use one 12V rail for the 6-pin PEG connector and then a second 12V rail for the CPU and 24-pin ATX connector. That means if you have a graphics card that doesn't include a 6-pin jack, both the CPU and GPU will use the same 12V rail for power. In this case, the second 12V rail goes completely unused, and users risk drawing too much current on the remaining 12V rail."
I have an Antec Eartwatts 380. How can I find out if Antec has made the tremendous mistake or not? I want to make sure that the 6-pin connector and PCI-E slot are on their own 12V rail. Antec litterature on this PS says:
"Dual 12V outputs: 12V2 for motherboard and peripherals, 12V1 for processor"
It would seem OK, assuming "peripherals" includes the 6-pin connector.
7Enigma - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkWhat is your graphics card? From the article it seems to me they are saying if you do NOT have a card that requires a 6-pin PEG connector then you could possibly have an issue. If you have a card requiring a PEG connector you don't have to worry. Reply
BernardP - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkExactly. I am planning to add a 9500GT to my existing system (integrated graphics). No power connector on that card. Reply
Dribble - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkhttp://extreme.outervision.com/powercalc.jsp">http://extreme.outervision.com/powercalc.jsp
Seems to return sensible values, and not only does it cover pretty well every component you might come across, but it also understands overclocking, over volting, and allows you to enter a value for capacitor ageing.
Also, here is a thread which someone has helpfully listed real power requirements (as given in reviews) for pretty well all graphic cards on the market right now:
http://archive.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&...">http://archive.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=2&... Reply
drank12quartsstrohsbeer - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkHey Guys: Remember that decibels is a logrithmic scale of measurement! Using a linear scale on the graph leads to inappropriate conclusions being drawn from the data. Reply
7Enigma - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI don't think it does. Maybe a quick *note* at the beginning of the acoustics section mentioning its logrithmic, but it is very easy to read a linear scale.
Also, the majority of the tested systems fall well below the floor of most systems (20 decibels), so it is a moot point anyway. Reply
gmkmay - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI'll start off by saying good article, however I would have liked to see a few additions.
Other than the aforementioned new cards and overclocking information I think it would have been helpful to include common watercooling pumps and case/system fans. There is most likely a large enough set reading this that would have liked to see those added.
The problem with the power supply issue is you have to be really careful not to get something too weak...and its really easy to forget a few small items that can quickly add up (for instance 2 pumps, 8 120mm fans, etc). Reply
mindless1 - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - linkNobody building a PC needs 8 x 120mm fans. Let's suppose you throttle down the fans enough that you might actually have good use for so many to have them all at very low RPM. That would tend to cause under 150mA per fan or barely over 1A total, a relatively trivial amount of power considering that even spinning up any one hard drive causes a larger momentary spike.
A couple pumps shouldn't use all that much power either, but if you're pouring enough money into the system to have it that elaborate then why would you be on the fence about choosing a marginally capable PSU versus one with plenty of reserve power to the point where 3A one way or the other isn't a factor? Reply
Anubis - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkwould be interesting to see numbers on just how much power OCing pulls over a non OCed system Reply
Christoph Katzer - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI had a QX9770 just slightly overclocked with basic bios functions (for an oc-noob like me) and already then it had an increased power draw of 20% at full load compared to normal. Reply
7Enigma - Monday, September 22, 2008 - link20% greater system power? or just for the cpu? If just the CPU what did it equate to system-wise if you don't mind me asking?
In an earlier post I mentioned a high-end PSU possibly being better than the mid-grade if you were going to moderately overclock (it was right at the overlap point under heavy load) from a sound and efficiency standpoint. But that was assuming an increase of 20-30% overall. Reply
CK804 - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkFinally, an article from Anandtech that will really open people's eyes on how much power they actually need. Reply
Beenthere - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkWhen purchasing a PSU, ignoring the importance of PSU quality and output, in favor of noise and efficiency is foolhardy.
Many PSUs do not provide clean power or the rated power - especially under heavy laod. In additional while the article touched on it, depending on the 12V rail design, many PSUs can't deliver the proper power (wattage) to the 12V rail(s) even though the PSU total wattage rating may be more than sufficient . While I'm all for green it is always better to buy a quality PSU that delivers at least 20% more power than you current needs, to provide update headroom and maintain good PSU efficiency and low noise.
If you're not comparing PSU quality, power output per rail and warranty before considering efficiency, noise and cost, then you've missed the point of buying a proper PSU. While most folks do not need a 1000W PSU, many need a quality PSU that can deliver the correct power to each rail and a PSU that will last. Reply
7Enigma - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkWouldn't a high efficiency PSU by design be a quality PSU? Generally inferior parts/design are the reason for poor efficiency... Reply
mindless1 - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - linkHigh efficiency doesn't automatically mean high quality per it's own ratings, and an old design not attempting to have high efficiency can still be using reasonably good quality parts and design, unless all your criteria revolve around efficiency being a necessary factor before you'd call a PSU "quality".
Take server PSU for example, many don't have such high efficiency but many are higher quality than those used in PCs.
Do you realize that more elaborate filters will reduce efficiency? To some extent, trying to maximize efficiency limits how much quality can be present. Reply
marc1000 - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkand it is powered by a old Pentium-D 945 (3.4ghz, 90w TDP, and it gets quite hot actually). I also have 1 HDD, 1 DVD-RW, 2GB of ddr2 ram, and one Radeon 3850 512mb.
I was in fact using a high-quality 250W PSU, the one that came bundled with the system (I believe it is high-quality because of the build quality and the clear specs, and also because it is a system I bought from HP with "free upgrades option", so I upgraded the CPU+GPU by my own. I wanted a Core2Duo, but my mobo will not accept it.)
whatever. the 250w PSU was working fine, even when I ran old games or 3dmark01. but on 3dmark03/05/06 and newer games, the system was turning itself off after 5 or 10 minutes. so i bought this very quiet AKASA 300w PSU with a single PEG, and now I have a relatively quiet computer that works just fine with no power problems.
this is quite a good gaming machine, if you want to know. I am OK with 20/30 fps, as I am not a hardcore gamer. and I can play GRID at 1680x1050 with almost everything high and 2xAA at this frame rate. also Crysis run fine with everything to medium at this resolution and frame-rate (but this is not so enjoyable because it is a fast-paced FPS). I know that my CPU is the bottleneck, but maybe next year I will change the mobo+CPU.
It is a modest PC, with a modest PSU, for a modest gamer! =) Reply
Insomniac - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkYou said the Corsair VX450W performs best of the low power usage system PSUs. But looking at the charts, it seems the Amacrox Calmer 300W is the best. Its efficiency curve is the highest through the range and its noise curve is the lowest through the range. Was this an oversight or was there a reason this PSU would not work for the midrange system?
If it was, that seems like a great PSU. It would be close to the other mid-range PSUs in efficiency and the best for noise. It would be great for a low power system, but has quite a bit of headroom as well. Reply
Christoph Katzer - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkSince it is passively cooled it has a very limited usability... If you run a few fans it won't be a problem but then you still have the huge price difference between both units. Reply
Insomniac - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThanks for the information! Reply
duploxxx - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkVery nice article it really explains the desires and needs what to buy for PSU altough i am missing some top psu's like seasonic for example.
Only unfortunate is that some measurements of hardware are way out of range... especially in the motherboard parts.
And if you want to be stay out of who is best... you know the always existing rival that a site has a preferred vendor, take the latest hardware from both sides, if not leave it out. Reply
kuraegomon - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkAargh. The most important argument for ensuring that your PS has plenty of headroom is ... lifespan!
The most knowledgeable PS people out there will all tell you the same thing: running even a quality PS at consistently more than 80% or so of its rated output is all but guaranteed to reduce its operational lifespan. It's also a catch-22 because the longer a PS is run at high load, the less the maximum load it can support becomes. This isn't a terribly quick process, but quite a sure one. Track down any number of JonnyGuru's comments/reviews out there for more info.
Do all the math stated in this article, and figure out what your idle and load draws approximate too, then make sure you've got 30% headroom on top of your load requirement. This is BEFORE taking into account any expansion plans. Also, try to remember that 850 PCP&C supply described here STILL isn't being used the way a power user uses their system. It's spending more time at or near peak load, but it's also quite likely spending a fair bit of time on the shelf. Reply
7Enigma - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkWhat is your point? In the article the PSU's for each category are well under 80% utilization. If you look back at the charts, in the rated range for each system:
-low end is utilized <50% of rated wattage
-mid-range is utilized <75% of rated wattage
-high-end is utilized <80% except for the Neopower Blue (which honestly looks pretty crappy both from a efficiency and sound standpoint)
That is across the board. In each category the higher-rated parts are obviously utilized less than those percentages.
Even the comments below each chart bares this out. For the low end, for example, they state that a 250w PSU would be perfect, while even a 200w would suffice. With a total system draw of 140w, the 250w would be near 50% utilization (56% if you want to be picky), and the 200w would still be <75% utilization.
I don't see fault in this article from that standpoint. Reply
vlado08 - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThe problem is that even if you calculate the expected power draw of your system you have to trust the label on the power supply and to be sure that if it says 500w then it is so. Well then you just end up to trust the trade mark or some reviews for the model you are going to by.
Or you trust somebody who is going to assemble your new computer for you. Reply
7Enigma - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThank you very much for this article. As someone building a system by the new year I appreciate it greatly!
One interesting thing is that there are times where the higher wattage supplies actually make more sense due to efficiency (and probably more connectors/warranty/etc.).
The Enermax Pro82+ 625w is definitely the best mid-range you have listed IMO for a stock system (ie non-OC'd), but for someone looking to OC their system I think the Zalman850 from the high-end section is probably the better buy (both efficiency and soundwise). There is a crossover point very close to idle power levels (if you take into account another 25-50w for an OC'd system), and so anything above idle will have better efficiency and at load quieter levels.
But I haven't checked the price difference, which I'm assuming is quite large. A 1-2% efficiency difference between the Enermax and Zalman is probably not worth the increase in price from both a ROI (from power savings and increased case temp from inefficiency).
Thanks again for the great review! Reply
vlado08 - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkIn the article you didn't mention how did you measure the power draw of different components for example the CPU or the draw from PCI express? And haw did you test the efficiency of the different power supplies? Reply
Don Tonino - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI found the remarks concerning the efficiency charts a bit misleading... why give the range of efficiency of the high end system, for example, as between 85% and 89%, when the first number refers to the efficiency with 90VAC? the numbers given out are not consistent, as the systems at 230VAC show in reality the following efficiencies approx:
low end - 74 to 80 %
midrange - 82 to 88 %
high end - 87.5 to 89.5%
Based on the numbers above, the PSU is actually quite well suited to the high system as the efficiency changes by a meager 2% between idle and load. It would be even better with some extra load, so to place the idle/load range between 450 and 700 W.
As far as the point to make is to show how efficiency changes with the load, it would have been as meaningful to give data just for the 230VAC, as it was already stated that efficiency with 120VAC or 90VAC would be even lower. Reply
Insomniac - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThe range isn't for 90VAC to 240VAC, it's to cover the idle load to full load range of the sample system. Reply
Don Tonino - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkCheck the chart. For every system the lower efficiency, the one given for the sistem at idle, has a value that at that particular power load (respectively given as 90W, 168W and 310W) lies on the red line, the one representing efficiency of the PSU when running at 90VAC.
This is most evident if you take the high end system, which is stated will make the PSU run at an efficiency between 85% and 89%; those values, if you move on the blu line (PSU running at 230VAC) means a power load between 200W and 650W).
Giving the idle efficiency with the PSU running at 90VAC and the load efficiency with the PSU running at 230VAC gives a much higher change in efficiency than real. The only real meaning for it would be to say: "with such a system and such a PSU you will have an efficiency between A% and B%, based on the current the PSU is running on"... and I seriously doubt that anyone at home have an electrical system that changes VAC on the run.
Insomniac - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkI see what you are saying now. I misunderstood what you said before. It seems a table would be better to show the efficiency range for each, or the values for one curve only (the article seems to say it was supposed to only be 230 VAC). Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkSorry for the error - not sure how we missed that, but yes the efficiency with the high-end system and UCP 900W is higher than stated initially. Must have been confused with the other systems, but I'll correct the text now. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkEdit: Christoph's text reflect the range for 90VAC to 230VAC, but my editing made that a little less clear. I've added in "input voltage" comments to clarify things. Reply
poohbear - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkthanks for this article!!! im planning on running 2 8800gt's in SLI on a 80% efficient enermax 420wt psu. it has 29a on the 12v+ line so im confident it can run it. All this BS about needing 500+wts psus is nonsense if you know your cards power needs. Reply
bela - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkWhere did you get those power figures? Dream last night or what?
This is totally made up bullshit.
The ANTI-AMD war continues @ Anandtech
you compare 2 year old 90nm AMD DC with new 45nm Intel DC, is that a fair peer group?
6000+ 160W load? Even with 90nm this ist ridicoulus, it should be around 110W, a new 65nm 6000+ needs less then 80 Watt, a 65nm 5000+ less then 60W, so talk about making Intel look good. Reply
elaar - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkbela, you seem to be incredibly rude and have also missed the entire point of the article, if it makes you that annoyed then why not do us all a favour and stop reading articles and commenting in the future.
I for one found the article incredibly useful especially when you consider the sheer number of people who go out and buy way too powerful psu's and have no idea what they're doing.
It doesn't matter what processor or graphics cards power stats were listed, they were just there as examples for the article, god knows how you've managed to get so confused with paranoia to believe it was an anti AMD campaign.
Thanks Anandtech for a superb article. Reply
npp - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThe power draw figures for the X2 6000+ are a bit off-scale (and yes, it is an older 90nm die, apparently), it's a tiny bit, however. You can have a look at the charts here (damn, the stupid link button doesn't work):
The system equiped with an X2 6000+ was measured to draw about 304W at full load and 180W at idle. Adding ~25W to that difference makes for ~150 total power consumption, which comes close to what was stated in the article. Just because you thought "it should be around 110W" doesn't make you automaticaly right. Learn living with the truth and stop behaving like a small child.
Furthermore, as it was properly stated, those figures were intended to draw a frame around the best and worst case scenarios, representing some of the CPUs typicaly found in a system today. They weren't meant as a CPU-to-CPU comparison.
That old dark sense of anti-AMD or anti-Intel paranoia continues to be abundant in every discussion nowadays... What a triumph for the PR brainwashers at both camps. Reply
bela - Friday, September 26, 2008 - linkNo, they are not of scale, they are bullshit, nothing else but made up numbers.
Look at this:
X2 6400+ WITH Voltage Regulator, depending on Board 85,9 or 103,3 Watt
This ist the truth, nothing else Reply
Kiijibari - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkCould this be a typo ?
106W is ok, 160W is a little bit out of the "normal" scale ..
Furthermore .. which 6000+ is it ?
There are 3 different models:
one 90nm "normal" model: 125W 3,0 GHz; 2x1MB L2 (ADX6000IAA6CZ)
one 90nm EE model: 89W 3,0 GHz; 2x1MB L2 (ADA6000IAA6CZ)
one 65nm model: 89W 3,1 GHz; 2x512kB L2 Cache (ADV6000IAA5DO)
JPForums - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThis is a curiosity for me as well.
I have an A64 X2 6400+ 125W, 3.2GHz, 2x1MB L2 (don't remember the model number off hand) that doesn't seem to require near that power.
The 6400+ is running on an nForce 570SLI with 8Gb (4x2Gb) DDR2-800.
The video card is an 8800GTS 512Mb.
I have 4 HDDs 2 optical drives and 8 fans (7 case + CPU fan) that according to specifications run at 8.6W when at full speed (how I have them while gaming).
If I use the (presumably lower) power ratings used for the 6000+ and the 8800GT, and I exclude the power of usb components and the fan controller/sensor overhead, my total system consumption at load (using the values from the article) is around 450W.
The curiosity is that the same Enermax Pro82+ 385W PSU mentioned in the article has no issue running this system. (Ironically emphasizing the point of the article) Using a basic kill-a-watt meter, I found a power draw of 378.2 was as high as it got during benchmarking, gaming, stressing the system. For reference, I tried 3DMarks 2006/Vantage, Stalker, Crysis, C&C3, and a combination of 2xPrime95 + ATItool's GPU heat up mode (rotating fuzzy block). The ATI tool combo offered the largest power draw in my system. Granted, the kill-a-watt may not be as accurate and I may not have stressed the system as well as in the article, but I suspect the power draw numbers for the 6000+ are lower than the article suggests.
That small inconsistency aside, this was a nice article. I would like to see those power draw blocks that you overlayed on the power efficiency and noise curves included in future PSU reviews. It would be a quick and easy way to let people know how applicable the PSU being reviewed is to them. It would also be interesting to see how high the power draw gets with water cooling systems, case mods (I.E. cold cathodes), and the likes. Reply
Christoph Katzer - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkMy 6000+ was 90nm, yours? Reply
Kiijibari - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkHe has a 6400+, that CPU is 90nm only (so far).
But he has a AM2 mainboard, maybe you had a AM2+ board, and the onboard VRMs are running badly with a AM2 CPU ?
Kiiji Reply
Christoph Katzer - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkYes I guess that was the problem. Thanks for pointing that out! Reply
ViRGE - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkChristoph, thanks for the excellent article. There is one thing I noticed however that has me a bit confused. In a few of your video card tests, you have the cards pulling upwards of 100 watts from the PCIe slot. It has been my understanding, and is mentioned in AT's X38 chipset article*, that the limit for a PCIe slot is 75W. Your results put this value in contention, so I'm not sure what to believe at this point.
Is it that I am mistaken that the limit is 75W, or are your video cards pulling too much power from the slot, or is there a problem with the data? Reply
Christoph Katzer - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkThanks. The data is correct since the cards draw power through the PCIE slot and the additional PEG connectors (6-pin or 8-pin). Towards the end of the article you will find a list which card drew how much power from the PCIE slot and the PEG connector. 75 watts is however correct for the older PCIE slots, PCIE2.0 can draw up to 150 watts. Reply
mobutu - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkWhere is AMD 4850?
Also almost all the graph cards used are kind of old, previous generation. Reply
Dobs - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkHere is a link to a comprehensive list of all graphics cards.
Dobs - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkdamn... link didn't work
Copy and paste :)
Clauzii - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkNice lists, thanks :) Reply
Christoph Katzer - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkAs stated I didn't have all of the new stuff here and this article anyway focuses primarily on power supplies and how to choose them and not the power consumption of the components... but it might come soon, who knows. Reply
LTG - Monday, September 22, 2008 - link>>our labs don't have the latest GPUs available for testing
Isn't this kind of a bad thing for a site with so many enthusiast readers?
First two caveats:
1) There are a lot of article bashers out there who nit-pick, give rude feedback, or are just plain wrong, I don't support these guys or want to be one.
2) The article written was very good and helpful, thank you.
However it doesn't matter that the article "primarily focused on how to choose power supplies".
- Leaving out a GTX 280 was a big omission. Even better to have an stock OC'd product.
- Leaving out very basic overclock numbers was a big omission. For example it's very common for readers to have an Intel QC clocked at 3.6Ghz since it's so doable.
Having the last two data points would be very helpful for those building top systems, and would even be interesting for those who are not.
7Enigma - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkAs mentioned, the article is about the myth that we all need 1k PSU's for the "best experience". Bottom line this article shows that the vast majority of people do not need more than a 500-600w psu. How is leaving out any stock product an omission? Just look at the TDP of the product and go from there. All stock products will fall within a narrow range.
Once you get to OC'ing I also think this is a difficult thing to do. Individual chips, even from the same batch can have very different properties and require different voltages to reach the same speeds. I'm sure if the author had put that his Intel quad drew 120w at 3.6GHz, someone would have complained that their's took 135w, and someone else only 110w...Once you go above stock, it is not cut and dry and as the article states you should have a 20-30% extra buffer if you wish to OC.
I feel the scope of the article just doesn't require these extra requests. Sure it would be nice to see just how crazy of a system you can make (if I remember correctly they did that a while ago to actually use the >1000w supplies), but this article was to show what a normal base, mid-grade, and high-end setup would require.
I've complained in the past about articles, but this one I don't see any serious faults. Reply
LTG - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkYou can't just look at the TDP's, that's the problem.
When you overclock the power demands can increase in a very non-linear way.
So for example I can't plan for one of the most popular 280 cards like the EVGA FTW 280 GTX. It's 11% core over clocked, what does that mean at the outlet? No good way to guess.
Same for a 3.6Ghz QC CPU - this is a very common overclock, yet there is no direct way to know it's power requirements.
I'm just saying this is not esoteric information, this would be data people really could use and can't get from the manufacturer.
xaris106 - Friday, November 07, 2008 - linkBut you can. All you need is stock power consumption at load(Pstock), stock voltage(Vstock) and stock frequency(Fstock) The oc power is then:
Poc = Pstock * (Foc/Fstock) * (Voc/Vstock)^2 Reply
nubie - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkUnless they edited this, you are operating on a false assumption.
(Unfortunately, our power supply testing labs didn't have the latest GPUs available for testing.)
A power supply testing lab doesn't need to have every component on hand because it uses a test bench to load the supplies.
Great article, way to dispel myths, I guess since I only plan to overclock with a single video card and one or two hard drives my PCPower Silencer 470 will be enough power for many years to come (which is what I hoped when I bought it, the only downside is the single 6-pin for the video card, when it can clearly handle much more.) Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkJust for the curious, AnandTech staff is scattered far and wide around the globe (well, at least the US and Europe). I'm west coast, Wes is east coast, Anand and Derek are in NC, Gary is in TX, and we have Johan and Liz in Belgium with Christoph in France. (That's not everyone, but you get the point.) Since we tend to focus on our own areas of testing, Derek and Anand have the most CPU/GPU hardware, I have laptops and displays, Gary has motherboards, etc. I can definitely say that Christoph isn't the only one without 48x0 and GTX 2x0 hardware. [Pardon me while I go cry in a corner now....] Reply
hyvonen - Wednesday, June 03, 2009 - linkOh, so in order to get this power draw info on more components, I should beg Anand? :) Reply
LTG - Monday, September 22, 2008 - linkTotally understood, many companies now days are distributed and can't have every physical resource available to every person.
However I would volunteer to send Christof a new 280 GTX to test if he decides it's worth it.
Serious - Just please send it back whenever finished :). And I waive all claims if it is accidentally fried by that fancy Chroma thingy.
ineedaname - Tuesday, November 02, 2010 - linkThis article is well written and tried to put real life numbers and situations to the test on PSUs.
However i felt that they should mention one other thing for people who are novice to computers. They should mention that just because a PSU is rated for 500w it doesn't necessarily mean that it will do the job even if your computer will only suck about 150w max. Because a 500w psu that comes along with a $50 case just won't do the job. Not because of the wattage rating but because they use crappy parts and workmanship; it'll just die in 3 months when the warranty is over. Reply


text:
Posted on Dec 5, 02:05It's a good strategy for them but adding a little feature shouldn't cost the consumer $100, I believe. Except the retina display which can cost a lot, the mid-entry iPad is pretty pointless
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subset: commoncrawl


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Our Frightening Forearms & Grip DVD is a full body workout focused on grip strength with the wrist roller, rope and a pile of weights. This is pretty minimalist stuff.
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How and why did Roger come up with this quick and super intense workout?
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CyberPowerPC's Gamer Xtreme 4000: Now with Sandy Bridgeby Dustin Sklavos on 1/4/2011 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- Systems
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- CyberPowerPC
42 Comments
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ABR - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkYou mention the motherboard in this box "made the jump" to EFI. Does that mean the graphics card in it supports EFI? I.e. it can be used unmodified in a MacPro? Reply
Gothmoth - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkdon´t know what a EFI bios has to do with the GFX card.
i have an EFI board and can put in a 3 year old 8800 GT card.
your problem is more likely that the apple crappis build only to run with certain cards. Reply
Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkYour board most likely has BIOS emulation going on to allow the old card to run. As the are extensive differences between EFI and BIOS/CMOS. Cards not supporting EFI will not function on a board with EFI only.
Boards that are EFI only, without any BIOS emulation, require their video cards to fully support EFI. This is one of the reasons graphics cards for MacPro's are not standard cards. It is believed once PC's decide to finally ditch BIOS/CMOS, that graphics cards will become standardized between the two, allowing for (comparitively) cheap MacPro video cards. Reply
Kaboose - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkNot a bad build over all, however it seems most games were gpu limited. Stepping down to a 2500k and lowering the price (or keeping it the same to avoid a price hike) would be a good choice for most gamers. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkRight. I dont get why they used a 2600K at all since the 2500k is highly likely to overclock to the same 4.4GHz or perhaps even more due to disabled HT. $100 for 4 mostly unused threads and a 30% increase in cache seems like a waste next to a boot drive SSD. Especially if the IGP is disabled. Reply
Sihastru - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - link2500K lacks HT and has 2MB of cache shaved off. Reply
Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkHT has limited use anyway. A hyper threaded core will not perform anywhere close to as well as a real physical core. And if gaming is the main purpose of the box, anything over 4 cores is a waste anyway. And the 2MB difference in cache most likely would not have much of an effect either for the majority of games.
And since this box is designed for gaming, the 2500K would most likely perform identically to the 2600K. Reply
Nentor - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkActually if you look at the gaming benches in the SB review on AT you'll see that the 2500K is FASTER than the 2600K when it comes to gaming, so yeah, this is a weird choice Cyberpower made.
Must be a marketing thing. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkLet's not get carried away, there. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridg...
i7-2600K comes out ahead in six of the ten games, and there are certainly titles that truly fail to leverage multithreading (hello StarCraft II!). The net difference across the ten tests Anand ran gives the 2600K a 2.3% advantage--negligible, I know, but that certainly doesn't make the 2500K FASTER as you suggest; nearly equal is more like it.
Besides, people do plenty of other things with their PC besides gaming. Video encoding (x264) was as much as 31% faster on the 2600K, and the compiler test took 31% less time. 7-Zip (MIPS) and POV-Ray also give the 2600K a >35% lead.
If all you want is a fast gaming system, 2500K is probably the best bang for the buck. If every little speed boost is important, though, and you regularly run some heavily threaded applications, 2600K can end up anywhere from 10% to 40% faster. Reply
Nentor - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkNo, I am right.
The 2600K has a higher clock and that is the cause of the 2.3% advantage.
Either clock them the same and test or overclock them both as far as they go. I know which one I will put my money on, wanna bet?
This box is even called the "Gamer Xtreme", so it is obvious who it is buidl for. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkYou never said "faster because if the 3% higher clock speed", you just said FASTER. It's not, and even at the same clocks it probably wouldn't make much of a difference. We're mostly GPU limited, but the larger cache (and possibly HTT, though that's unlikely) comes into play.
There's no reason the 2500K should outperform 2600K; more cache and a slightly higher clock put it ahead, and the days of HTT actually reducing performance are mostly behind us. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if many of the differences are simply margin of error (which can easily be 2% if you're using FRAPS on a game like WoW).
As to the second assertion that calling something a "Gamer Xtreme" means it's only for gaming, that's ludicrous. I play lots of games, but I also happen to do plenty of image editing and video encoding. I probably spend as much time on Facebook and in other mundane tasks as I do in games, and yet I have a quad-core i7 with 5850 CrossFire. These days, PC gamers are very likely to do social networking as well, which means images and videos.
I still wouldn't spend $100 extra to get more cache and Hyper-Threading, at least not until I had an SSD in the build (and for gaming, probably a second GPU so I can use my 30" LCD at native res), but if you have everything else you need the 2600K isn't without merits. Reply
Nentor - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkDon't get all pedantic on me Jarred. You know perfectly well what I mean.
Now I am just trying to figure out why someone, the editor even!, gets all feisty about this. That sort of thing feeds people claiming AT takes sides.
There may be no reason the 2500K should outperfom the 2600K, but it does as can be seen in the charts. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkTaking sides in what sense? All I've said is that you're not actually telling the whole story, which is something you continue to do. Call me pedantic for pointing out the facts if you will, but my own experience is such that I'd rather have the extra logical cores of Hyper-Threading. And calling me "feisty" is pretty much a case of the pot calling the kettle black my friend. LOL ("No, I am right. Hold on a sec while I me put on my blinders to explain why....")
I wish I had some SNB desktop hardware of my own to play with, because there are quite a few unanswered questions I'd like to investigate more. You bring up a few of them--what happens if you disable HTT on the 2600K? Why would the 2500K without HTT ever beat the 2600K with HTT? How far can you push 2500K overclocking vs. 2600K, and what sort of power requirements do you end up with? Is disabling HTT beneficial for overclocking in any way? Like I said, plenty of questions left unanswered.
I don't know if somehow there's some scheduling going on (suggested by risa2000 below) that gets in the way of performance in some games or what. I will say that I've never felt Windows' scheduler was all that impressive, and the way it appears to wake the CPU up all the time just to verify that no one needs work done is obvious when you look at what Apple achieves with battery life compared to Windows. Win7 is an improvement but it's by no means perfect. Let's hope for better in Windows 8. Reply
Nentor - Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - linkWow, excuse me for apparently misjudging the average level here at AT.
I thought people here were smart enough to not need everything spelled out and not need every conclusion drawn out.
If two chips are compared one of which is 0.1ghz faster than the other and the slower one is faster than the faster one in 4 out of 10 games and the faster one is faster than the slower one in 6 out of 10 games with only a 2.3% advantage and based on that data someone calls the slower one faster overall it is pretty obvious what he means right? Or is that rocketscience right there? Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - linkLets review a few facts here. These are probably ES chips (at least one of the ones Anand photographed was). That means there might be more variation in what they can handle than in production batches. Assuming Anand's tests were done with all normal features enabled, could be the gaming tests were sensitive to something like this particular example of a 2600K running warmer, and using turbo less. I haven't played with any of these and I doubt you have either, but after CES some of the editors probably will have a chance to answer some of these questions Reply
SlyNine - Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - linkRocket Science has a long way to go before it can decipher that dribble.
They don't make upward shovels so quit before you end up in china. Reply
risa2000 - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkSpeaking about Starcraft 2 and 2600K drop mentioned in Sandy Bridge review: Could it be possible that SC2 in fact tries to utilize all 8 logical cores, but due to some implementation issues blocks a lot?
It would be possible to test, if you could run SC2 on 2600K with only physical cores enabled (HT disabled) - though it is not probably worthy the time.
On the other side, it might be a "good" question to some Intel insider to explain this anomaly - which may also help developers to code "correctly" for HT enabled machine. Reply
L. - Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - linkHT is bad for current games.
if you activate HT on a 2600K and measure it against a 2500K you might see some issues :)
Again, fail PC . who the hell would OC their 2600k and STOP at 4.4 ??
Like hello, you can do 5 Ghz on air, why not just do it and be happy ?
For the same price I can get me a 5 ghz 2600k and a GTX580 so . again boutiques miss the point.
On the other side, I live in a world where the word "blu-ray" means "another failed optical media" and thus I can't appreciate this product to it's full extent ...
But seriously, why does no real geek work for these companies ? Reply
NuclearDelta - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkThis is the second time I saw them slammed. Are they really that bad? Reply
Nentor - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkPeople like to fool themselves.
Oh it is cheap, so it must be bad. All the while forgetting that they think expensive is good only because they were learned that from a young age by marketing, etc. Some companies choose to do it another way. With the result they can sell high end ram for lower prices.
If you look at the reviews for the fast (and cheap!) A-Data ram on Newegg for example they are excellent pieces of hardware. There are enough people who are willing to look through brands and get the best from it.
4GB PC3 12800 for $48.99
etc. Great ratings. Reply
Anosh - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkAm I the only one not getting very much out of this review due to the mix of hardware; single gpu vs sli both with different cpu generations and overclock? I can't get a proper perspective to be able to decide if this system is performing as it should or better. Reply
vol7ron - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkYes and no. It's not the easiest to compare, but AT is given what they're given, you sort of have to fill in the rest.
Something's better than nothing. I'm still unimpressed to see the BCLK wasn't touched; but I don't know much about OC. If you raise the voltage, does it become a static voltage? Also, is the speedstep/turbo (whatever it's called) still employed, or do you only have one steady OC when up'ing the voltage.
44x multiplier is pseudo decent, I'd expect more from liquid cooled. I'd also expect the BCLK to get up to 104-107. Reply
beepboy - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkSandy Bridge has a built in clock generator, so raising the BCLK will result in system instability and the gains from it is abysmal. I suggest you read Anand's earlier post on Sandy Bridge.
On nicer boards (even on current P55), you can raise CPU voltage as 'offset'. This isn't static, and the board will manage the voltage as required by the CPU and applying the offset. So at maximum TDP the board will add whatever offset you applied. This is nice because during idle you can still have sub 1 V draw.
Moore's law will still apply and I think there's a soft wall (binning) past the 44x multiplier. These systems go through extensive 24 hour burn-in test with multiple benches for system stability and I bet if they could have been pushed further they would have. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkHi Dustin,
I disagree with your conclusion that the OC on the system can be let off the hook. The fact that SandyBridge is so easy to OC (due to the limited amount of factors you can actually change) means it takes much LESS effort than previous CPU's. Flipping a multiplier setting in the BIOS while making no other changes is borderline brainless. I'm sure ALL boutique builds using the new chip will have similar OC's so giving them a pass because they kept idle voltages low is like giving them credit for Intel's work.....
The caveat to this post is (if they don't pull the switch-aroo again) is that the build price is low enough when factoring in the components that the OC can almost be considered "free". Reply
vol7ron - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkI agree. I'm just now reading your comment and I've already left two other comments about the OC.
Sometimes vendors charge extra for an OC, since it does require more manual intervention. Perhaps that's what happened here; they got a standard OC (just the multiplier), but you could pay more money and get the the timings/vcore/bclk adjusted as well.
To me this isn't considered an "OC" by CyberPower, it's merely changing a config setting. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkKeep in mind that this is the first encounter Dustin has had with SNB, and his review was written separately (and before) Anand's write-up. I've added an editor's note on the overclock and modified things a bit, but honestly we have to wait and see what other vendors are willing to offer before we can truly say how this OC stands up. It's certainly more compelling than the stuff Dustin encountered with the previous 1366/1156 platforms, but that may simply be the Sandy Bridge influence. I have a feeling most reasonable overclocks on 2600K will fall into the 4.6GHz Turbo range, and I'm not really sure praising the final 4.5% overclock (relative to this 4.4GHz) is really that useful. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkHi Jarred,
Thanks for the reply. I guess my problem is the artificial limitation placed on a REALLY GOOD (thermally) chip by having everything but the voltages and multiplier essentially locked. The number of variables removed (and the smaller reliance on quality ram/mobo and tweaks as per Anand's review of the SNB platform) makes the job EASIER for the boutique builders to get a great OC that it makes me MORE critical not less.
You mentioned the 1366/1156 platforms, but all of those required (or should have) a lot more time invested in setting voltages/timings/etc. Yes the one review that had the cpu constantly run at a high clock-speed was unforgivable, but the other systems where "lazy" was thrown around probably took significantly more effort than the xtreme4000 which (without me seeing the bios settings firsthand) was likely a SINGLE number change for the multiplier (ok maybe 4 changes.....all with the same number) since it was mentioned in the review that everything else was left on auto.
When you get such a mature process as SNB where you can get hefty OC's using the rinky-dink stock Intel cooler, I think we need to hold these builders to a higher standard.
Thanks again for taking the time to read and respond to comments. Reply
vol7ron - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkI thought Anand got 4.4-to-4.5 GHz on stock air cooling. Something seems wrong when they only got 4.4GHz with liquid cooling. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkNothing is wrong, it's just a completely sloppy OC. These new chips allow a single change to be made (the multiplier) and you can OC quite a bit due to the great thermals. So rather then chew out Cyberpower for a (literally) 2-second OC job, they get praised for not changing the idle clocks.
Again it's tough to be harsh due to the price (if they actually are going to honor the price from the review), but let's call a spade a spade, it's a basic OC in every sense of the word. Reply
Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkSo correct me if I am wrong, I was tired when I read the Sandy Bridge Article, but the over clock here is only for when the chip is in Turbo mode correct?
IE: If all 4 cores are in use, its running at 3.4? Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkI believe the overclock applies to all the Turbo modes. So the 4.4GHz is for single-threaded, and you'd get lower than that for dual-core/multi-core operation. Intel didn't specifically list the Turbo states for the desktop chips (see my SNB Mobile article for comparison, where they explicitly list what SC, DC, and QC can Turbo up to), but if they do something similar to the mobile parts then you should still see up to ~4.0GHz even when loading all four cores. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkEdit: Okay, maybe this is the correct info from a different slide. Intel appears to state that on the desktop CPUs, Max Turbo is +4 bins for SC, +3 bins for DC, +2 bins for TC, and +1 bin for QC. That means if you set the Max Turbo to 4.4GHz, quad-core could still hit 4.1GHz (assuming temperatures are acceptable). Reply
Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkHmm, ok. Still seams a bit confusing the way they have it written. If its +1 but for QC, wouldn't that mean 1 bin up from the base clock? So if you over clocked the turbo from 3.8 to 4.4 thats effectively 600MHz, so 600Mhz over 3.4GHz is 4GHz? Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkYeah, that's what I'm not sure about. Can you raise the max Turbo for SC/DC/TC/QC separately? I don't think so, but I don't have any desktop hardware so I can't say for sure. It would make more sense to have the DC/TC/QC Turbo be Max - 1/2/3 in my book. I believe there's also some stuff in the BIOS where you can set the thermal/power range on the CPU (Ian mentioned this in the ASRock mobo review I think? Or maybe it was Anand's article....) I guess right now I'm stuck looking for information as well, while I long for SNB hardware other than the notebook I got. :-) Reply
cyberpowerpc - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkJust to clarify some concerns regarding the OC:
The 4.4 GHz OC is modest for Sandy Bridge. We could have easily shipped a 4.8/4.9 GHz system but feel that we did not want to ship a system with an Overclock that we, in the end, may not support.
Additionally, for the max turbo ratio, you can individually set what the DC/TC/QC turbo. In the review system, the max turbo ratio was set to x44 and that applies to DC/TC/QC. Reply
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkThank you for the reply, but what you are basically saying is you chose a single (modest) multiplier and put it for all DC/TC/QC values. Why would you choose the same number when the thermals should be vastly different (ie DC multiplier should be significantly higher than the QC multiplier)?
I think you just confirmed how basic this "OC" really was. Reply
Stuka87 - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkThanks for replying. It clears up the question that I had regarding the various turbo speeds.
However, why not set the turbo speed for DC to a higher level than TC or QC? It should be easily doable from a thermal standpoint, unless testing showed this to not be true and/or some other issue came up.
I understand not wanting to go too far and then not be able to support it, that makes perfect sense from your point of view. however. Reply
MeanBruce - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkSandy-M LGA-1055 does seem amazing, yet for those who don't know Sandy-E LGA-2011 is due in July. Native USB 3.0, LightPeak support, the new X-68 chipset, Quad-Channel memory, integrated north bridge, now that's worth waiting 6months for! The enthusiast platform CPU, Mainboard, and Memory, should cost only $200 to $250 more, well worth the investment! Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkI didn't think X68 (or whatever) was slated to get USB3.0, though I haven't really looked into that I admit. LightPeak might be nice though. Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - linkAccording to Anand's article, SNB-E won't be until Q4, i.e. October at the earliest http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridg... Reply
Ravenfeeder - Tuesday, January 04, 2011 - linkIt's interesting to see the first SNB machine, but it's not exactly an extreme gaming machine with on 4GB of RAM and no SSD. Depends on what games you're playing obviously, but time after time recently I've thanked the gods that I have more than 4GB and wished that I had a SSD when gaming. Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - linkHere's something called a "Gamer Ultra" with a 5450: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
these names are obviously just thrown around, for the CyberPower systems available at Newegg that "Gamer Ultra" name also applies to a system with dual 5870s, where it is much more deserved. Reply


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In October 1985, a developmentally disabled man in his late 20s drank a cup of oven cleaner. Despite severe burns, he survived.
He also unwittingly kicked off one of the longest lawsuits in the history of the state of New Mexico.
Today, the Jackson lawsuit—named for Walter Stephen Jackson, and filed after his near-poisoning—has dragged on for nearly 23 years and cost the state millions of dollars.
It also has changed the face of how New Mexico treats its developmentally disabled. Because of the Jackson suit, care has shifted from state-run institutions to intimate, community-based programs that allow disabled people to interact with the public, and to programs that pay family members to care for them.
There's little doubt the Jackson lawsuit brought necessary change. But today, its legacy is one of conflict. As the Jackson plaintiffs and the state continue to wrangle over the court's final remaining requirements, the list of New Mexicans waiting to participate in the state's developmental disability program—4,732—now exceeds the 3,883 people actually served.
On top of that, the New Mexico Department of Health has stated its intentions to cut funding for the very community programs that revolutionized developmental disability care.
"There's going to be a crisis on our hands," Deborah Davis Pierson, who cares for her developmentally disabled son under the Developmental Disabilities Waiver Program, tells SFR. "There's going to be people who can't afford to live anymore, people with disabilities that either have to move into group homes or be left on their own."
"There's going to be a crisis on our hands."
Indeed, to disability awareness advocates, the cuts seem designed to return New Mexico's most vulnerable population to the institutional horrors that prompted the Jackson lawsuit in the first place.
Court documents describe Walter Stephen Jackson as "profoundly retarded [with] a seizure disorder." They also reveal a history of abuse and neglect during the 22 years he lived at the state-run Los Lunas Hospital and Training School, including the oven-cleaner incident, as well as two broken arms.
He was not alone. In 1986, four Los Lunas residents suffered "abrasions and puncture wounds to the head," records show. One resident, "George," had 60 accidents and committed two rapes in less than a year.
"Another resident was sexually assaulted and died two days later," the court decision reads—an incident that went "unexplained and unaccounted for by the institution."
In May 1989, court observers saw the residents "running around the room, self-stimulating, screaming, and hitting each other." Thirty-nine residents were punished or restrained with ammonia, water mist, straitjackets and the "papoose board," a flat board with fabric arm and leg restraints. Others were seat-belted to toilets "because only one staff member was available to assist six residents." One had nine separate infirmary visits for human bites.
The problems, according to the court, stemmed from a dearth of staff, resources and training—and resulted in abuse, discrimination and unsafe conditions. In a lengthy, sweeping decision, US District Judge James A Parker ordered the state and lawyers representing approximately 700 formerly institutionalized developmentally disabled people to come up with a plan to relocate residents into surrounding communities and to improve institution conditions by September 1991.
In the mid-'90s, the state closed the Los Lunas and Fort Stanton Hospital and Training Schools and relocated all remaining institutional residents. By 1997, the state and plaintiffs had agreed to standards that ensured community care didn't become just a spread-out version of institutionalization. In 1997, the Albuquerque Journal reported that the agreement would end the case "within about two years."
But 13 years later, the two sides are still at odds—and New Mexico's developmentally disabled population is still in limbo.