If you’re planning to upgrade your graphics card or other components on your PC, it’s important to ensure that your power supply can handle the increased power demand. It’s a common misconception that you need to upgrade your power supply to 750 watts or more to run a high-end graphics card like the NVIDIA GTX 970. However, in this post, we’ll show you how to check your PC’s power usage and demonstrate that a 500 watts power supply may be sufficient for your needs.
First, you’ll need to download a program that can measure your PC’s power consumption. In the video, the author uses a program that’s not mentioned by name, but there are several options available online, like HWMonitor, Open Hardware Monitor, and more. Once you’ve downloaded the program, you can check your PC’s power usage while it’s idle.
In the video, the author’s PC, which has a 4770K CPU and two GTX 970 graphics cards in SLI, consumes only 171 watts while idle. When he stresses both the CPU and GPU simultaneously, the CPU uses up to 84 watts, and the graphics cards use less than 400 watts combined. This is impressive, considering that the author has overclocked both the CPU and GPU.
The author’s PC has a Platinum-rated power supply, which means that it’s highly efficient even when not running at full capacity. He notes that some people believe that a power supply won’t be efficient if you don’t use more than half of its capacity. However, this is a myth, and the author’s power supply is 92% efficient even when running at less than half its capacity.
So, what does this mean for you? Well, if you have a PC with a similar configuration to the author’s, you may only need a 500 watts power supply to run a high-end graphics card like the NVIDIA GTX 970. Of course, it’s always better to have a little extra power, but you don’t need to waste money on a higher wattage power supply if you don’t need it.
In conclusion, checking your PC’s power usage is a quick and easy way to determine if your power supply can handle the extra power demand from new components. Using a program that can measure your PC’s power consumption, you can see how much power your PC uses when idle and when under stress. With a 500-watt power supply, you may be able to run a high-end graphics card like the NVIDIA GTX 970, even with an overclocked CPU and GPU. So, don’t let anyone tell you that you need to buy a more powerful power supply than you actually need.