Which part of the computer needs all the power from the PSU?

Posted by Xeoncross on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Xeoncross
Published on 2011-01-08T01:45:39Z Indexed on 2011/01/08 1:55 UTC
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Hardware

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power-supply

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computer

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watts

A couple years ago I was building a new Core 2 Quad system and after reading all the reviews was convinced that I would need at least a 400 watt power supply unit (PSU).

I bought a 500W Antec EarthWatts

However, last year I bought a Kill-A-Watt power meter to test some things around our house and found that my PC was only using 80W of power while idle! (C2Q, 4GB RAM, SATA HD, & DVD burner)

Well, here I am building another computer with a 65watt Core 2 CPU in it and I'm wondering if I can skimp out this time and get a 300watt or so unit since my usage doesn't seem to be what everyone claims it is.

I'm sure that the people in the reviews who exhausted 500watt PSU weren't lying - so what is it that uses all that? The high-end dual SLI video cards? Lots of SATA drives? Overclocking?

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