Quote:
Originally Posted by newtekie1
You think he'll be running furmark a lot? I don't. So the power consumption is more like 104w, and more like 94w for a stock card.
Going by the "maximum" power numbers don't make much sense for normal usage scenarios.
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It does make sense because once in a while he may run something that actually does push it up to the maximum and then he'll run into a problem. If the PSU overloads it can take out a lot of sensitive parts before it shuts down. You should ALWAYS take the maximum power draw of all parts into consideration when choosing a PSU not the minimum. All the parts collectively might have a minimum power draw of exactly 350W, but as soon as any one part starts to demand more the PSU can no longer deliver because you didn't leave any headroom to allow for peaks in demand. Power demand can fluctuate considerably even under what we perceive as light use. The parts inside the computer may actually be working harder than you think. You also leave no room for the slow failure of parts that always takes place inside every PSU lowering it's efficiency over time. A 350W PSU that is several years old may not be delivering 350W anymore.