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On October 04 2011 16:00 Medrea wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2011 15:57 skyR wrote: A 6970 has power requirements similar to that of a GTX 570 so about 220-240w under load.
And no, having four 12v rails rated at 34a each does not mean you can have a 136a. What does it mean then. How much do I have?
The total is listed on your label. Typically a 1200w unit will have around 100a and a 1000w unit will have around 82a on the 12v rail(s).
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On October 04 2011 16:03 skyR wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2011 16:00 Medrea wrote:On October 04 2011 15:57 skyR wrote: A 6970 has power requirements similar to that of a GTX 570 so about 220-240w under load.
And no, having four 12v rails rated at 34a each does not mean you can have a 136a. What does it mean then. How much do I have? The total is listed on your label. Typically a 1200w unit will have around 100a and a 1000w unit will have around 82a on the 12v rail(s).
So lets say we have a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051
Which advertises 750W and 4 virtual rails with 40A on each vrail.
I can at most apply (750/12) Amps (about 62.5) across ALL rails. Or about 15.8A distributed across each rail. OR 40A on ONE rail and 22.5A on another.
Am i right?
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No. Power is not distributed evenly across the rails nor will you ever max out the multiple rails. Each connector is assigned to specific rails so usually the CPU /motherboard is assigned to a rail, molex and sata to another rail, and each set of PCIe gets their own rail.
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On October 04 2011 16:17 skyR wrote: No. Power is not distributed evenly across the rails nor will you ever max out the multiple rails. Each connector is assigned to specific rails so usually the CPU /motherboard is assigned to a rail, molex and sata to another rail, and each set of PCIe gets their own rail.
Right well what I am asking is, for 4 6970's. What minimum supply will accept that load. I'm not asking for a link. I mean what will one such power supply look like. What will it probably be labeled as? What will be labeled on its 12v rails?
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i like techpowerup for power usage. they show the actual wattage from the graphics card rather than the whole system, and have a bunch of different stress factors.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/27.html
'peak' is usually closest to what you'd experience in-game, so give or take 200w for each gpu assuming they all have equal performance?
+ all the other components
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On October 04 2011 16:30 Legatus Lanius wrote:i like techpowerup for power usage. they show the actual wattage from the graphics card rather than the whole system, and have a bunch of different stress factors. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/27.html'peak' is usually closest to what you'd experience in-game, so give or take 200w for each gpu assuming they all have equal performance? + all the other components
Im not interested in gaming with 6970's. They'll be running with a shit processor, on a somewhat shit motherboard, with like 1 gig of shit ram. Actually the motherboard is probably ok.
Also I am not interested in a calculator, or anything specific about the card.
Im after knowledge. So i will know for myself for all time.
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Ok this is why i am lost. In school we were taught that amperages in parallel are calculated as
Itotal = I1 + I2 + I3
So I am guessing that amperages on virtual rails are not in parallel with eachother?
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On October 04 2011 17:09 Legatus Lanius wrote: no idea cabron
Single rails are obvious. These multi 12v virtual rail systems kind of confuse me. My power supply has 18A across 3 vrails and is rated for an overall wattage of 504. Yet 56A times 12 is not 504, its 672. Why is it only 504?
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i think its similar to the way the 12v and 3v3/5v rails interact. that kingwin psu has a wattage of 996 on the 12v rails, but can only (officially anyway) supply 1000w in total even though the 3.3 and 5.5 rails can support 120w.
best to ask someone like myrm though, he knows a fair bit about power supplies
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Like how a PSU can have 430W total, but 120W across the 3.3V (20A) and 5V (20A) total, and 336W (28A) on the 12V.
The 3.3V and 5V don't add to 120W And the 12V doesn't add to 430W
does it?
This is a CX430 V2 btw
There are a lot of places that explain this -_-
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On October 04 2011 17:26 jacosajh wrote: Like how a PSU can have 430W total, but 120W across the 3.3V (20A) and 5V (20A) total, and 336W (28A) on the 12V.
The 3.3V and 5V don't add to 120W And the 12V doesn't add to 430W
does it?
This is a CX430 V2 btw
There are a lot of places that explain this -_-
They add to 502. Effiency then? I guess someone needs to tell me. I know plenty enough about PSU's so that I don't get ripped off, and what is and is not an appropriate wattage requirement, and not to buy sticks of dynamite, but I haven't gone deeper than that.
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i think they are just designed high to run power hungry cards off the one rail. wouldnt make much sense if each rail totalled the max wattage but was too low to supply power to a gtx 480 or w/e
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On October 04 2011 17:35 Legatus Lanius wrote: i think they are just designed high to run power hungry cards off the one rail. wouldnt make much sense if each rail totalled the max wattage but was too low to supply power to a gtx 480 or w/e
No each rail is rated to handle a certain load of amperage, you calculate the power by multiplying amperage and volts, and thats your wattage. Its these joint rail ratings I dont understand.
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I read a review of a virtual rail psu where is said something about some overcurrent protection limiting the amperages for the virtual rails in some way. I don't know that much about psu's but maybe it's related to what you are wondering?
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Well Skyr said something earlier.
1200w unit will have around 100a
Well obviously yes 100A times 12V equals 1200W
100a and a 1000w unit will have around 82a on the 12v rail(s).
Also intuitive, 1000W divided by 12V is 83.3A.
But thats across one rail. No virtual rail shenans
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http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Everything-You-Need-to-Know-About-Power-Supplies/181/8
That specific page explains it pretty well. It's pretty old, but a lot of stuff still applies.
There's a lot of other stuff about power supplies you might want to know about as well.
An excerpt:
You may think that the maximum amount of power a power supply can deliver is simply the sum of the maximum amount of power each output can deliver. In truth, the math isn’t that simple because of the way PC power supplies work internally. The main positive outputs (+12 V, +5 V and +3.3 V) share some components, so even though each output has an individual maximum output, this maximum can only be reached when no power is being pulled from the other outputs.
The most common case is the +5 V and +3.3 V outputs. Even though they have individual maximum current and power limits, these maximum values can only be pulled when no power is being pulled from the other output. Together they have a combined maximum power, which is lower than the simple addition of the maximum capacity from +5 V and +3.3 V outputs.
For a practical example, consider the power supply in Figure 29. Its label says that the +5 V output can deliver up to 24 A, which equates to 120 W, or 5 V x 24 A. The +3.3 V output can also deliver up to 24 A, which equates to 79.2 W, or 3.3 V x 24 A. The maximum combined power printed on the label is 155 W, (less than the simple addition of the maximum power each output can deliver individually), which would be 199.2 W, or 120 W + 79.2 W.
The same idea holds true for the +12 V outputs. On the power supply from Figure 29, each +12 V rail can deliver up to 16 A (192 W, or 12 V x 16 A), but the maximum combined power for the +12 V outputs is 504 W, not 768 W (192 W x 4).
And finally, we have a combined power for the +12 V, +5 V and +3.3 V at the same time, which isn’t a simply addition of the maximum combined power for the +5 V/+3.3 V outputs with the maximum combined power for the +12 V outputs. On the power supply from our example, the maximum combined power for these outputs is 581.5 W and not 659 W (155 W + 504 W).
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OK, im gonna digest that whole article another time when im not tired. I read the excerpt.
I understand it would just be easier to just shut up and read the label. But I'd rather be in a position where I can think for myself.
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There's a section in there that describes OCP and virtual rails as well.
I don't think it goes too in-depth, describing the inner workings of electricity inside a PSU, but kind of helps to get a good understand of how to read labels and such.
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