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Conclusion
So what does this mean? When you shop for power supplies, you should always watch for the +12V lead. The majority of low-cost power supplies you see at computer shows tend to have +12V rails with 10 or 12A. No matter how many total watts the power supply may have, you’re setting yourself up for instability if you buy that power supply.
Your plan should be to first calculate what your power needs are. Use our data to help you, keeping in mind that in all cases, we’ve erred on excess and that there are places to add “extra” headroom 3 different times.
1) The quoted power consumption for components is on the high-end
2) It’s rare to have every component drawing full power
3) We prefer not to run our power supplies at the limit. It reduces the stress on the component and leaves room to upgrade.
Our approach just gives you the absolute piece of mind that your power supply is not going to be the source of any system instability even when consider the power loss that occurs through conversion, and overzealous specifications. Only you can decide which factors you want to take into account. Even then, it’s important to take this step since you’ll find that there will be many power supplies with inadequate power even if you make no adjustments.
There are also some other lessons to be learned. We’ve all been taught that heat is the enemy of stability, and this is true. It’s true not only for CPUs, but for hard drives and graphics cards as well. If you look back at the worksheet, however, cooling fans run on the +12V rail. If you add too many fans, you could in fact be reducing the stability of your overall system unless you have the power supply to back it up.
A CPU running at 46 C versus 40C is not going to be any less stable. However, if it took you plenty of exhaust fans and blowports to get that performance, and you end up with too much demand on the +12V rail, you’ll have an unstable system. This isn’t intuitive at first, but it’s something we’ve experimentally confirmed. You shouldn’t add extra fans if you don’t have the power to support them.
Bottom line: Read the label the next time you pick out a power supply. Retailers that cater to enthusiasts such as Newegg and Googlegear often take the time to provide images and/or the crucial power figures for each of their products. That way you can shop and find the power supply that's appropriate for you.
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Do you have a few tips of your own for finding the right power supply? Perhaps you could share a few horror stories or other experiences? Chat with others in the FS news comments!
A survey of power supplies
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