Adam Carter wrote:

> Even my rig - hotter, doesn't reach 300W when I artificially torture the
> system. Normal 'max' load is in 200W range. An normal desktop? Under 100.
>

OK -- just to find out the truth I've attached a kill-a-watt to my current
workstation which is ~4yrs old w/ slow cpu and ancient video card but
has been upgraded w/ 7 SATA Drives:

So the figures below are AC in, not DC out. Pretty sure the figure everyone uses for comparison is DC out.
 
Idle - ~285W
Light Use (emerge --sync) - ~310W
Kernel Compile w/ video app running and minor torture- ~340W

This is definitely much higher than 100-200W stated above.

Anyhow, given that the discussion was about a system lasting ~8yrs, which is
twice the current age of my system, I don't think it's unfeasible that future
upgrades (especially if video card related or if moving cpu from 2 core to 8
core) could get normal power util 20% higher to ~372W eventually.

If you conservatively state that PSU wattage should be 1.66 * normal util  (so
that PSU is normally running at 60% of peak) then:

1.66 * 372 = 617

I think you've double dipped there....see above comment.

My 2c WRT power supplies - buy a quality brand as they are one of the least reliable components in a PC.



To add a little info about me and my puters.  I don't update very often.  I started out with 512Mb of ram and upgraded to 2Gbs.  I started with a 30Gb hard drive and upgraded to a 80Gb and added a 750Gb when I got DSL and could watch videos.  Basically, as far as power is concerned, I added a single hard drive.  I doubt the memory changed power very much.  Swapping a 80Gb drive for the 30Gb probably wasn't much change either.  The new drive may have even use less power.  The only other change was that I added 2 120mm fans on the side to help with the cooling. 

As you can probably tell, I build it and it stays the same basically.  Maybe a little minor changes but nothing major.  I figure I will add one more drive when I can afford it.  Maybe a 1.5 to 2Tb or so.  They are still dropping in price. 

Now to reply to some others.

Dale

:-)  :-)