Overclocking Recommendations - Low vs High Wattage Power Supplies
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,555 words · ~7 min read
0:00
There are tons of different ways you can grade a power supply. Rail setup,
0:04
overall wattage, efficiency, quality, components, etc. Today, we'll be doing
0:09
it this as a thought experiment on the overabundance of wattage, and will it
0:14
help you overclock, and if so, by how much? Stay subscribed to Linus Tech Tips
0:18
to see a future episode on how to do cable lacing, which will make your PC
0:23
look pretty amazing.
0:33
The Cooler Master Novatouch TL utilizes genuine Toper hybrid capacitive switches
0:38
and is now available at a more affordable price. Click now to learn
0:41
more. To perform said thought experiment, we will be using IDA 64's
0:46
stress test functionality to push the CPU and Firmark to push the GPU. These
0:50
programs should ensure that we have quite a bit of power generation from the
0:54
various parts on our test bench. We use these programs to push our components as
0:58
much as we can using each power supply in order to try to find that power
1:02
supplies limit in a sense and to see if having more wattage will directly result
1:08
in higher overclocks or if the spacing between power supplies is high enough
1:12
that getting a power supply that can support your system will also just
1:16
naturally support an overclock. For the test bench itself, we have an ASUS X99
1:20
Deluxe with a 5960X sitting comfortably in its socket. The 5960X will run in a
1:26
range of 3, 3.1, 4, 4.1 GHz, and stock
1:30
at stock voltages, and then 4.5 GHz at
1:34
1.35 volts. For graphics cards, I will be using an HD770,
1:38
an R7265, an R927X, a GTX 770, a GTX
1:43
Titan X, and dual GTX Titan X's. These cards will be running at varying stock
1:47
speeds and varying overclock speeds. And
1:50
we'll be discussing how each power supply performed with them, but you can
1:53
see their overclock speeds in the dock down below just in case. They're maxed
1:57
overclock speeds. We're going to start off with a really low wattage power
2:00
supply. A 300 W SFX power supply from Silverstone. As far as I'm concerned,
2:05
this is the little power supply that could. The first setup we tried on it
2:10
was maxing out our HD 7770 and our 5960X, which it was somehow able to do.
2:16
Seriously, this thing is rated at 300 watts, but was somehow comfortably
2:20
pulling 375 watts from the wall. It even
2:23
took an R7265 in stride, maxing it out,
2:27
but starting to fail when we clocked the CPU above 4 GHz. With the GPU maxed out
2:32
and the CPU at 4 GHz, it was pulling about 360 W from the wall again
2:37
comfortably. With the 270X, it was able to hit 1245 core clock, which isn't
2:41
quite our max overclock, but it did do this while pulling 320 watts from the
2:45
wall as well for the card. When we when
2:49
we tried to increase clock speeds on the CPU above stock, the kind of crashed,
2:54
which was kind of unfortunate, which ends the epic run of this power supply
2:57
as it didn't manage to boot a 770 or Titan, which is fine. Next up, we have
3:02
the bigger, older brother to our previous legendary SFX power supply, the
3:06
Silverstone 450 watt SFX 80 Plus Gold.
3:09
Fine up till 270X, which it did manage to boot with and was able to get a max
3:15
overclock from the 270X, but I was unable to get anything stable from the
3:19
CPU other than just stock. Just for fun, we have 450 W power supply from my
3:24
Scrapyard Wars machine. Uh, with the HD770, we were able to max out the GPU
3:30
and overclock the CPU to 3.1 GHz without any crashes. This resulted in a pull of
3:35
295 watts from the wall. Also, something to note is that this power supply
3:39
started to stink quite badly when we pushed it. Concerning at the least, but
3:44
as the band Suicide Silence, or even Drake would like to say, yolo. I was
3:48
able to max out the R seven265 and yet again was only able to get the CPU to
3:53
3.1 GHz which totaled a total of 320
3:58
watts from the wall. This is where things went downhill for the poor little
4:01
power supply. However, it refused to boot with the 270X installed and
4:05
actually never booted again on any setup, including ones that I had
4:09
previously tested verified working after that. RIP, you crappy little power
4:13
supply. RIP. Jumping up 100 watts, we
4:17
have the B Quiet 550 watt 80 plus gold
4:20
power supply. This guy was able to max out everything until the Titan X setups,
4:25
which it was able to do quite well, actually. It was able to support a
4:28
maximum overclock on the Titan X, but only 3.1 GHz on the CPU while pulling a
4:34
total of 560 watts from the wall. Another 100 watts more brings us to the
4:39
650 W Cooler Master power supply. This
4:42
guy was totally happy to run everything maxed out and up to and including a
4:47
single GTX Titan X, which it did while pulling 580 W from the wall. It was able
4:52
to boot a stock GPU settings dual Titan
4:56
X setup and it was kind of fine until we
4:59
put it under load where it unfortunately but expectedly crashed after a minute or
5:04
two while pulling 680 watts from the wall for a few minutes. The Corsair AX
5:10
850 W power supply is up next with an additional 200 watts of power. This
5:14
power supply is able to crank every setup to the max, but just barely
5:18
throttle back on the max settings for dual Titan setup, resulting in a pretty
5:22
solid clock, but not as high as I might have hoped. At a little itty bittsy step
5:27
up, we have the Anttech High Current Gamer 900 watt power supply, which was
5:32
able to run everything at full without much trouble, but hit 875 watts from the
5:36
wall while running dual Titan X's fully overclocked and while running the 5960X
5:41
fully overclocked as well. Cutting it a little close on that one, but being okay
5:46
overall. Last but not least, we have our ludicrous level power supply, the 1200
5:51
watt Corsair AX1200i 80 plus platinum, which as you probably
5:56
guessed it, ran everything totally fine. And as everything was already maxed out,
6:01
it didn't have any overclocking benefits to give. Now, that was a lot of testing,
6:06
and in conclusion, we have, I think, a fairly expected answer. More wattage
6:10
will help you get a higher overclock if your system is throttling or crashing
6:13
due to a lack of wattage. But a massive
6:16
overabundance of wattage won't actually have an effect on what potential clock
6:21
speeds you're able to obtain if you're
6:24
already hitting your maximum overclocks. Anyways, is this any more to this
6:29
discussion of what power supply to buy? Definitely. Efficiency is a big one. And
6:33
while this video was interesting, running your power supply at full tilt
6:36
all the time is probably not the best idea ever. But that will have to wait
6:41
for another time. Speaking of settings, I'm excited to announce a very special
6:45
drop on Massdrop today. They're featuring the Vortex Poker 3, a keyboard
6:50
that I think is absolutely gorgeous. It
6:54
still has the Cherry MX switches and PBT key caps that we saw on the previous
6:58
Poker 2, but Vortex has stepped their game up pretty significantly on the
7:01
Poker 3 by utilizing a much higher quality metal case and including more
7:06
programming capabilities than we saw on the Poker 2. The drop has already
7:10
unlocked its lowest price possible on Massdrop because of how ridiculously
7:15
awesome it is in my opinion and is currently available for $15,
7:20
a pretty significant discount off of the MSRP. The drop will be live at the drop
7:26
link in the video description for about 11 more days. But if you want to pick up
7:31
one for free, we're actually hosting a giveaway on the forum for this unit that
7:35
we have in the office right here for the next 7 days. for details. They'll be
7:39
available in the link in the description, which is the Lionus Tech Tips link. Are there any other thought
7:44
experiment videos you guys would like me to try out? Let me know in the comments
7:48
down below or over on the forum. While you're here, like, dislike, favorite,
7:51
subscribe, share, follow, comment, go to
7:54
the description, find a shirt link for not this one. I know I wear this shirt a
7:58
lot, but still can't get it, but you can get one of our funny shirts. So, that's
8:02
kind of cool. Over on the forum, you can see the support us link where you can do things like changing your Amazon
8:06
affiliate codes. um checking out our merch, seeing our other sponsors,
8:11
installing the Linus Tech Tips notifier plugins for your browsers so that you
8:15
can get uh your Amazon affiliate codes automatically changed for you, or even
8:18
becoming a contributor to the forum because it all helps out. Thank you guys
8:22
for watching and I'll see you next time.