PSU (power supply) load calculator

 

If you use built-in video on the motherboard, just put in qty 0 for video cards. same goes for sound cards.
Enter your own values in the hand-picked column. These values were calculated from a spreadsheet using voltage and current values, with the exception of the motherboard.
The result is Watts. Over-rate your power supply, meaning, add an extra 50-80W to the power supply's rating to what you calculate here.
Values calculated are peak wattage consumption, such as would occur during heavy gaming.

  IN   OUT
Item min max hand-picked qty min ext max ext hand-picked ext  
Processor------------------------------------------------------------
amd Opteron Barcelona socket F/L1  
amd athlon 64x2  
amd athlon 64/64fx  
amd thunderbird  
amd athlon xp  
amd sempron  
amd duron  
intel pentium D 805 & 820 are 95W. All else is 130W
intel Core 2 Quad Extreme  
intel Core 2 Duo  
intel P4  
intel pIII  
intel celeron  
  IN   OUT
Item min max hand-picked qty min ext max ext hand-picked ext  
graphics card-----------------------------------------------------
basic 8600 takes 45W.
high-performance video: 8800GT requires 26A@12V(312W)
other-----------------------------------------------------------------
motherboard  
optical drive  
hard disk  
SDRAM (each)  
SDRAM gamer (each)  
DDR (each) 2.9 is based on 1GB pc3200
DDR2 (each)  
DDR3 (each)  
  IN   OUT
Item min max hand-picked qty min ext max ext hand-picked ext  
USB ports  
IEEE-1394 ports  
PCI Sound Card  
additional PCI card 6-port USB card at .5A per port=6×5v×0.5A=15W
additional PCI-e card new spec gives 150W
additional PCI-X card new spec gives 150W
floppy drive  
fan (include cpu fan)  
keyboard & mouse  
  IN   OUT
Item min max hand-picked qty min ext max ext hand-picked ext  
TOTAL WATTS  

Excel 2003 spreadsheet version

Check at corsair.com for a calculator that figures out # of HD's and type of graphics card and tells you what wattage of PSU to buy! since expansion is usually inevitable, plan on 2 hard drives and 2 optical drives (total: 4).