PSPkiller Wrote:Not quite. A compyter PSU isn't one single power supply. It's actally a few power supplies all in one box. There's 3.3v, 5v, 12v, 5vsb and a few others. (Like the negative supplies. They're not used much anymore.)

("PSU" = The metal box with a fan and a merasse of wires coming out the back. "Power Supply" = bit of circuitry within the PSU that converts mains voltage to whatever voltage is needed.)

Think of it like this. A multi 12v rail PSU has more than one 12v power supply in addition to all the others. You'd want to try and keep all your comonents to their own rails, especially the graphics card. As that draws more and more power it only strains that power supply and leaves all the others to their own business. Yes, all the power supplies are fed by the same connection to the mains voltage but that can provide a huge amount of power before it comes under any kind of strain. In the UK the average mains socket can provide 13 amps at 240V AC. (I'm going to get all electronics-geeky here.) You can work out just how many watts of power a socket can provide by multiplying the voltage by the amperage. 240*13=3120w. Most high end power supplies are around 70% or more efficient. 0.7*3120 is 2184w. The mains supply therefore isn't a bottleneck.

tl;dr get a new PSU.

Ok, makes sense I guess. I never really researched into this stuff, I was just guessing based on logic, thought all the 12V rails would come from the same 12V source.

Oh, and I never said the mains would be the bottleneck, that was just an example.

(This post was last modified: 26/10/2009 03:59 PM by Assassinator.)