The state of the planet

[Phantoman]

wtf is it with 500w and up to 1kw psu ?
I think the PC industry is useing to much power
Ill tell you why
My 400w psu was pissing me off so I found an old machine max output 100w
so i stick it on and low and behold i have a stable machine and costs less in electricity
in the old days if u had a 250w psu and ran 10 scsi disks and all you had penty
why should we burn so much electricity now ?
get Green

 

[Kuhan]

hardware improves and it needs more power, for example the 8800 series needs a minimum of 500W, and the new ATI cards need around 600W+ as times go on they will need more power, you cant expect to power a Quad Core Cpu with 100W forever do you?

 

[GReaper]

If you want an efficient PC then go for lower specs, just don't expect it to have as much power for modern games, applications or even operating systems.

You can get a super efficient Mini-ITX with a VIA processor, power efficient but weak processors.

 

[GRN]

Here, be green.

 

[Overdriven]

This was seriously posted here? Bloody hell. I thought obvious answers were.. Obvious

New hardware requires higher power.
New hardware and lower power = New hardware doesn't work properly.

 

[Ballard]

One thing to be aware of however is that the wattage of the PSU does not mean you are costing yourself more money. Wattage on a PSU refers to peak wattage output not the amount of wattage (power) it actually consumes itself. If you had a 1000W PSU and then a 500W PSU powering an identical PC then the amount of power they actually use will be similar.

 

[Kuhan]

but you would only buy that big of a PSU if you are a hardcore overclocker

 

[Overdriven]

but you would only buy that big of a PSU if you are a hardcore overclocker

Read previous posts. Minimum requirments these days are near enough at 700. 1000 is just for safefailing.

 

[FuzzyLogic]

Quality of PSU would come into it also methinks, you could probably get away with a lower power psu if it's a good quality make/build/whatever.

Running an Athlon 4200 w/ Nvidia 7950 GT, not the highest spec or most power draining of components but they run just fine on my 350w shuttle psu (thought it was 250 but closer inspection of website says otherwise).

With some manufacturers moving to smaller processes (65/45nm) too the power shouldn't really spike that much i'd have thought, GPUs will be using smaller processes too.

 

[Amiga]

wtf is it with 500w and up to 1kw psu ?
I think the PC industry is useing to much power
Ill tell you why
My 400w psu was pissing me off so I found an old machine max output 100w
so i stick it on and low and behold i have a stable machine and costs less in electricity
in the old days if u had a 250w psu and ran 10 scsi disks and all you had penty
why should we burn so much electricity now ?
get Green

A 400W PSU doesnt mean it always use 400W. Its just a max load number which means that your 100W PSU shouldnt make any difference as long as you dont get over 100W in total (which in your case would most likely burn the fuse).

Must thank you for your lecture in how i should live my life though. Its very suitable in a technical forum for a mmorpg game. Get green somewhere else please...