How much power do i5s use when overclocked?

[melikepie]

If you have read one of my *takes a deep breath* interesting posts lately you would know I'm gonna get a nice and shiny Haswell i5 when it comes out. I'm looking to buy Crysis 3 then as well. I can't have anything bottlenecking my overclocked 7970 so I would need to overclock the CPU. I have water cooling but I only have a 750w power supply. Now I'm not sure how far I can push the CPU until the PSU can't handle it anymore. But does anyone have an idea of how much power it would use? I know Haswell isn't out but what about a current gen i5? What would they normally do? My power supply is 1 year old, it's sad . But it's XFX.

 

[spawnkiller]

750w is more than enough !! you'll never be short at all as a 3570k + 7970 rig consume about 350 watt at maximum load and Haswell will be greener on power consumption...

I5- 2500k 4.8ghz (consume more than 3570k) and 7970 vapor-x overclocked: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/09/24/sapphire_vaporx_radeon_hd_7970_ghz_edition_review/9#.UTXSjrbBoek

PS: my rig use about 320 watt full load so don't worry 750 is more than enough !!!

 

[the great randini]

here is a link to a psu calculator, it has the ability to include a overclock http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 

[diellur]

I think the only thing that a current-gen CPU has been thought to bottle-neck is a Titan SLI setup. A 7970 won't be held back. A 750W PSU is fine for an overclocked CPU and SLI GPUs, so you won't have any issue there.

I'd also not hold your breath with Haswell. It'll be good, sure, but worth an upgrade from Ivybridge? Probably not.

 

[jaguarskx]

I don't expect a large performance increase between Haswell and Ivy Bridge. Probably 6% - 8% since Intel is focusing on reducing power consumption.

 

[diellur]

^ +1

I'm hoping my i5-2500K sees me through many years of gaming for this very reason. There's no need for consumer CPUs to be any more powerful than they are right now. I guess that will change in time, but it's a pace that's very much slowed in recent times.

 

[melikepie]

I think the only thing that a current-gen CPU has been thought to bottle-neck is a Titan SLI setup. A 7970 won't be held back. A 750W PSU is fine for an overclocked CPU and SLI GPUs, so you won't have any issue there.

I'd also not hold your breath with Haswell. It'll be good, sure, but worth an upgrade from Ivybridge? Probably not.

I have Bulldozer!

 

[jaguarskx]

Even an overclocked i5 will use less power than a comparable Bulldozer CPU at stock speed.

 

[diellur]

I have Bulldozer!

Ah, so you do...apologies. Still, my point remains the same.

 

[melikepie]

I can't afford a new CPU right now. I plan on saving up a few hundred dollars by the time Haswell comes out to re model my computer.

 

[diellur]

Tbh, for all the likely small benefit you'd get from Haswell over Bulldozer, you may be better selling your AMD CPU and getting an Intel build now.