Is a 650VA UPS Enough for my System?

[jpmeneses21]

Is a 650VA UPS enough for my system? I have an i5-4570, a gtx760, 9 LED fans, and one SSD that's being run by a 700-watt PSU.

When I'm gaming, I'm pulling around 400-470 watts of power. Is a 650VA UPS enough to sustain that load?

 

[hunter315]

It depends on the wattage capacity of the UPS, some have much higher VA ratings than W ratings, while it seems like they should be the same thing because Volts*Amps=Watts, VA is used to represent complex power(Real power in W/the power factor) so it is always a larger number than the real power.

For most i would expect you would be fine, i think your power numbers may be a bit higher than reality though, my 955@3.8 and 7850 only pull about 380 from the wall under max load.

Link to the UPS you have or are looking at for a more certain answer.

 

[Traciatim]

How do you know you're pulling 400-470 watts from the wall with that setup? You must have one heck of an overclock on there. My own 3570k with a 670, 2 spinning disks and an SSD, and a couple of fans pulls about 300 watts from the wall... 301 actually while litecoin mining (yes, I know... nvidia) and running prime95.

I also have a 965be and a 7850 in my kids machine that pulls about 360 watts from the wall (mine is at 3.4Ghz if I remember).

The 650va I would think would be fine to run your machine, but you should check the specs and see about wattage to be sure. Many UPS setups are rated under half load or so and will only last a minute or two under full load conditions. If you just want enough time to shut down your machine then sure, but if you want it to run for a few minutes until the power comes back then you may want to look at more capacity.

 

[jpmeneses21]

How do you know you're pulling 400-470 watts from the wall with that setup? You must have one heck of an overclock on there. My own 3570k with a 670, 2 spinning disks and an SSD, and a couple of fans pulls about 300 watts from the wall... 301 actually while litecoin mining (yes, I know... nvidia) and running prime95.

I also have a 965be and a 7850 in my kids machine that pulls about 360 watts from the wall (mine is at 3.4Ghz if I remember).

The 650va I would think would be fine to run your machine, but you should check the specs and see about wattage to be sure. Many UPS setups are rated under half load or so and will only last a minute or two under full load conditions. If you just want enough time to shut down your machine then sure, but if you want it to run for a few minutes until the power comes back then you may want to look at more capacity.

That's just my rough estimate. But this online PSU calculator I'm using tells me that an i5-4570+GTX760+1x SSD+9x LED fans pull about 390W @ 90% system load, and 428W @ 100%.

Less than 5 minutes is ok, but not less than 1 minute. So my question is, will a 650VA UPS be enough to power my system for a few minutes, especially during gaming when I'm pulling almost 400W off the wall?

 

[hunter315]

Again, link us to the UPS, 650VA doesn't tell you its hold up time or its real power capacity, 650VA only tells you its complex power capacity which does a computer little good since it has APFC to make itself look like a toaster.

Case and point - here are two 650VA UPSs, one has a real power capacity of 390W, one of only 325W. One has a half load hold up time of 13 minutes, one has a half load hold up time of 10 minutes. Yet both are rated at 650VA.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101494
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842111337