Question Is It Safe To Run Demanding Games With my Current PSU?

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redro_guy

Apr 9, 2018
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Currently I have a 500W 80+ Thermaltake PSU which came with the PC I have. All the components are what came with the PC, which I bought from CyberPowerPC. The PC can be found here:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cyberp...-1tb-hard-drive-black/5833100.p?skuId=5833100

And here are the specs:

Motherboard: ASUSTeK SATA 6Gb/s DDR4
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 6-core processor
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 580
RAM: Single 8gb XPG ADATA DDR4 stick
Storage: 1 TB Hard Drive
PSU: Thermaltake 500W 80+
Cooling: Deep Cool brand fan mounted on the mobo that came with the PC


Basically over the past ten or so months, I've had the computer shut down on me while I was in the middle of playing games. The likeliest explanation I've seen for this is a faulty PSU, however I've been told that two shutdowns over a ten month period isn't definitive. I've downloaded hardwaremonitor and intend to use it while playing Fallout 4, the game I was playing when it most recently shutdown on me, to monitor temperatures and voltages. Is it safe to do this? I'll have to alt-tab to check every now and then since I've only got one monitor, but in the case that it does shut down again, it sounds like the PSU has protections in place to keep other components from being harmed.

I guess my biggest question is whether this is a good idea to try and if so, I was also wondering if someone could help me make sense of the readouts in hardwaremonitor regarding voltages. Is it the 12V under ASUSTeK Computer Inc., Voltages at the top that I need to be looking at? And what number should I make sure it doesn't exceed?

Picture of what I'm talking about:
https://imgur.com/a/IgQl0XT
View: https://imgur.com/a/IgQl0XT#7xEEIbP



Thanks for any help anyone can provide!
 
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Just a quick update:

Contacted CyberPowerPC and am awaiting a response. In the mean time I ran Fallout 4 on medium settings for about an hour and at the end there were my results on hardwaremonitor:

https://imgur.com/a/St5qmi0
View: https://imgur.com/a/St5qmi0


How are those voltages? No issues other than the game crashing to desktop on me once, but it's Fallout 4 so that's to be expected. Other than that I experienced no issues.
 
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I was going to say you are fine until I double checked.
80+ 500W is about 370 W usable. It can do more but it's reliable up to 400W and considering aging you will be safe up to 370W.
your MB + CPU + GPU + extra = ~50 + ~110 + ~250 + ~10 which equals 420 W top power consumption.
Keep in mind that this is within capabilities but it's not a reliable power output for your PSU.
Also for the parts you are using, you should really go for a 600W 80+ PSU, just to be on the safe side.
 
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Andrei N said:
I was going to say you are fine until I double checked.
80+ 500W is about 370 W usable. It can do more but it's reliable up to 400W and considering aging you will be safe up to 370W.
your MB + CPU + GPU + extra = ~50 + ~110 + ~250 + ~10 which equals 420 W top power consumption.
Keep in mind that this is within capabilities but it's not a reliable power output for your PSU.
Also for the parts you are using, you should really go for a 600W 80+ PSU, just to be on the safe side.
Click to expand...
I'm probably going to continue to monitor my performance with HWmonitor for the time being. Excuse the stupid question, but could you explain where your getting the 50, 100, and 250 from? I'm assuming the 10 is a plus or minus margin of error, is that correct?

Thanks for the advice.
 
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The ~ is a symbol for approximation, at least in my circles.
50 is for MB consumption, this is the average for most MB's.(audio, network, usb, fans, etc.).
100 is the CPU. the Ryzen 1600 will go up to 125 Watts but during gaming you won't be able to use all cores.
Consider 125 Watts if you are also streaming.
250 is the RX580 stated power consumption, this if I didn't mistake it for the 590.
The 10 is for HDD's, or SSD's, any other peripheral that draws power directly from the PSU
 
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Vic 40 said:
There is a big difference between min and max values on the +12V rail. That doesn't look promising.
The +5V gets very close to the max of 5.25V which is allowed for it by the ATX specs.

A better psu will give less deviation on those and will so provide better stability of the system.
Click to expand...
The +12V rail min/max looks a lot more different than it was because I had HWmonitor running before launching any kind of game. I'll try to launch first then alt tab to start the monitoring software while the game is running.

Quick edit, not sure how to reliably get the min/max values showing only what it's putting out during the time the game is running. Even after launching the game first and HWmonitor second it still picked up lower voltages for the min value than it should've had it only taken them while the game was fully on my screen and running. At least I think that's what happened, as there wasn't much variation from the screenshots I posted above.
 
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redro_guy said:
Quick edit, not sure how to reliably get the min/max values showing only what it's putting out during the time the game is running. Even after launching the game first and HWmonitor second it still picked up lower voltages for the min value than it should've had it only taken them while the game was fully on my screen and running. At least I think that's what happened, as there wasn't much variation from the screenshots I posted above.
Click to expand...




How to make a log,

download hwinfo32,
install and open it,
check "sensors-only",
click "run",
at the bottom of the window click "logging start",
choose a name and place for the log like "hwinfolog" at the "desktop",
this log can be viewed/opened with either excel from Microsoft or libre office calc.
Click to expand...
you can upload it onto a site which facilitates this like SaberCatHost this one i like since not so much (or any) spam comes with it and does not require a log in to get the info.
Just make one until this happens like you described.
 
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