Calculating power consumption
Time for some mathematical theory. It’s super simple, I promise.
Let’s Google all of the components you plan on putting in the system, find their power draw, and add it all together. Chances are, if you have six AMD cards, a 1200w PSU will be just fine. But you can also use this calculator to estimate your load based on known video card wattage. It’s not 100% accurate, but it will give you a rough estimate of what you’ll need.
Multiple PSUs on one miner
1200w power supplies are very expensive. An EVGA Supernova 1200w G2 is considerably more than a EVGA Supernova 650w P2. One could purchase two 650w (for an effective rating of 1300w) for less than a single 1200w, and connect them via an Add2PSU (or a cheaper option is chosen) and earn an extra 100 effective watts. The majority of my rigs are multi-PSU.
Power Supply Ratings
A power supply is measured in two ways:
- Effective power: wattage supplied to the computer components after some power is exhausted as heat during the AC > DC conversion process
- At the wall: Actual power consumption measured at the wall
This is charted via the 80 Plus performance metric and is broken down into tiers. The following table breaks down a 100% load on a 1000w effective PSU to its wall measurement:
| Rating | Efficiency | Wall Wattage |
|---|---|---|
| Plus | 80% | 1200w |
| Bronze | 82% | 1180w |
| Silver | 85% | 1150w |
| Gold | 87% | 1130w |
| Platinum | 89% | 1110w |
| Titanium | 90% | 1100w |
This being said, the higher rating you can get, the more efficient it will be (and the more money you will make instead of be a space heater).