"What does this button do?" : Explaining real-life impact of BIOS settings

[wazza300]

Re: "What does this button do?" : Explaining real-life impact of BIOS settings

its up to you,either use your current psu and see how it runs or just decide to buy a larger psu,i think youll be ok with current psu as the components your using dont use much power,esp with no overclocking

[boondocks]

Re: "What does this button do?" : Explaining real-life impact of BIOS settings

Basically if your system is stable with the default settings, then you are good to go. Some settings on the board are more for overclocking than for stability, per sae.
I think you are at the low end with that psu you have, but if everything is functioning, and you don't plan to add any more graphics cards, etc then you should be OK. Just enjoy your board. Since you can't overclock with that cpu there are settings in the BIOS you will likely never have to touch.

So the question is, is the system stable? If so then leave it alone and enjoy your machine. If you want a more detailed explanation of some of the board's features and quality, there is a pretty good review of the board that was posted here early this year.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/47943-z77x-ud5h-preview-physical-review.html

[profJim]

Re: "What does this button do?" : Explaining real-life impact of BIOS settings

The general rule is that you shouldn't run your power supply at 80% (or more) of it's rated capacity for extended time periods. Assuming that your psu can put out it's full power, this means that the most you can safely draw from your psu for an extended period is 344 watts (430 x 0.80). According to be quiet! Silent PSU & Cooling for your PC, your psu has an 80PLUS Bronze certification which means that it is at least 85% efficient at 50% loads and at least 81% efficient at 100% loads.

Assuming that your psu is 83% efficient when providing 344 watts to your system:
344 watts (D.C.) divided by 0.83 (83%) = 415 watts (A.C.) from the wall outlet.

If you buy something similar to efergy Europe - Energy monitoring socket 2.0, you can see what the A.C. wattage consumption is and multiply this value by 0.83 to see how much D.C. wattage is required from your power supply. For accurate readings, your power supply is the only device that is connected to the meter.

I have a digital multi-meter (DMM) that can measure A.C. amperage using its built in clamp meter. Accuracy isn't great because it displays amperage accurate to one tenth of an amp. With this setup, the math is a bit more involved, for example:

• volts x amps = watts
• 3.5 amps (A.C.) on the meter ==> 3.5 (amps) times 120 (volts) = 420 watts A.C. load for my power supply.
• 420 watts times 0.83 means that an 80Plus bronze rated power supply is delivering approximately 389 watts D.C.
• My 80Plus gold rated psu is 90% efficient so it would only require 387 watts A.C. to provide the same 389 watts D.C.

Have I confused you with too many facts?

I'm much better with D.C. power than with A.C. power.
I'm sure that any professional electricians in the forum will be all too happy to point out any errors.

[gkatsanos]

Re: "What does this button do?" : Explaining real-life impact of BIOS settings

well that's very interesting info :) I guess general rume of thumb would be if your PSU is 80% efficient and it should be working not more than 80% of its power then the result is more or less the same... (-20,+20..) very roughly though but..

[profJim]

Re: "What does this button do?" : Explaining real-life impact of BIOS settings

Just to clarify, for maximum psu life, don't run any psu above 80% of its rated capacity.
Psu efficiency doesn't has nothing to do with running a psu at a different percentage of its rated capacity.

From HardOCP psu reviews:

Torture Testing

The final component of our load testing involves our 8 hour torture test. This test is meant to simulate what gaming or hardware enthusiasts might encounter when they use their systems for extended periods of time under stressful conditions such as 3D gaming or long term stability testing and benchmarking. However though, we do not suggest using your power supply at 100% loads for extended periods of time and our torture test does reflect this. We load the PSU being tested to ~80% of its rated capacity for 8 hours at a temperature of 45c. This is outlined in our testing Methodology should you wish to have more information.

Running anything near its rated capacity is a good way to kill it much sooner than if you run it at more moderate levels.
This includes everything from paper bags to girl friends.

[Vinster]

Re: "What does this button do?" : Explaining real-life impact of BIOS settings

ProfJim is 100% accurate on the math above. staying below 80% is a good high number

Vin