How Many Watts Does A High-End Gaming PC Require?

Electrical power is the rate at which your computer performs electrical work, and this rate of work is measured in watts.

But your PC is unable to do work with an alternating current of changing polarities, and for that reason, there is a built-in rectification device in the system called the Power Supply Unit or simply PSU whose job is to convert AC to DC for work.

The main job of the power supply is to draw power from the main circuit and provide it to the load attached, and this is where most PSUs differ. Some are more efficient and dissipate less power as heat and vice versa.

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Use The Power Supply Calculator To Figure Out How Much Power Your High-end PC Requires

You can’t have an exact figure for the power requirements of a ‘High-end PC”. The term doesn’t narrow it down to specifics, and only rarely are there two high-end PCs with exactly the same components, but if I were to bet money on it, I’d say it’s not a very reliable gamble.

Different PCs have different parts, and different parts subsequently have different power requirements, some need more power to perform, while others are content with less.

You can calculate the power supply in watts recommended for your PC using online PSU calculators.

You’ll need to input the model and version of all your components like GPU, processor, and motherboard, and at the end, you will have the calculated result.

It Is Worthwhile To Examine Future-proofing And Upgradeability

Future-proofing is the common practice of adding upgrades to your computer so that it remains relevant with coming advances.

It is protection against being outdated because if you are buying new products, you want to make sure they will serve for as long as possible.

image of ASUS ROG SFX L 850W PSU — Credits: ASUS

I am of the personal opinion that Future-proofing isn’t worth the cost and effort because the tech market moves very fast, and the newest product will be the latest of its type for only a year max.

When you try to future-proof, you are thinking too much ahead without any guarantee that you’ll reach that point.

I will not say the same about upgrades, though, if the recommended power supply for your PC is 500 watts, you shouldn’t buy a PSU of exactly 500 watts. Instead, leave some room for improvement and try 700 or 650 watts instead.

What Component Of The Gaming PC Uses The Most Power?

The component of your system that uses the most power is undoubtedly the processor. A processor or often called ‘The Central Processing Unit’ aka ‘CPU,’ is an electronic chip in your computer that performs operations on an external source like memory or something else.

It is the heart and brain of your computer, in fact, it is your computer. It performs millions of tasks, reads, processes, analyses, instructs, and it issues commands.

And all that is done in a matter of seconds or milliseconds, the better the CPU, the more workload it can bear along with extra features.

All such calculations are necessary for every function, basic or otherwise, and are done at the cost of power, tremendous amounts of power.

Search For Power Supplies That Have “80 Plus” Certification

Efficiency is an important thing to consider whenever buying electrical equipment because it dictates its performance. No electrical device is 100% efficient, and that goes the same for the power supply units.

They draw power from the socket or main circuit and supply it to the load, but the power they supply to the load is always less than the power withdrawn because some of it is lost to the environment.

A device that is 50% efficient will only supply half the power withdrawn from the main circuit to the load.

image of Corsair RM RM 850 PSU — Credits: Corsair

An ’80+’ certification is a tested guarantee that testifies to the fact that the supply in question is more than 80% efficient at any level of load.

So it is always better to buy certified PSUs because they are power efficient, plus they’ll help keep your electricity bill low.

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So, How Many Watts Does A High-End Gaming PC Require?

As I have mentioned earlier, the term ‘high-end PC‘ is a very broad denomination.

If you want to know exactly the number of watts that your PC requires, you’ll need to calculate it via an online tool where you will be asked the model and type of all your components, and it will give you a result.

Once you have the exact wattage, buy a PSU with a slightly higher one than recommended so that you have room for future updates if you ever wanted to replace your GPU or anything else with a higher model.