The Quest for Maximum Overclocking: A Thought Experiment on Power Supplies

As I embarked on this thought experiment, I began by testing my power supply's capabilities with a relatively modest system setup. The goal was to push the limits of the R7 265 GPU, which was installed in conjunction with an equally impressive CPU. However, despite the seemingly capable hardware, the power supply refused to cooperate, only allowing the CPU to reach a paltry 3.1 gigahertz while consuming a meager total of 320 watts from the wall. This was a stark reminder that even with the best hardware, a subpar power supply can quickly become a limiting factor.

Undeterred, I moved on to the next power supply in line - the be quiet 550 watt 80 plus gold unit. To my surprise, this power supply was able to max out every component in my system without issue, including even the most demanding Titan X setup. It was only when I pushed it to its limits under load that the power supply began to struggle, crashing after a mere minute or two while pulling an additional 680 watts from the wall. This performance was nothing short of impressive, and it solidified the be quiet 550 watt as one of the top contenders in this lineup.

Next up was the Corsair AX 650 watt power supply, which boasted an additional 200 watts of power compared to its predecessor. While it was able to crank every component in my system to the max, I noticed that it would throttle back on the maximum settings for dual Titan X setups, resulting in a slightly lower overclock than I had hoped for. This minor compromise was a small price to pay for the peace of mind that came with knowing my power supply could handle even the most demanding workloads.

The Antec High Current Gamer 900 watt power supply rounded out the lineup, and while it did an admirable job of running every component in my system without issue, I noticed that it would occasionally hit 875 watts from the wall while powering dual Titan X's fully overclocked. This was a minor issue, but one that highlighted the importance of choosing a power supply that can keep up with your system's demands.

Finally, there was the 1200 watt Corsair AX i 80 plus platinum, which boasted the highest wattage output in the lineup. In a surprise move, this power supply proved to be utterly reliable and efficient, running every component in my system without issue even when maxed out. While it didn't offer any additional overclocking benefits, its sheer capacity made it an attractive choice for those who want to push their systems to the absolute limit.

In conclusion, while wattage did play a role in determining the maximum overclock achievable, it was by no means the only factor at play. Efficiency and reliability were also crucial considerations, as even the most powerful power supply can become less effective if it is unable to handle its own power output. As we move forward, it will be interesting to see how these trends evolve, but for now, this thought experiment has provided some valuable insights into the world of power supplies.

Special Announcement: Vortex Poker 3 Keyboard Giveaway

As a special treat for my loyal readers, I am excited to announce that Massdrop will be featuring their latest keyboard, the Vortex Poker 3, in an upcoming drop. This keyboard boasts many improvements over its predecessor, including a higher quality metal case and more advanced programming capabilities. The best part? It's already available at its lowest price point of $105, which is an impressive discount off of the MSRP.

For those who are interested in scoring one of these keyboards for free, I will be hosting a giveaway on the Linus Tech Tips forum for the next seven days. Details will be available in the link in the description below, but rest assured that it's going to be a fantastic opportunity to snag an amazing keyboard without breaking the bank.

Other Thought Experiment Videos

While this thought experiment provided some valuable insights into power supplies, I'm always open to exploring new ideas and concepts with my readers. If you have any suggestions or topics you'd like me to explore in future videos, please let me know in the comments below or on the forum. From overclocking benchmarks to GPU reviews, there are countless possibilities for thought-provoking content.

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthere are tons of different ways you can grade a power supply rail setup overall wattage efficiency quality components etc today we'll be doing this as a thought experiment on the over abundance of wattage and will it help you overclock and if so by how much stay subscribe to linus tech tips to see a future episode on how to do cable lacing which will make your pc look pretty amazing the cooler master nova touch tkl utilizes genuine topper hybrid capacitive switches and is now available at a more affordable price click now to learn more to perform said thought experiment we will be using ida 64's stress test functionality to push the cpu and fur mark to push the gpu these programs should ensure that we have quite a bit of power generation from the various parts on our test bench we use these programs to push our components as much as we can using each power supply in order to try to find that power supply's limit in a sense and to see if having more wattage will directly result in higher overclocks or if the spacing between power supplies is high enough that getting a power supply that can support your system will also just naturally support an overclock for the test bench itself we have an asus x99 deluxe with a 5960x sitting comfortably in its socket the 5960x will run in a range of three 3.14 4.1 gigahertz and stock at stock voltages and then 4.5 gigahertz at 1.35 volts for graphics cards i'll be using the hd 7770 an r7265 an r927x a gtx 770 a gtx titan x and dual gtx titan x's these cards will be running at varying stock speeds and varying overclock speeds and we'll be discussing how each power supply performed with them but you can see their overclock speeds in the dock down below just in case they're maxed overclock speeds we're going to start off with a really low wattage power supply a 300 watt sfx power supply from silverstone as far as i'm concerned this is the little power supply that could the first setup we tried on it was maxing out our hd 7770 and our 5960x which it was somehow able to do seriously this thing is rated at 300 watts but was somehow comfortably pulling 375 watts from the wall it even took an r7265 in stride maxing it out but starting to fail when we clocked the cpu above four gigahertz with the gpu maxed out and the cpu at four gigahertz it was pulling about 360 watts from the wall again comfortably with the 270x it was able to hit 1245 core clock which isn't quite our max overclock but it did do this while pulling 320 watts from the wall as well for the card when we tried to increase speeds on the cpu above stock they kind of crashed which was kind of unfortunate which ends the epic run of this power supply as it didn't manage to boot a 770 or titan which is fine next up we have the bigger older brother to our previous legendary sfx power supply the silverstone 450 watt sfx 80 plus gold fine up till 270x which it did manage to boot with and was able to get a max overclock from the 270x but i was unable to get anything stable from the cpu other than just stock just for fun we have fantastic 450 watt power supply from my scrap yard wars machine with the hd 7770 we were able to max out the gpu and overclock the cpu to 3.1 gigahertz without any crashes this resulted in a pull of 295 watts from the wall also something to note is that this power supply started to stink quite badly when we pushed it concerning at the least but as the banned suicide silence or even drake would like to say yolo i was able to max out the r7 265 and yet again was only able to get the cpu to 3.1 gigahertz which totaled a total of 320 watts from the wall this is where things went downhill for the poor little power supply however it refused to boot with the 270x installed and actually never booted again on any setup including ones that i had previously tested verified working after that rip you crappy little power supply r.i.p jumping up 100 watts we have the be quiet 550 watt 80 plus gold power supply this guy was able to max out everything until the titan x setups which it was able to do quite well actually it was able to support a maximum overclock on the titan x but only 3.1 gigahertz on the cpu while pulling a total of 560 watts from the wall another 100 watts more brings us to the 650 watt cooler master power supply this guy was totally happy to run everything maxed out and up to and including a single gtx titan x which it did while pulling 580 watts from the wall it was able to boot a stock gpu settings dual titan x setup and it was kind of fine until we put it under load where it unfortunately but expectedly crashed after a minute or two while pulling 680 watts from the wall for a few minutes the corsair ax 850 watt power supply is up next with an additional 200 watts of power this power supply is able to crank every setup to the max but just barely throttle back on the max settings for dual titan setup resulting in a pretty solid clock but not as high as i might have hoped at a little itty bitsy step up we have the antec high current gamer 900 watt power supply which was able to run everything at full without much trouble but hit 875 watts from the wall while running dual titan x's fully overclocked and while running the 5960x fully overclocked as well cutting it a little close on that one but being okay overall last but not least we have our ludicrous level power supply the 1200 watt corsair ax 1200 i 80 plus platinum which as you probably guessed it ran everything totally fine and as everything was already maxed out it didn't have any overclocking benefits to give now that was a lot of testing and in conclusion we have i think a fairly expected answer more wattage will help you get a higher overclock if your system is throttling or crashing due to a lack of wattage but a massive over abundance of wattage won't actually have an effect on what potential clock speeds you're able to obtain if you're already hitting your maximum overclocks anyways is this any more to this discussion of what power supply to buy definitely efficiency is a big one and while this video was interesting running your power supply at full tilt all the time is probably not the best idea ever but that will have to wait for another time speaking of settings i'm excited to announce a very special drop on mass drop today they're featuring the vortex poker 3 a keyboard that i think is absolutely gorgeous it still has the cherry mx switches and pbt keycaps that we saw on the previous poker 2 but vortex has stepped their game up pretty significantly on the poker 3 by utilizing a much higher quality metal case and including more programming capabilities than we saw on the poker 2. the drop has already unlocked its lowest price possible on massdrop because of how ridiculously awesome it is in my opinion and is currently available for 105 us dollars a pretty significant discount off of the msrp the drop will be live at the drop dots link in the video description for about 11 more days but if you want to pick up one for free we're actually hosting a giveaway on the forum for this unit that we have in the office right here for the next seven days for details they'll be available in the link in the description which is the linus tech tips link are there any other thought experiment videos you guys would like me to try out let me know in the comments down below or over on the forum while you're here like dislike favorite subscribe share follow comment go to the description find a shirt link for not this one i know i wear this shirt a lot but still can't get it but you can get one of our funny shirts so that's kind of cool over on the forum you can see the support us link where you can do things like changing your amazon affiliate codes checking out our merch seeing our other sponsors installing the linux tech tips notifier plugins for your browsers so that you can get your amazon affiliate codes automatically changed for you or even becoming a contributor to the forum because it all helps out thank you guys for watching and i'll see you next time youthere are tons of different ways you can grade a power supply rail setup overall wattage efficiency quality components etc today we'll be doing this as a thought experiment on the over abundance of wattage and will it help you overclock and if so by how much stay subscribe to linus tech tips to see a future episode on how to do cable lacing which will make your pc look pretty amazing the cooler master nova touch tkl utilizes genuine topper hybrid capacitive switches and is now available at a more affordable price click now to learn more to perform said thought experiment we will be using ida 64's stress test functionality to push the cpu and fur mark to push the gpu these programs should ensure that we have quite a bit of power generation from the various parts on our test bench we use these programs to push our components as much as we can using each power supply in order to try to find that power supply's limit in a sense and to see if having more wattage will directly result in higher overclocks or if the spacing between power supplies is high enough that getting a power supply that can support your system will also just naturally support an overclock for the test bench itself we have an asus x99 deluxe with a 5960x sitting comfortably in its socket the 5960x will run in a range of three 3.14 4.1 gigahertz and stock at stock voltages and then 4.5 gigahertz at 1.35 volts for graphics cards i'll be using the hd 7770 an r7265 an r927x a gtx 770 a gtx titan x and dual gtx titan x's these cards will be running at varying stock speeds and varying overclock speeds and we'll be discussing how each power supply performed with them but you can see their overclock speeds in the dock down below just in case they're maxed overclock speeds we're going to start off with a really low wattage power supply a 300 watt sfx power supply from silverstone as far as i'm concerned this is the little power supply that could the first setup we tried on it was maxing out our hd 7770 and our 5960x which it was somehow able to do seriously this thing is rated at 300 watts but was somehow comfortably pulling 375 watts from the wall it even took an r7265 in stride maxing it out but starting to fail when we clocked the cpu above four gigahertz with the gpu maxed out and the cpu at four gigahertz it was pulling about 360 watts from the wall again comfortably with the 270x it was able to hit 1245 core clock which isn't quite our max overclock but it did do this while pulling 320 watts from the wall as well for the card when we tried to increase speeds on the cpu above stock they kind of crashed which was kind of unfortunate which ends the epic run of this power supply as it didn't manage to boot a 770 or titan which is fine next up we have the bigger older brother to our previous legendary sfx power supply the silverstone 450 watt sfx 80 plus gold fine up till 270x which it did manage to boot with and was able to get a max overclock from the 270x but i was unable to get anything stable from the cpu other than just stock just for fun we have fantastic 450 watt power supply from my scrap yard wars machine with the hd 7770 we were able to max out the gpu and overclock the cpu to 3.1 gigahertz without any crashes this resulted in a pull of 295 watts from the wall also something to note is that this power supply started to stink quite badly when we pushed it concerning at the least but as the banned suicide silence or even drake would like to say yolo i was able to max out the r7 265 and yet again was only able to get the cpu to 3.1 gigahertz which totaled a total of 320 watts from the wall this is where things went downhill for the poor little power supply however it refused to boot with the 270x installed and actually never booted again on any setup including ones that i had previously tested verified working after that rip you crappy little power supply r.i.p jumping up 100 watts we have the be quiet 550 watt 80 plus gold power supply this guy was able to max out everything until the titan x setups which it was able to do quite well actually it was able to support a maximum overclock on the titan x but only 3.1 gigahertz on the cpu while pulling a total of 560 watts from the wall another 100 watts more brings us to the 650 watt cooler master power supply this guy was totally happy to run everything maxed out and up to and including a single gtx titan x which it did while pulling 580 watts from the wall it was able to boot a stock gpu settings dual titan x setup and it was kind of fine until we put it under load where it unfortunately but expectedly crashed after a minute or two while pulling 680 watts from the wall for a few minutes the corsair ax 850 watt power supply is up next with an additional 200 watts of power this power supply is able to crank every setup to the max but just barely throttle back on the max settings for dual titan setup resulting in a pretty solid clock but not as high as i might have hoped at a little itty bitsy step up we have the antec high current gamer 900 watt power supply which was able to run everything at full without much trouble but hit 875 watts from the wall while running dual titan x's fully overclocked and while running the 5960x fully overclocked as well cutting it a little close on that one but being okay overall last but not least we have our ludicrous level power supply the 1200 watt corsair ax 1200 i 80 plus platinum which as you probably guessed it ran everything totally fine and as everything was already maxed out it didn't have any overclocking benefits to give now that was a lot of testing and in conclusion we have i think a fairly expected answer more wattage will help you get a higher overclock if your system is throttling or crashing due to a lack of wattage but a massive over abundance of wattage won't actually have an effect on what potential clock speeds you're able to obtain if you're already hitting your maximum overclocks anyways is this any more to this discussion of what power supply to buy definitely efficiency is a big one and while this video was interesting running your power supply at full tilt all the time is probably not the best idea ever but that will have to wait for another time speaking of settings i'm excited to announce a very special drop on mass drop today they're featuring the vortex poker 3 a keyboard that i think is absolutely gorgeous it still has the cherry mx switches and pbt keycaps that we saw on the previous poker 2 but vortex has stepped their game up pretty significantly on the poker 3 by utilizing a much higher quality metal case and including more programming capabilities than we saw on the poker 2. the drop has already unlocked its lowest price possible on massdrop because of how ridiculously awesome it is in my opinion and is currently available for 105 us dollars a pretty significant discount off of the msrp the drop will be live at the drop dots link in the video description for about 11 more days but if you want to pick up one for free we're actually hosting a giveaway on the forum for this unit that we have in the office right here for the next seven days for details they'll be available in the link in the description which is the linus tech tips link are there any other thought experiment videos you guys would like me to try out let me know in the comments down below or over on the forum while you're here like dislike favorite subscribe share follow comment go to the description find a shirt link for not this one i know i wear this shirt a lot but still can't get it but you can get one of our funny shirts so that's kind of cool over on the forum you can see the support us link where you can do things like changing your amazon affiliate codes checking out our merch seeing our other sponsors installing the linux tech tips notifier plugins for your browsers so that you can get your amazon affiliate codes automatically changed for you or even becoming a contributor to the forum because it all helps out thank you guys for watching and i'll see you next time you\n"