So, I'm not trying to burn my house down while I'm at work.
I've got an 430w 80+ bronze Corsair PSU. I'm planning on mining on a i7 2600 and a GTX 1080. Is the power consumption too much for that dinky PSU? Also, is the efficiency going to be awful for using that much power?
That's cutting it pretty close, I would get a 600 Watt PSU to have a safe level of headroom.
The difference in efficiency depends on the PSU really but for the most part the peak efficiency is usually around 50% load. That said, the difference between peak and low is typically only a few % anyway. If you really care about efficiency you should consider a better rated PSU and more power efficient components.
You could use something like PCPartPicker to determine your maximum load on the machine (though this is an unrealistic number for average use), then figure 125% of that for a PSU that wouldnt struggle to keep up with demand.
I have a 7700k, gtx 1070, all 4 ram slots filled, 3 SSDs and a ton of peripherals. My 600w PSU runs it all without issue. My wife runs a 6600k, gtx 1070, 2 ram slots filled, 1 SSD, and a handful of peripherals on a Corsair CX430 PSU without issue. I think you should be fine in my opinion with that setup on a 430w. Since you are running it for mining its mainly just GPU load anyway. I wouldnt OC too hardcore with it but it seems fine to me.
As long as you're not overclocking, it will be fine. A 1080 at full load is about 180 Watts. An i7 2600 and motherboard is typically less than 160W at full load. So a 430W PSU should be able to handle that just fine.
Edit: References:
http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/gtx-1080-power-usage/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/21
While mining, I'm drawing 350W from the wall with an i5-2500 and a pair of 1070s. 430W is plenty for a single 10-series card. As long as the OP doesn't plan to mine with the CPU too, he/she should be fine.
Yeah, I figured I would be fine, just thought I'd ask. No major overclocking on the 1080 for the most part. It's a blower style cooler. No mining on the CPU either.
I think I'm gonna order a power meter to measure how much I'm pulling from the wall, to calculate any possible earnings from mining. Any suggestions on an accurate meter?
Thanks! 