[Dougie Fresh]

Something to know about the 120/120 combination is the harness (what connects the picoPSU to the external power jack) is only rated for 8A so you can only exceed 96W for short periods on time. I confirmed this with mini-box, the makers of the picoPSU.

I have an A6-5400K now and will test the power consumption when I get a chance.

Oh man... so it is useless if you need the power over 96W.... thank you for this info.

When you go above 8A, they recommend the 4-pin mini-DIN harness/plug instead. It's probably ok for short periods of time. Another thing about picoPSUs is you should not run them at maximum for a long time without good cooling so having the 120W even if you're using 90W is good since you'll be keeping it from being damaged. Likely in HTPC, we're not going anywhere near maximum anyway -- well except for in the ASRock BIOS for whatever reason

[Xexiz]

Well then it is pretty much useless to get the 120 if it can only get 6W more than the 90W. Anyways I could not imagine the new processors / mobo taking that much more compared to the A6-PACK. Should be pretty much the same.

[Dougie Fresh]

Well then it is pretty much useless to get the 120 if it can only get 6W more than the 90W. Anyways I could not imagine the new processors / mobo taking that much more compared to the A6-PACK. Should be pretty much the same.

Well, you did get more because you should not run the 90W at 90W all the time but running the 120W at 90W all the time would be fine .

[bluray]

And, do you know how much power a bluray consume? That's my big problem I know nothing about power consumption. And I don't know if I will put a slim bluray in there, when I find one since there's not a lot of slim drives.

I tested my LG blu-ray drives a year or so ago. When inserted blu-ray disc, it peaked at 23w and then stayed at 11w; when 1st started movie peaked at 19w and then stayed at 11w......and fluctuated slightly during movie....

Since you are planning to install BD-ROM, I'm recommending "picoPSU-150-XT/12.5A 150W AC-DC" instead. I preferred to have some spare power than not enough power......

[Xexiz]

Well then it is pretty much useless to get the 120 if it can only get 6W more than the 90W. Anyways I could not imagine the new processors / mobo taking that much more compared to the A6-PACK. Should be pretty much the same.

Well, you did get more because you should not run the 90W at 90W all the time but running the 120W at 90W all the time would be fine .

Yeah right, sorry you posted in the same time I posted I think and my reply was more directed to beer! I might wait your watt testing since you have the same build. I dont know if something will burn if I build it with the 65 from the isk300-65 or should I really wait to get the psu?! Starting to worry.. though I would wait to see how it goes with the stock crappy psu for a week or 2 and then adjust the buy with the 90 or 120. Not sure anymore I should try the oem 65.

[bluray]

Complete 120w Pico tests- Tiny, Silent and Efficient: The picoPSU....

[Dougie Fresh]

Sitting in the BIOS, with the clocks set to Auto and memory to DDR3-1866 it's showing 77W on the Kill-a-Watt. As expected with this motherboard due to the power consumption in the BIOS, temps skyrocket pretty quick going from 36C to 53C pretty quickly with the case open.

I'll install Windows next and see what goes on there as far as Prime95 and Furmark and power consumption.

[eskro]

right on Dougie Fresh!

[Beer40oz]

Well then it is pretty much useless to get the 120 if it can only get 6W more than the 90W. Anyways I could not imagine the new processors / mobo taking that much more compared to the A6-PACK. Should be pretty much the same.

Well, you did get more because you should not run the 90W at 90W all the time but running the 120W at 90W all the time would be fine .

Yeah right, sorry you posted in the same time I posted I think and my reply was more directed to beer! I might wait your watt testing since you have the same build. I dont know if something will burn if I build it with the 65 from the isk300-65 or should I really wait to get the psu?! Starting to worry.. though I would wait to see how it goes with the stock crappy psu for a week or 2 and then adjust the buy with the 90 or 120. Not sure anymore I should try the oem 65.

Sorry but the OEM 65 won't cut it... just wait for the testing... since you wan't a Blu ray player it seems that the 120w kit will do just fine even doh as Dougie said it can not handle 96w for a long period of time... I bet if watching a video on a blu ray player the htpc will draw about 40-50 watts or maybe less....

It may be also that the 90w kit will do just fine too.... what you say Dougie?

[Dougie Fresh]

Well, you did get more because you should not run the 90W at 90W all the time but running the 120W at 90W all the time would be fine .

Yeah right, sorry you posted in the same time I posted I think and my reply was more directed to beer! I might wait your watt testing since you have the same build. I dont know if something will burn if I build it with the 65 from the isk300-65 or should I really wait to get the psu?! Starting to worry.. though I would wait to see how it goes with the stock crappy psu for a week or 2 and then adjust the buy with the 90 or 120. Not sure anymore I should try the oem 65.

Sorry but the OEM 65 won't cut it... just wait for the testing... since you wan't a Blu ray player it seems that the 120w kit will do just fine even doh as Dougie said it can not handle 96w for a long period of time... I bet if watching a video on a blu ray player the htpc will draw about 40-50 watts or maybe less....

It may be also that the 90w kit will do just fine too.... what you say Dougie?

Yes, the 65W definitely will not cut it. Just in the BIOS it's using 77W. Beer40oz is spot on.

For my barebones kit, I'll be including the 120/120 combination like I did for the A6-3500 (the 84W AC adapter did not cut it). For picoPSU, IMHO it depends a lot on what you plan to do. If you're going to be doing just HTPC, the 90W is probably fine and it's nice that it comes with the P4 connector. If you're going to be gaming and pushing things to the maximum a lot then the 120/120 or 120/102 is a better choice. Nice thing too about the A6-5400K being a "K" is that it's easily underclocked/undervolted if you need to reduce the power usage at all. I had one A6-3500 system I dropped down to 1.8GHz and left the GPU where it was. I didn't notice a difference to be honest from stock.

[Xexiz]

120/102? These are the only 2 I can find
http://www.short-circuit.com/combo/picop...-acdc.html
http://www.short-circuit.com/combo/premi...-acdc.html
Not a clue what the premium is for though.. and it's not the same A.. 10 vs 8.5

Also, my electric lessons are really far but why would the 90 or 120 be ok when one of them is 7.5A and the other is 10A.

[boriskey]

Complete 120w Pico tests- Tiny, Silent and Efficient: The picoPSU....

hm...is that true?

It's the one downside to the 120W brick — the built-in cooling fan. The fan turned on promptly when we boosted the output load to 90W, and it was loud. The 36 dBA@1m that we measured was far too loud to be acceptable in a quiet system.

[Dougie Fresh]

120/102? These are the only 2 I can find
http://www.short-circuit.com/combo/picop...-acdc.html
http://www.short-circuit.com/combo/premi...-acdc.html
Not a clue what the premium is for though.. and it's not the same A.. 10 vs 8.5

Also, my electric lessons are really far but why would the 90 or 120 be ok when one of them is 7.5A and the other is 10A.

There are two considerations here: the 8A (96W) recommendation on the harness and the recommendation that maximum load not be sustained for a long period of time. This can all be found in the picoPSU manual.

For the 8A consideration: 120W picoPSU with 8.5A (102W) or 10A (120W) AC adapter are ok as long as the load does not exceed 8A (96W) for a long period of time.

For the maximum load consideration: in most HTPC applications the load will be 30W-40W. However, there may be applications such as games or transcoding where the usage could hit 100%. With a A6-3500 that was around 84W (7A). For the picoPSU-90, that's close to 100% load for extended periods of time which requires additional cooling according to the picoPSU manual. However, for the pico-120/120 adapter or pico-120/102 adapter it would not be near maximum load AND it would not exceed the 8A rating so those are a better choice.

[Xexiz]

Great post Dougie. Thanks for the infos. One thing is still missing in my brain though.

This one would support higher loads even if its cheaper?
picoPSU-120/10A 120W AC-DC
US $52.95

Than this one?
picoPSU-120/8.5A 110W AC-DC
US $55

And by the way, Sorry for the "pollution" on your post eskro

[bluray]

Complete 120w Pico tests- Tiny, Silent and Efficient: The picoPSU....

hm...is that true?

It's the one downside to the 120W brick — the built-in cooling fan. The fan turned on promptly when we boosted the output load to 90W, and it was loud. The 36 dBA@1m that we measured was far too loud to be acceptable in a quiet system.

If you read from the first page "Viewing page 1 of 4 pages", they are testing two different power bricks (one is fanless and another one with fan)....