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I’ve had this question in my head for a while, and was finally prompted to ask after reading this question which partially hinges on the answer.

My question is: does the amount of power used—and thus load on the power supply—vary between different add-on cards and other components within the same socket type?

For example, if I had a low-performance graphics card plugged into a PCI-E 2.0 socket and I replaced it with a new card that offered substantially better performance in the same socket as the original card, does that new card use more power/put more strain on my power supply than the old card? What about HDs, would replacing an older HD with a new one that had higher RPMs, again, using the same port as the old one?

I know (or at least believe) that the voltage available at each port/connector is standardized, but does the actual watts or amperage drawn vary depending on the device attached?

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  • Yes, the current draw can vary by device, and even by time for a given device.
    – sawdust
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 2:30
  • Is the amount of power used something that you pretty much have to call a manufacturer/locate a manual for then? It doesn't seem to be anywhere in the sales material online for any of the graphics cards I'm looking at. Do you know how much of a variance there realistically can be? I mean, are we talking +/- 5% or +/- 50%?
    – TheSpenny
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 2:36
  • Max power draw is typically the only number available. A technical manual for a hard disk drive may have time graphs of current draw for each voltage from start up to idle and for seek, read and write operations. Variance can be large, especially for a graphics card with its GPU (which is a specialized processor). If you include sleep mode (i.e. zero current draw for most devices), the variance is very, very large.
    – sawdust
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 2:57

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Yes. The amount of the actual watts or amperage drawn vary depending on the device and mainly on the configuration. I have attached detailed info of each components. Do check the same below.

Hard disk consumption

Mother board consumption

RAM usage

Video Card Power Consumption

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