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In theory you could use a power supply that tightly fits your current needs. However if you need more for any reason you get issues.
As the most adapters today are switch mode supply they waste way less energy than the old school wall plugs with transformer and rectifier circuit.
My guess is you own a 2 amp supply only and want to know if it is enough. You could run your Pi on full load and see how much current it drains.
As for my experience from two Pi products I can say yes, it is enough.
The first pi (OrangePi Zero with old DietPi) hardly exceeded a current of 600mA, that is why I plugged it in the USB outlet of my router which can deliver 500mA which is enough even when load peaks are measureable (due to unattended upgrades or whatever.
My second pi (One Plus) which also will act as a server, so no GPU action here, at the moment drains close to .5 amps idle and close to 1 amp under full load (kernel compile on four threads).
I do not know your application and when you for example playback 4K footage the PI may easily exceed these values.
tl;dr: Easy solution: Try'n'error. Hard solution: Get measuring equipment and do a few tests. "Expensive" solution: Get a 3 amp wall plug. |
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