New PSU advice please!

farna_boy

Hey all,

I have been considering buying a new PSU for some time now and I have been doing a fair bit of research on them. To be fair, I don't think there is much wrong with my current PSU (a OCZ 600W SXS) other than it is very noisy (the fan appears to be running at 100% all the time which is a common complaint).

I have tried working out how much headroom I should allow for future upgrades but most calculators seem to be advising a 1000W PSU which I think is overkill. My cuurent specs are in my sig, and if I were to upgrade I would probably add more RAM, a better graphics card ( not Crossfired) possibly an SSD and possibly a quad core CPU (but more probably just overclocking).

I have been looking at either a Corsair HX 750W or HX 850W and although I'm leaning towards the 850W I'm not actually sure that I will need that much power.

Does anyone have any advice?

Cheers!

Venom

I would think the Corsair TX 750W is more than overkill for what you need

Solitaire

Unless I've gone blind or you're not telling us something crucial like you forgot to add the other 11 HDDs or you're running a Peltier cooler off it I'd say you need nothing more exotic than a Corsair CX400. Although even that may be ovekill - your rig really is pulling a peanuts amount of power

SXS was always, well, a bit naff. Aside from the other SXS issues the SXS600 was well known for heat, noisy fans and tons of fan failures which neccessitated RMAs :mad:

Effluo

It'd be good to know what type of graphics card you'll be upgrading to, so we can match up the psu.
What games do you play and at what resolution do you play them on

farna_boy

Solitaire wrote: »

Unless I've gone blind or you're not telling us something crucial like you forgot to add the other 11 HDDs or you're running a Peltier cooler off it I'd say you need nothing more exotic than a Corsair CX400. Although even that may be ovekill - your rig really is pulling a peanuts amount of power

SXS was always, well, a bit naff. Aside from the other SXS issues the SXS600 was well known for heat, noisy fans and tons of fan failures which neccessitated RMAs :mad:

At the moment, I realise that I am drawing practically no power but I would like to set up the system so that I won't have to do a complete overhaul and upgrade for a long time. To be honest when I was doing most of the PSU calculator tests I was putting in the maximum of what I could upgrade to if I had the money so it looked something like:

CPU: QX9650 (although realistically I don't think this price will ever become reasonable, so maybe another high end quad core)
GFX: 4870 X2 or similar 5xxx now (There is no point in XFire since the max the board can do is 2 x 8)
HDD: I am going to get at least 1 SSD once they come down in price a bit

I also allowed for overclocking by about 33%.

Using these components, I came up with the figure of 750 - 850W but even then, depending on the PSU calculator it can be much higher.

Effluo wrote: »

It'd be good to know what type of graphics card you'll be upgrading to, so we can match up the psu.
What games do you play and at what resolution do you play them on

At the moment I am playing NFS Shift and I usually play recent releases. I only have a 19" monitor (1440 x 900 max) though so the 4670 is adequate for the majority of the games I play and I don't mind if the AA and AF aren’t maxed out. The only reason I will upgrade my graphics card is when the 4670 starts struggling and/or if I decide to upgrade my monitor. Even if I do upgrade the monitor though, the maximum size would probably be a 24".

Effluo

Well using those components a 750watt wouldn't have been that bad of an option!

For starters you don't need a ram upgrade and prob won't for quite some time to come.

I'd say stick it out with your psu until you get a better idea of what your upgrade will be...
No point in getting a psu for a certain gpu/system which by the time you upgrade will be not the one you want to upgrade to...

Especially if you find gaming at your current resolution ok then just carry on, save up and then splash out sometime!

BaconZombie

I bought the Corsair HX 850W about a month ago and love it.

I'm placing on running 8+ HD from my system so it's pure 12V & 5V was deciding point for me.

CustomPC did a really good write up using a external testing proccess to check all the PSU and it can out on top.

farna_boy wrote: »

Hey all,

I have been considering buying a new PSU for some time now and I have been doing a fair bit of research on them. To be fair, I don't think there is much wrong with my current PSU (a OCZ 600W SXS) other than it is very noisy (the fan appears to be running at 100% all the time which is a common complaint).

I have tried working out how much headroom I should allow for future upgrades but most calculators seem to be advising a 1000W PSU which I think is overkill. My cuurent specs are in my sig, and if I were to upgrade I would probably add more RAM, a better graphics card ( not Crossfired) possibly an SSD and possibly a quad core CPU (but more probably just overclocking).

I have been looking at either a Corsair HX 750W or HX 850W and although I'm leaning towards the 850W I'm not actually sure that I will need that much power.

Does anyone have any advice?

Cheers!

Solitaire

Then play it safe and get a Corsair VX550 or an Antec Basiq Plus or *whatever* 550W or even a Odin or Seasonic if you can find them cheap. A good 550W CWT/Delta/Seasonic-built unit should do you grand so long as you don't go multi-GPU or add a large RAID array or anything