How do you guys decide on how much Power....

Hal Emmerich

...someone needs when your recommending a build??

I see similar spec builds ranging from 450W to 550W.

Leman

It's mostly down to experience and personal preference. One person might recommend 450w as good for a build, but another might recommend 550w in case the person might get a minor upgrade in the future etc.

Personally, I throw in a 650w into anything with a single GPU, just to be safe/future proof. :P

deconduo

Because the SuperFlower Amazon 450W is the cheapest good PSU on HWVS, I'd usually recommend that for any single GPU up to a 6850/6870. Its unfortunate that there's nothing decent cheaper than it.

The 550W version will run a single 6950/6970/560/570 with a nice bit of breathing room for overclocking.

Best rule of thumb is to look at the amperage on the +12V rail, and compare it to what the graphics card you are using needs. The total from the rest of the system, even with an overclocked CPU will very rarely be above 16A (~200W) and usually more like 10-12A.

Hal Emmerich

Leman wrote: »

It's mostly down to experience and personal preference. One person might recommend 450w as good for a build, but another might recommend 550w in case the person might get a minor upgrade in the future etc.

Personally, I throw in a 650w into anything with a single GPU, just to be safe/future proof. :P

So you can't put in to much? Is 450W to low for a GPU? Like this one for example Sapphire VAPOR-X HD6770 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DUAL DVI-I / HDMI / DP OC VERSIO?

Hal Emmerich

deconduo wrote: »

Because the SuperFlower Amazon 450W is the cheapest good PSU on HWVS, I'd usually recommend that for any single GPU up to a 6850/6870. Its unfortunate that there's nothing decent cheaper than it.

The 550W version will run a single 6950/6970/560/570 with a nice bit of breathing room for overclocking.

Best rule of thumb is to look at the amperage on the +12V rail, and compare it to what the graphics card you are using needs. The total from the rest of the system, even with an overclocked CPU will very rarely be above 16A (~200W) and usually more like 10-12A.

Didn't see this before mine....

deconduo

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

So you can't put in to much? Is 450W to low for a GPU? Like this one for example Sapphire VAPOR-X HD6770 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DUAL DVI-I / HDMI / DP OC VERSIO?

The 450W one you linked will run that will no problems at all. However theres not much point paying extra for an OCd card. You can just overclock a cheaper card yourself, such as this one:
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=46802&agid=1004

Leman

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

So you can't put in to much? Is 450W to low for a GPU? Like this one for example Sapphire VAPOR-X HD6770 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DUAL DVI-I / HDMI / DP OC VERSIO?

A 450 will run that just fine, I am just set in my ways I guess.

And while you can't "put in too much", running a 1000w PSU at 200w draw will result in something barmy like 30% efficiency, meaning it would cost more to run than a 450w drawing 200w for example.

All in all, to err a little upwards is fine, since 100w too high will run fine, while even 50w too low will fubar the system. The only real mistake you can make when buying a PSU is buying a "budget" no brand PSU (for the record, SuperFlower are a reputable brand so don't worry about them).

Case in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP8nFQYQW34

Btw, if you know where the music in the above video is from, please tell me, it's driving me mad.

old_aussie

Why play guessing games with things like PC power requirements?

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Hal Emmerich

^^^ That's a handy site.

What I put in came close to 450W, will this 500W be ok with this case?

Solitaire

Leman wrote: »

And while you can't "put in too much", running a 1000w PSU at 200w draw will result in something barmy like 30% efficiency, meaning it would cost more to run than a 450w drawing 200w for example.

Not quite that bad The thing is, most modern PCs use feck-all power most of the time - its only when you're thrashing either CPU or GPU hard that power climbs above the 60W threshold on most rigs And as PSU efficiency starts to tank as you head below 20%... older, cheaper 1kW PSUs would be hitting 60-70% efficiency at that point (6% load!). Whereas a decent (yet still cheaper) 450W PSU would be running at 75-80% efficiency (>13% load). Same power draw, but the smaller PSU is using less power from the mains to supply it!

Generally, working out what PSU you need means finding out how much 12V power your CPU and GPU suck down at a typical full load (i.e. not OCCT/Linpack!), adding 20W+ for a normal config (i.e. no 6-HDD RAID5 array!) and getting a PSU that has 12V rails supplying twice as much

Hal Emmerich

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

^^^ That's a handy site.

What I put in came close to 450W, will this 500W be ok with this case?

anyone?

marco_polo

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

anyone?

Yeah no worries, an ATX PSU will fit into any mATX or ATX case .

Hal Emmerich

marco_polo wrote: »

Yeah no worries, an ATX PSU will fit into any mATX or ATX case .

Thanks. And it's a super-flower so it's a good one, like the two in first post? They're always recommended here.

marco_polo

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Thanks. And it's a super-flower so it's a good one, like the two in first post? They're always recommended here.

I really couldn't say for sure, it is a different product line to the other two (which are Amazon series) and it doesn't appear to be 80 Plus certified for some reason (Now that is not to say it is nescessarly a bad PSU, there could be a perfectly valid reason such as it is intended for OEM systems rather than retail and so the may have not bothered with certification).

In all likelyhood is probably a failry decent PSU but in light of the scarcity of information on it I think you should definately opt for the 80+ Bronze 550W Amazon instead which is almost certainly a better quality unit and only 3 euro more.


500W Gamer
http://www.super-flower.de/index.php?id=17

550W Amazon
http://www.super-flower.de/index.php?id=77

Leman

From reading jonnyguru.com (a site that does pretty much nothing but review PSU), it seems SuperFlower are a pretty good brand overall.

deconduo

Stick with the SuperFlower Amazons or Golden Greens. The rest aren't as good at all.

Monotype

+ the golden king and fanless PSU.

deconduo

Monotype wrote: »

+ the golden king and fanless PSU.

If you have the budget for them (€150 for a 500W :eek:)