minimum PSU to power...

[Mussels]

i'm a believer of buying the best PSU you can afford, and using it for as long as you can. Corsairs have a 5 year warranty, so you might as well buy one that'll be useful to you in 5 years time.

 

[inferKNOX]

Sanhime all you need is a calculator then you can choose what these guys are telling you.
Go and calculate you power need here: eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite 2.5

 

[Mussels]

not those again, those calculators are crap. they're useless.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Agree with you on that Mussels! I was running a generic 500W power supply for a day or 2 in my PC. xD

 

[Mussels]

they've updated it, so i'll give mine a shot and see what the power usage is like. will edit this post.

Lol despite the fact my CPU is undervolted, it thinks it'll use 139W of power - lol to that.

its obviously got bad data for 775 xeons, so i'm going to use an E8500 and hope its more accurate (it thinks EVERY 775 xeon is a Q6600 kentsfield, by the numbers)
75W using an E8500, so theres one piece of advice: this thing has shit specs for quite a few CPU's, and cant be trusted.


Once i selected a wolfdale chip and manually edited everything in, it wasnt so bad. It has improved somewhat - it claims i need a 507W PSU. While my system uses about 400W at load, i would definately nevera PC like mine on anything less than a 550W PSU.

Catch is - this test is saying you can run a crossfire system off a 500W PSU, without mentioning amperage,rails, or PSU quality. a generic 500W PSU would blow in a week, on this system - my gameXstream 700W struggled, due to a rail being pushed too far.

 

[MoonPig]

354w at recommened loads...
406w at Full loads...


To the OP, get what ever the best is in your budget, even try to push it. I'd rather have a reliable, overpowered PSU then a limited one...

 

[niko084]

not those again, those calculators are crap. they're useless.

+1 don't waste your time on that trash...

One of my old systems calculated out to 314 watts, it drew 306 from the wall which means about 80% or so of that from the PSU.

Another system calculated out to 301 watts, it drew nearly 500 from the wall... Again 80% of that, about 400 watts...

Some setups give you a moderate baseline, others are WAY off high and low..
Simply put get a good psu with more than enough power.

 

[Sanhime]

"I can't really predict what the future will be like as far as power consumption goes." If I were to think like this, then maybe I should just get the corsair 1000w? Maybe 5 years from now, the standard might be 2000w psu's lol

 

[niko084]

"I can't really predict what the future will be like as far as power consumption goes." If I were to think like this, then maybe I should just get the corsair 1000w? Maybe 5 years from now, the standard might be 2000w psu's lol

Nah because 5 years from now most countries will have laws on how much power a computer can draw...

Things are pushing at more power efficient, over the next years we will probably be seeing a slow working back to less power consumption and more efficiency.

As for this system, I would get a good 750-800, 1k's are pretty pricey yet... Going tri-sli is a waste of money, by the time you even consider your system too slow there will be new cards out that cost $150 a piece that beat the 285's and use 30% less power, that's just the way it works.

Part of exactly why I don't crossfire anymore.

 

[inferKNOX]

It is accurate about my system, as compared to several pro reviews I've read.

 

[niko084]

It is accurate about my system, as compared to several pro reviews I've read.

It's not accurate unless you tested it yourself.

 

[CDdude55]

Its definitely not the most reliable, but it should give you a pretty nice figure on how much power your rig uses.

 

[Sanhime]

The corsair TX series are nice, but its so hard to go back once you go modular. And the modular HW versions are so much more expensive.

 

[Mussels]

"I can't really predict what the future will be like as far as power consumption goes." If I were to think like this, then maybe I should just get the corsair 1000w? Maybe 5 years from now, the standard might be 2000w psu's lol

not really. if you look at specs for mid range systems, they go up by 50W each year at most.

Tech gets more power efficient - if you built a 45nm core 2 duo with a 4770 (or two), a single 1TB HDD and 4GB of ram - you're looking at a powerful PC at around 200-250W. Throw in an LED backlit screen at ~45W (like mine) and you've got one power efficient beast.

Sure, the high end has silly power requirements - but midrange doesnt, and never will. the heat and power would make it sell less.

Its a leapfrog situation: stuff gets more powerful, for more power use: then it gets shrunk down and leaner so the next gen is about the same power (as in, strength), but far more power efficient. - for example, look at radeon 4850 vs 4770, 8800GTS (320/64) vs 8800GTS 512MB, or core 2 duo 65nm vs 45nm.

 

[Sanhime]

Update, I just order a Corsair 850TX from Newegg. The cost difference between 750 and 850, after savings and rebates, were small enough that I'll pay a little bit extra for the 850!