Core i7 920 w/ 500w PSU?

[spire303]

Sup everyone! I'm new to these forums so, nice to meet ya... >;D

I'm currently building a new system and was wondering if the Antec Earthwatt 500w PSU that came with my Sonata III is enough to power it?

Here's my specs so far:

-Core i7 920 & 2.66 (may OC in the future)
-ASUS P6T Deluxe
-3x2g (6g) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600
-GTX 260, 280, or 295 (haven't purchased yet)
-PCIe X-Fi (ditto)
-CD burner, probably SATA (ditto)
-Vista Premium x64

I don't plan on doing any SLI, atleast not for a while. What do you think? I'm hoping it will be enough because if not, that's just one more thing I have to buy before I can finally get my system up and running!!

 

[Markfw]

The video card alone will kill you. I don't think a 500 watt PSU will run a quad with a GTX260 or better. I burned up an Antec 550 trying that.

 

[eternalone]

Just get a corsair 750 watts, I mean you already went all out might as well make sure your power supply is sufficient. But me I always find the cheapest solution investigate hard so I get the best bang for my buck but thats just me.
Better safe than sorry, also like the guy above me said he burned one out and it is alot of watts running through your system.

 

[spire303]

Alright, just wanted to double check. I'm coming from an Athlon64 3500+ system and I wasn't too sure whats the norm for PSU wattage these days. Maybe I can sell this one somewhere... or lay it on some train tracks. ;]

 

[SlowSpyder]

I am running an overclocked/over-volted Phenom (big power user) and an overclocked 4870 (similar power useage to a GTX260) on an Antec NeoPower 550 watt power supply. Before that I was running the same processor on a power hungry Radeon 2900 Pro @ 800Mhz. I've been using this power supply for well over a year, probably close to two years.

 

[JMapleton]

It's not so much the quad that's hurting you, but the video card.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
The video card alone will kill you. I don't think a 500 watt PSU will run a quad with a GTX260 or better. I burned up an Antec 550 trying that.

Really mark?

I tested my system with 1 280, and I was pulling 330 from the wall load. Im using 2 280s on a 750.


People over-estimate power by alot.

 

[magreen]

Yeah, you could probably squeeze by with a high quality 500W, though you might be running it at over 70% of its capacity. When you do that, the psu is likely to run very loud and hot, and it might not last a whole lotta years.

 

[Martimus]

Make sure that your PSU can supply the proper power to the proper places. Some of the 500W PSU's on the Sonota III (they use a few different models) are rather lacking on the 12V rails, so take a look at it and ensure it is sufficient for your GPU.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: Martimus

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: Markfw900
The video card alone will kill you. I don't think a 500 watt PSU will run a quad with a GTX260 or better. I burned up an Antec 550 trying that.

Really mark?

I tested my system with 1 280, and I was pulling 330 from the wall load. Im using 2 280s on a 750.


People over-estimate power by alot.

Yeah, but you don't know where that 330W was being used. Was it all on the 12V line? was the 5V line being stressed? Also, caps fatigue with age, so it will give worse output as it gets older.

There is a reason so many people want a high quality power supply, and that is usually because they have had power supplies fail in the past; and when they fail they usually take a lot of components with them.

I used to design power supply circuitry for airbag modules, and trust me, you DON'T want be powering anything on the edge of what your filtering circuitry can provide, because it doesn't take much for a failure to occur, and failures based on Capacitors failing are catastrophic to the whole system.

Well I'm pretty sure my quality PSU can handle 330W on the 12V without any issues.

Also, when figuring power requirements for something like SLI, you dont add the TDP of the two cards. From what I have read, the 2nd card in an SLI setup never even gets near it. The stress is on the primary card.

 

[exar333]

You could probably get away with it if you go the gtx260 or gtx280 path, but definitely not the gtx295 (reliably). I would say grab a 700-800 if you plan to get the gtx 295 or SLI the 260 or 280 later.

My personal opinion would be NOT to skimp on the PSU. Grab a good quality 750watt PSU for a good deal and feel comfortable with your overhead.

 

[spire303]

I think I'll play it safe and get a higher wattage PSU. The guy who said a PSU failure can potentially have catastrophic results scared me... :\

 

[Extelleron]

A quality ~500W PSU with a Core i7 + GTX 260 or so will likely be fine. For example a Corsair HX520....I know I ran an overclocked Phenom + GTX 280 on that no problem. I would not run a high-end setup with that PSU.....it has only 2 12V rails rated at 17A each.

I'd recommend you buy a Corsair 750W like I have if you are going for a Core i7 setup. For one if you buy a GTX 260 or 280, you have the ability to SLI and not have to upgrade anything else. You're not going to have any trouble running GTX 260/280 SLI on a TX750.