How much is enough?

[Mark_Venture]

So I'm working on upgrading my current PC... and I haven't decided yet if I'll be just replacing some parts, or building something new...

I found online a few "power supply calculators". When I put the same components into the first two of them.... (what I have on order for mother board, CPU, heatsink/fan, memory, plus all the drives I have in my current rig, and a few "extras" just in case)...

This one -> http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator says load is 535W, and recommends 585w supply. and suggests EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G1 80+ GOLD, 650W

This one -> http://www.coolermaster.com/power-supply-calculator/ says load is 643W and recommends 693W, suggesting Cooler Master Power Supply Cooler Master V750 - Compact 750W 80 PLUS Gold Modular PSU (6th Generation Skylake Ready)

Next I found these, which don't give the same "drop down" options, so I had to approximate components..

This one -> https://us.msi.com/power-supply-calculator It says I need a minimum of 550w supply.

This one -> http://images10.newegg.com/BizIntell/tool/psucalc/index.html?name=Power-Supply-Wattage-Calculator is VERY BASIC and says I need 801w or higher.

So other than Newegg, they all seem to indicate that 750w is fine.

I guess I'm concerned if they are accurate enough to say that my current Antec EarthWatts EA750 power supply is enough to run this stuff? And/or to be sure I buy the right size later if I decide to upgrade my case and power supply?

 

[MrTeal]

It's hard to say without knowing any of the components you use or plan to use, but there are very few single GPU systems that wouldn't be fine with a quality 550W PSU. On 750W you could run 290X Crossfire if you wanted to as long as you didn't go nuts with an overclock.

Most calculators give wildly inflated numbers.

 

[Mark_Venture]

If I just do the board/cpu/memory swap now, then the final system will be...

Motherboard: Asus Z170-DELUXE
CPU: Intel Boxed Core I7-6700K
Heatsink/fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Paste: Arctic Silver 5 AS5-3.5G Thermal Paste
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB (2x 8 GB) (Dual Channel Kit) F4-3200C16D-16GVK
Case: Antec Nine Hundred II case with Antec EarthWatts EA750 power supply
Power: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-3979-KB (4gig SSC ACX2.0)
Drives:
Qty 1 - 500gb Samsung 850 EVO SSD
Qty 1 - 1Tb Western Digital Black SATA II - WD1001FALS
Qty 1 - 3Tb Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB - WD30EZRX
Qty 1 - 3Tb Western Digital Mainstream/Green SATA III - WD30EZRZ
Qty 1 - 4Tb Western Digital Mainstream/Green SATA III - WD40EZRZ
Lite-On SOHD-167T DVDrom
LG BH16NS40 BD-RW/DVD-RW

Ideally, I'd also like to swap out the OLD 1TB WD Black for a new 3TB WD Black. (depends on cash on hand)..

Currently I'm running with all those same drives, case and power supply. Asus P7P55D-DLX board, i7-860(lynnfield) cpu, stock cooler, and 8gig DDR3 (4x2gig sticks), and a Syba Si-PEX40057 pcie sata card.

 

[UsandThem]

I have a system much like yours (without the hard drives), and I usually don't go past 215w while gaming.

A good quality 550w would be perfectly fine your system, and a 650w will leave a decent amount of extra room for future card upgrade or overclocking. 750w leaves A LOT of extra room for future upgrades (SLI ir Crossfire).

As long as your unit is a gold or platinum rated unit, you really won't waste much energy running at lower loads.

 

[MrTeal]

Oh, you're more than fine on a 750W supply. Even if you overclock the snot of out that setup you probably won't even reach 50% load when gaming.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

The 750W PSU you currently have is already overkill, no reason to replace it.

For example, an i7 3770K overclocked to 4.6GHz plus a double overclocked 980 Ti pulls 488W at the wall (PSU outputs 439W based on 90% efficiency) while gaming.

 

[Mark_Venture]

Cool. IF i take the left over parts to build a new system, I'll likely get a EVGA SuperNOVA G2 80+ GOLD either 750w or 850w because I'll also then be adding some more drives and doing a raid or storage pool setup.

Thanks!!

 

[AnonymouseUser]

The 970 uses a lot less power than a 980 Ti, and those drives really don't use much power, so a 650W PSU would be fine.

 

[Mark_Venture]

Just as a follow up... I ended up doing a partial upgrade (motherboard/cpu/fan) so for now... my "final" rig is...

Motherboard: Asus Z170-DELUXE
CPU: Intel Boxed Core I7-6700K
Heatsink/fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Paste: Arctic Silver 5 AS5-3.5G Thermal Paste
Memory: G.SKILL 16GB (2x 8GB) Ripjaws V Series DDR4 PC4-25600 3200MHz Model F4-3200C16D-16GVK in XMP mode
Case: Antec Nine Hundred II case
Power: Antec EarthWatts EA750
Power: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 04G-P4-3979-KB (4gig SSC ACX2.0)
Drives:
Qty 1 - 500gb Samsung 850 EVO SSD (for OS)
Qty 1 - 1Tb Western Digital Black SATA II - WD1001FALS
Qty 1 - 3Tb Western Digital Caviar Green 3 TB SATA III 64 MB - WD30EZRX
Qty 1 - 3Tb Western Digital Mainstream/Blue SATA III - WD30EZRZ
Qty 1 - 4Tb Western Digital Mainstream/Blue SATA III - WD40EZRZ
LG BH16NS40 BD-RW/DVD-RW

I've also added a 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 (until it dies, it has already developed bad sectors a few weeks after the warranty ended) in an Antec Easy SATA Hot Swap Hard Drive Caddy, and have a 1TB and 2TB WD My Passport Ultras hooked via USB3.1 ports (powered by the USB ports).

While I don't know how I can measure how much power I'm actually drawing, I can say that everything is running great on my original 5+ year old EarthWatts EA750 power supply! Even re-encoding video files (CPU maxed to 100% for hours at a time with lots of hard drive activity)

 

[AnonymouseUser]

While I don't know how I can measure how much power I'm actually drawing, I can say that everything is running great on my original 5+ year old EarthWatts EA750 power supply!

The Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor is very handy to have around. :thumbsup:

 

[DigDog]

ideally you want to buy a PSU with the following qualities:

1. semi or full modular (practically, semi modular is identical to full)

2. quality components

3. extended warranty

4. gold or platinum efficiency

5. of a wattage equal to circa 1.5x to 2x your power use

when you run a PSU at 50~70%, you will likely be using it at its peak efficiency; this translates to reduced power bills and longer life expectancy.

luckily, EVGA is making some outstanding PSUs these days, which cost little, perform superbly, and have huge warranties, which is why you'll see them recommended in practically every new build.

 

[Mark_Venture]

The Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor is very handy to have around. :thumbsup:

I have one I'll have to plug it in.