Power supply for new gaming build

[bdizzle28]

My psu just died and I'm planning on building a new computer for gaming in October. How many watt psu do I need for my build and what would you recommend me? My budget is $60-90. I am planning to OC in the future but not right now just as long as it keeps my system stable with minimal OC'ing that will be great.

The build is
1 x Gtx 560 ti msi twin frozr
1 x Intel i5 2500k sandy bridge
2 x 4gb (8gb) ddr3-1600 gskill ripjaw
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
1 x 1tb hdd
1 x 64gb ssd
Antec p182 tower

Sorry for bad grammar, I'm on my phone.

 

[abekl]

Anything 500W or over is fine.

 

[alan1476]

Not true, you may want to go SLI at some point, for the little price difference go with the Corsair AX1200W and you will be future proofed. I am sorry I forgot to see your budget, so forget the Corsair, just get something over 650W, with a single 12V rail.

 

[Zap]

Overkill much, alan1476?

bdizzle28, your proposed rig can run easily on a quality 450W PSU, so abekl's recommendation is great (except I would add "reasonable quality" to the laundry list).

Here's my quick list. All will work, just choose the one that is cheapest or that you like the looks of best.

Antec NEO ECO 520C or 620C
Antec Earthwatts Green EA500D or EA650D
SeaSonic S12II 520 or 620

 

[lehtv]

Anything 500W or over is fine.

Well, not anything. Buy high quality, since the rest of the components are high quality too.

According to http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/Power your 90% load wattage for all components would be around 410-430W, with the 2500K overclocked. You'll very rarely go past this point. This wattage shouldn't be more than around 80% of your PSU rated wattage in order to have a safety margin and keep the efficiency and power quality at optimal levels. That means a 550W PSU minimum.

If you plan to upgrade the graphics card at any time in the future, e.g. next gen high end, I'd recommend a 650W PSU. If you want to keep the option of SLI open, get 750W.

These are all minimum recommendations, which means the PSU should be high quality.

Consider these:
Corsair TX650V2 $70 after rebate, 5 year warranty jonny review
OCZ Fatal1ty 750W $75 after rebate, 5 year warranty hwsecrets review
Hardwaresecrets is very stringent in their testing methodology and they gave this cheap but modular unit a gold award. Can't go wrong.

 

[pugh]

Go with Zap's recommendation if you can. Also that Seasonic is killer.

 

[bdizzle28]

Thanks everybody I decided to go with the corsair tx650 V2.

 

[ronss]

Thanks everybody I decided to go with the corsair tx650 V2.

the corsair is a good choice, i was going to suggest it, along with this one-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817194087

there are better psu,s out there, but not in your price range

 

[TemjinGold]

Well, not anything. Buy high quality, since the rest of the components are high quality too.

According to http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/Power your 90% load wattage for all components would be around 410-430W, with the 2500K overclocked. You'll very rarely go past this point. This wattage shouldn't be more than around 80% of your PSU rated wattage in order to have a safety margin and keep the efficiency and power quality at optimal levels. That means a 550W PSU minimum.

If you plan to upgrade the graphics card at any time in the future, e.g. next gen high end, I'd recommend a 650W PSU. If you want to keep the option of SLI open, get 750W.

These are all minimum recommendations, which means the PSU should be high quality.

Consider these:
Corsair TX650V2 $70 after rebate, 5 year warranty jonny review
OCZ Fatal1ty 750W $75 after rebate, 5 year warranty hwsecrets review
Hardwaresecrets is very stringent in their testing methodology and they gave this cheap but modular unit a gold award. Can't go wrong.

That's a horrible calculator. My system is plugged into a UPS that shows me exactly how much juice it draws. I've never seen it go past 300 watts. The OP won't come close to that since he has a 560 and I have a 580.

I should add: 300 watts is at the wall, not what my machine needs (which is less.) 40 of those watts is my monitor.

 

[lehtv]

TDP for the 580 only is nearly 250W. I don't think you're straining your system much if you've never seen the monitor go past 300W, or then your monitor is faulty.

I have a wattmeter of my own. With a 920 at 3.2GHz (1.2v) and a single 560 Ti (oc'd, uses as much juice as 570), along with an HDD, an SSD and several case fans, I tested the power consumption of my PC around 6 months ago, here are the results I saved in .txt. The PSU is 90% eff, results below are true power consumption (meter reading * 0.9).

Prime95 (GPU at idle, CPU and memory at full load): 270W
3DMark Vantage (GPU at load, CPU not much): 330W
Furmark (GPU at max TDP, CPU not much): 353W
Prime95 and Furmark simultaneously: around 430W

For this system, which is very similar to the OP's, a 550W PSU is minimum if you want to retain the 20% margin between max power consumption and PSU rated wattage. A 650W is even better because then the PSU is at around 50-60% load when gaming, achieving its highest efficiency, and it allows for a GPU upgrade without crossing that safety margin.

 

[hdfxst]

there's a 10% coupon code on corsair power supplies EMCKAKA24

 

[TemjinGold]

TDP for the 580 only is nearly 250W. I don't think you're straining your system much if you've never seen the monitor go past 300W, or then your monitor is faulty.

I have a wattmeter of my own. With a 920 at 3.2GHz (1.2v) and a single 560 Ti (oc'd, uses as much juice as 570), along with an HDD, an SSD and several case fans, I tested the power consumption of my PC around 6 months ago, here are the results I saved in .txt. The PSU is 90% eff, results below are true power consumption (meter reading * 0.9).

Prime95 (GPU at idle, CPU and memory at full load): 270W
3DMark Vantage (GPU at load, CPU not much): 330W
Furmark (GPU at max TDP, CPU not much): 353W
Prime95 and Furmark simultaneously: around 430W

For this system, which is very similar to the OP's, a 550W PSU is minimum if you want to retain the 20% margin between max power consumption and PSU rated wattage. A 650W is even better because then the PSU is at around 50-60% load when gaming, achieving its highest efficiency, and it allows for a GPU upgrade without crossing that safety margin.

3 things:

1) I play games, I don't play Prime95 or Furmark and certainly not them together. If the OP is building a machine to play Prime95 and Furmark, I would agree with you. Crysis is one of the most demanding games power-wise and hence an accurate measure.

2) If your PSU is most efficient at 50-60% load only, then you have a pretty crappy PSU. If your LOAD is hitting 50-60%, then your idle power usage (which makes up the vast majority of any normal user's time) is way below the minimum threshold for decent efficiency.

3) Your PSU may be 90% efficient but I doubt it's that for every one of those loads. Which means, at least the lower loads are actually less than what you put.

 

[sangyup81]

be sure to look at the specs to see how many amps the rails have!

 

[lehtv]

3 things:

1) I play games, I don't play Prime95 or Furmark and certainly not them together. If the OP is building a machine to play Prime95 and Furmark, I would agree with you. Crysis is one of the most demanding games power-wise and hence an accurate measure.

2) If your PSU is most efficient at 50-60% load only, then you have a pretty crappy PSU. If your LOAD is hitting 50-60%, then your idle power usage (which makes up the vast majority of any normal user's time) is way below the minimum threshold for decent efficiency.

3) Your PSU may be 90% efficient but I doubt it's that for every one of those loads. Which means, at least the lower loads are actually less than what you put.

1) I don't care what you're doing with your computer, I was measuring max power consumption of my PC. You know, a threshold it can't cross under any circumstances. If you want to be on the safe side, there should be a margin between that and your PSU's rated output.

2) From Hardwaresecrets.com: Understanding the 80 Plus Certification

The graph for efficiency is a bell curve, where the power supply presents its best efficiency when delivering 50% from its labeled load.

Also, the efficiency never goes low enough to actually make a difference when the system is idling. Even on the TX750 used as an example in the article, 20% load efficiency is 82% or more. What matters is what efficiency and power quality the PSU is putting out when the system is at load. Not just because of power savings, but also because any loss in efficiency means increase in waste heat, and when the system is at load, waste heat from the PSU contributes to the already hotter system.

3) My PSU is Seasonic X-650. Even with room temperature at 44C, it's over 88% efficient at 20% load (~ system at idle).

Finally, as you saw in my previous post, I had 330W drawn in 3Dmark Vantage, which I'd assume is representative of power consumption in demanding games like Crysis too. There's absolutely no way your system will draw less than 300W when gaming with the GTX580 at 99% GPU use.