sufficient power supply

Dett27

Honorable
May 27, 2013
54
0
10,630
will be running a 4670k i5 with slight overclock.

Geforce gtx 660

8 gigs of ram

what would work for a good power supply? I was set on an 850W rosewell for $89 but I just saw a good deal on a 500W on newegg. wondering if that would work out so i could save some money
 
Solution


Perfect example of a PSU that is not "good".

It doesnt have 80+ Certification, which means its efficiency and levels of voltage ripple ("dirty power") at various loads is unknown, but likely not good.
That red switch on the back tells the PSU what voltage to expect from the wall, which means it doesnt have Active PFC, which is where it detects it automatically and adjusts. This is a pretty standard feature even for low end PSU's.
It has two 12v rails, each can only put out 264W. Having multiple rails means you can accidentally overload one if you...


Perfect example of a PSU that is not "good".

It doesnt have 80+ Certification, which means its efficiency and levels of voltage ripple ("dirty power") at various loads is unknown, but likely not good.
That red switch on the back tells the PSU what voltage to expect from the wall, which means it doesnt have Active PFC, which is where it detects it automatically and adjusts. This is a pretty standard feature even for low end PSU's.
It has two 12v rails, each can only put out 264W. Having multiple rails means you can accidentally overload one if you were to put too much strain on it (say you were overclocking a 250W graphics card like a 780). All good PSU's use a single, far stronger 12v rail. Also the combined 12v wattage comes to 528W, which is 100W less than the advertised 630W.
While not necessarily a bad thing, gimmicks like LED lights tend to be used to make a horrible product seem more appealing.

Also, RAIDMAX is just known to be a horrible brand known for pumping out cheap PSU's. There is a list of brands on the Newegg forums arranged by the quality of their PSU's. RAIDMAX are in Tier 5.
Tier 5 - Other than the units listed above for any of these brands, NOT RECOMMENDED. Replace ASAP if you have one.
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

Thats how you tell if a PSU is "good" or not.

Your after a ~550W PSU, heres a good one.
XFX Core Edition 550W, 80+ Bronze. $70 ($10 rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013&Tpk=XFX%20550&IsVirtualParent=1
 
Solution

Dett27

Honorable
May 27, 2013
54
0
10,630


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182133

will this do me better in the long run?(adding on another card,more ram, etc) this is what I was originally looking at. but thank you for the detailed answer that helped a ton
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
All good PSU's use a single, far stronger 12v rail.

I completely 100% disagree with this. Yes that PSU is junk. But you can have a good multi rail PSU.

As for the PSU I would disagree on the 750W if you are using only one GPU. It's fine for an SLI setup. But you won't even be at 50% load while gaming so efficiency will suffer. More so when you are idle and using less then 1/7th of its output. A good 450-500W for a single 660 is a better idea.
 

Dett27

Honorable
May 27, 2013
54
0
10,630
Ok with that said. (and I know this is off topic) but what card would you guys recommend then? I'd like to do this right the first time and I thought that card was a good value/price card. maybe I'm wrong but I wouldn't go much higher for a card
 
True, multiple 12v rails doesnt necessarily indicate a PSU is a bad unit. Just I find that most quality ones tend to be single rail, while cheaper ones use multiple, often with some marketing BS about how it promotes system stability.
TBH, I dont know of any good PSU's that use multiple 12v rails.

The GTX660 right now (the 760ti, 760, 750 will release eventually) is a very good value card, in terms of price/performance your not going to find much better.
Usually, the answer to what GPU you should get is the best one you can afford.