psu 500w power requirement. please help?

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garretsw

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Oct 26, 2012
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First of all I want to say thank you to all the members of tomshardware. You guys are so helpful!

Okay, here's the deal I need to know if my system will work safely with my 1+ year old corsair cx500 PSU. It has been kept really clean and seems to be in good shape. I am over clocking my GPU and CPU as well. Not too much but a good amount.

CPU: amd athlon x4 750k 100w
GPU: MSI r9 270x 180w
Ram: 1stick ddr3 8gb 10w
Hdd's,DVD drives:2 7200rpm HDD and DVD drive 75w
2 120mm fans: 30w
WiFi card PCI:10w
Usb's: 3 devices 30w
Over clocking: 30w

=465w
IS MY MATH RIGHT? Should I get a new PSU right away or can I wait?
 
Solution
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You are fine with the CX500. The CX series are not the best units on the market but they are fine for lower power builds like yours.

You can trust this list. In fact it's overstated a bit.

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

The 270X is going to use less than 150 watts at absolute maximum. HDDs and the DVD drive about 5-7 watts at maximum each, 120mm fans about 5 watts each and the RAM and everything else about 20 watts total.
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Deleted member 217926

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You are fine with the CX500. The CX series are not the best units on the market but they are fine for lower power builds like yours.

You can trust this list. In fact it's overstated a bit.

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

The 270X is going to use less than 150 watts at absolute maximum. HDDs and the DVD drive about 5-7 watts at maximum each, 120mm fans about 5 watts each and the RAM and everything else about 20 watts total.
 
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garretsw

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Oct 26, 2012
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Okay so I already over clocked my CPU awhile back. The r9 270x should arrive soon I currently have a HD 7770. How long until I should upgrade my PSU? How long should I wait until I over clock my GPU? Are there any signs a PSU might be struggling?
 
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Pondering

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Dec 7, 2013
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If games crashes when the video card is overclocked then it could be PSU or GPU. It is best to run the 270x at stock speed or factory overclock for a while to determine its stability before overclocking it.

The CX series aren't really meant to be pushed to its limit. Think of it as a 400 Watt power supply especially if you are overclocking since it has 80% efficiency so it only has 80% of 500 Watts or 400 Watts available.

The XFX TS 550 has better capacitors for overclocking (also referred to as PRO 550 or CORE 500) goes only sale for $52 with a $25 rebate bringing it down to $27 after rebate every couple months. The CX 500 should hold up well in the meantime.
 
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Deleted member 217926

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If you want to overclock then go for it. No need to wait for anything. Just keep it reasonable and do stability testing while carefully monitoring temps.

I upgrade power supplies when necessary but I just moved to this Seasonic from a Corsair 750TX that I never really needed because I never went with multiple graphics cards like I intended when I bought it. I got the new unit because the 750TX was getting close to 7 years old and that's about as long as I trust a unit, even one that was never stressed.

A struggling PSU will cause crashes.
 
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