Is my PSU suitable

[smeato97]

Hi all, I built my computer around 6 months ago on a tight budget so I couldn't afford the best parts and I opted for a cheaper PSU which was an alpine 650w. It was fine up until a few days ago when I bought a GTX 570 graphics card and my PSU blew up now, I went a bought another more expensive 850W PSU which costed £55 and the problem I have that when I play a game like grand theft auto my PSU gets extremely hot. I'm wondering if I need a better PSU than the one I have already? Any thoughts or suggestions? Here's the spec of my computer

AMD FX4100 3.9Ghz CPU
GTX 570 GRAPHICS
ASUS MOTHERBOARD (can't remember model)
POWERCOOL PSU 850W
1tb HDD
8gb RAM

 

[Guest]

wtf is a powercool?!?!

please stop buying crap PSUs and get a quality one like corsair, seasonic, antec or xfx.

and a 550 watt psu is enough, 650 watt if you're scared.

 

[Sakkura]

You should have bought a quality 600W PSU instead of that crappy pretend-850W unit. It may be on the verge of overloading and frying itself (and potentially your other components), or it may just be inefficient and poorly cooled, which will make the capacitors wear out sooner (especially if they're cheap ones, which is quite likely).

 

[Chairman Ray]

A psu is something you definitely need to buy a good model of. A most of the non-reputable brands will only go up to 50% of their rated wattage before they start having issues. Something like an Antec or Corsair will run well at 80%. Chinese knockoffs often spark up or release smoke when putting them above 25%.

I would advise buying a 500W PSU, something like Antec or Corsair.

 

[mocchan]

Never EVER cheap out on a PSU! That is the heart of your system!

These are my recommendations -

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-corsair-enthusiast-series-9020002-modular-85-eff-80-plus-bronze-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-quiet-fan
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-xfx-xxx-edition-bronze-80plus-certified-semi-modular-single-rail-psu
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-corsair-cmpsu-650hxuk-modular-85eff-80-plus-bronze-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-quiet-fan-atx-v22-psu

 

[Sakkura]

Never EVER cheap out on a PSU! That is the heart of your system!

These are my recommendations -

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-corsair-enthusiast-series-9020002-modular-85-eff-80-plus-bronze-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-quiet-fan
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-xfx-xxx-edition-bronze-80plus-certified-semi-modular-single-rail-psu
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-corsair-cmpsu-650hxuk-modular-85eff-80-plus-bronze-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-quiet-fan-atx-v22-psu

Slightly overkill for his system. Here are some cheaper ones that will still do just fine:

OCZ ZS 550W
http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCZ-OCZ-ZS550W-UK-Series-Bronze-single/dp/B005DJJTFA/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1345070813&sr=1-6

XFX Pro 550W
http://www.amazon.co.uk/550w-Power-Supply-Unit-Edition/dp/B005TDTV0S/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1345070984&sr=1-1

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W
http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCZ-OCZ600MXSP-UK-ModXStream-Power-Supply/dp/B001GLFD54/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1345070813&sr=1-2

 

[mocchan]

Slightly overkill for his system. Here are some cheaper ones that will still do just fine:

OCZ ZS 550W
http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCZ-OCZ-ZS550W-UK-Series-Bronze-single/dp/B005DJJTFA/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1345070813&sr=1-6

XFX Pro 550W
http://www.amazon.co.uk/550w-Power-Supply-Unit-Edition/dp/B005TDTV0S/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1345070984&sr=1-1

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W
http://www.amazon.co.uk/OCZ-OCZ600MXSP-UK-ModXStream-Power-Supply/dp/B001GLFD54/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1345070813&sr=1-2

Personally I like to keep my PSU at around 40%-60% load at all times for peak efficiency, so that is why I opted to for a 650w.

 

[Sakkura]

Personally I like to keep my PSU at around 40%-60% load at all times for peak efficiency, so that is why I opted to for a 650w.

550W would still leave him roughly in that range.

 

[mocchan]

I need a good PSU that has more than 38amps I looked at the box for my graphics cans and it says it needs that. Also I was told that for a gaming rig you need a 700W PSU minimum?

Wattage depends on what you're throwing into your system. However, any of the PSU's recommended above will work as they have more than the minimum required of 38Amps.

 

[smeato97]

I need a good PSU that has more than 38amps I looked at the box for my graphics cans and it says it needs that. Also I was told that for a gaming rig you need a 700W PSU minimum?

 

[mocchan]

550W would still leave him roughly in that range.

True, true, just a habit/personal preference of mine to leave an excess of ~200-300w headroom for my rigs :lol:

 

[Sakkura]

I need a good PSU that has more than 38amps I looked at the box for my graphics cans and it says it needs that. Also I was told that for a gaming rig you need a 700W PSU minimum?

That's a load of BS. 700W is for multiple graphics cards, OR if you're using crappy PSUs with fake wattages (and then 700W often isn't even enough, as you found out with your "850W" PSU).

The 600W OCZ PSU I linked above has 42 amps on the 12V rails. The 550W XFX PSU has 44 amps. The 550W OCZ PSU has 38 amps.

 

[Sakkura]

True, true, just a habit/personal preference of mine to leave an excess of ~200-300w headroom for my rigs :lol:

Hehe, I understand completely. Just bought a Corsair GS 600 for a rig that could really have gotten by on 500W. But I got a great offer too, £47.

Our OP seems to have a tendency to want to save some money on the PSU, so I thought I'd offer him a way to do that with OCZ or XFX PSUs instead of random crap. Heck, some of the ones I linked are cheaper than that 850W thing.

 

[Guest]

Personally I like to keep my PSU at around 40%-60% load at all times for peak efficiency, so that is why I opted to for a 650w.

just an FYI, efficiency takes a huge nose dive under 20% load (between 70-72% in most cases).

so as you sit there idling under 130 watts, which is most of the time, your PSU isn't as efficient as an 80+ let alone hitting "peak" efficiency; making the money spent on a quality PSU rather pointless. too much is given to the "magical" 40-60% load stuff and idle is overlooked; an appropriate size PSU is one where idle is 20% and under 80% at full load.

 

[mocchan]

just an FYI, efficiency takes a huge nose dive under 20% load (between 70-72% in most cases).

so as you sit there idling under 130 watts, which is most of the time, your PSU isn't as efficient as an 80+ let alone hitting "peak" efficiency; making the money spent on a quality PSU rather pointless. too much is given to the "magical" 40-60% load stuff and idle is overlooked; an appropriate size PSU is one where idle is 20% and under 80% at full load.

That's a good point that I've obviously missed, thanks for pointing that out

 

[Guest]

That's a good point that I've obviously missed, thanks for pointing that out

didn't know any better myself until someone pointed that out, just paying it forward, you're welcome.

 

[mocchan]

didn't know any better myself until someone pointed that out, just paying it forward, you're welcome.

"The more you know" -rainbow- :lol:

 

[InvalidError]

Also I was told that for a gaming rig you need a 700W PSU minimum?

What you do need for a typical single-GPU single-CPU system is a PSU that has a real sustainable rating of ~350W.

The problem with cheap PSUs as other have said is that they fail or become problematic at a fraction of their claimed rating.

 

[Sakkura]

What you do need for a typical single-GPU single-CPU system is a PSU that has a real sustainable rating of ~350W.

The problem with cheap PSUs as other have said is that they fail or become problematic at a fraction of their claimed rating.

That's right. The less reputable PSU brands put fake numbers on their PSUs to lure people in. Sometimes they even take it a step further and put fake components inside the PSU - there was a story about a PSU model with an active PFC coil made of cement. :lol:

 

[smeato97]

Okay thanks for your help guys it's appreciated, I'm going to take my old one back to the shop and buy a well known brand online. Thanks again

 

[InvalidError]

there was a story about a PSU model with an active PFC coil made of cement. :lol:

And the hardwaresecret article you pulled the image from links to another site that shows a handful of other PSUs with similar fake transformers.

So much for the theory that between two similarly priced cheap PSUs the heaviest one should have higher quality. If a manufacturer is desperate enough to add fake components to cheat customers out of a few extra pennies/bucks, I dare not imagine where else they may be using cost-cutting cheats.