PSU Suggestions

[cmmcnamara]

Hey guys,

I need a recommendation on a power supply. There are many seemingly good ones out there but I thought I'd consult you all here first.

First of all my system build has the following specs:

CPU: Core i7 920 (expecting overclock to 3.6)
Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58-UD5
RAM: 12 GB OCZ Platinum 7-7-7 DDR3-1600 (2GBx6)
VGA: BFG NVIDIA GTX 260 192 Core in 2-Way SLI
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB
Opti: 1 DVD-RW Samsung
1 LG Blu Ray Super Multi
Case: Thermaltake Xaser---Has 2 140mm LED fans, and 4 120mm regular fans
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS 9700 LED (using 1366 LGA converter bracket)


Also, being conservative for upgrades I opted to vouch for the following possible upgrades I've been thinking about adding:

**Adding a WD Velociraptor 300GB HDD
**Adding a solid state disk
**Adding a Blu-Ray drive
**Adding a PCI-e x1 sound card for my use with my recording equipment
**Frontbay card reader, fan controller, and temperature gage

So with all of this in mind I bought a lifetime membership to extreme outervisions PSU calculator and got the following calculation:

**760 Watts recommended
**12A---3.3V
**17A---5V
**53A---12V

Also, I'd like for my PSU to be relatively quiet. I don't expect it to be insanely quiet given my power expectations and I do have a noise dampening project in the works for my case, but I don't want something insanely noisy. Also, modular would be a huge plus for me.

So with these requirements in mind I took a gander over NewEgg quickly and found a few ones that seemed good:

Corsair CMPSU-850TX
XCLIO Greaterpower X14S8P4 (Modular)
SevenTeam ST-850ZAF (Modular)
Xigmatek NRP-MC851 (Modular)
Corsair CMPSU-850HX (Modular)

The Xigmatek is very appealing, its modular and satisfies more than what I need for my requirements and its got a mail in rebate for 40 bucks but it also has 4 12V rails which from what I hear, splitting is not in your best interest (neither is modular from what I hear which is why I'd rather to only deal with the modular problem). The Corsair TX series seems to be the best option....its only $120 after its rebate and has only a single 12V rail to boot (rated at 70A !). Corsair also seems to be reputable with keeping the noise level down on their PSU's. At this point if I wanted the same in modular I'd have to be willing to shell out another $70 which is something I'll have to deal with myself. But in the meantime does anyone have any other reccomendations or agreement with my picks? I appreciate the time!

 

[tecmo34]

I have a similar system and have the Corsair TX850 & love it. I would recommend it for your build.

Another very good PSU to look at is PC Power&Cooling 910w Silencer. Either one of the two Iisted would be right for your PC.

 

[jimishtar]

from the brands that u have listed, i am only familiar with corsair and xigmatek. what u should be looking for is a psu with 80+ efficiency certificate, those use most of the drawn electric power, thus keeping both the PC and your wallet safe.

and for your system, i think u should get at least 900w psu, recommended 1000w. u will upgrade parts in future, and also, over time, the rated power of the psu drops a little, its a normal thing cause of the capacitor aging.

u don't need more than 6GB of ram, there is no game or application that use that much ram, u will just waste your money. 4gb for ddr2 and 6gb for ddr3 is more than enough.

 

[mi1ez]

1000W is complete overkill. You can easily sli the gtx260 on a decent 850W psu.

I would go with one of the Corsairs depending on your preference re. modular cabling.

 

[jsc]

Corsair, by all means.

Keep in mind that modular cabling only makes sense if you have a lot of unused cabling. If you are going to use most of the cabling, modular is not worth it.

 

[prabhum]

Regarding power consumption, i just did an actual measurement on my PC.
AMD Phenom 8650 @2300GHz
MA78GM-US2H,
2GB-800MHz transcend,
320GB seagate,
running on a el-cheapo (low efficiency?) noname 400w SMPS[7 yrs old]
OS: Suse 11.0
it was consuming following power at the wall.

1) booting: 112 w
2) Idle with no activity: 74.7 w
3) Full load (all 3 cores @ 2.3 GHz): 135 w
4) "normal" usage(DVD movie playing , bunzip) : 85 w

did not check the load with corsair yet. should cirtianly be less than the above figures.
This is just to give an idea of how much a "typical" PC consumes and why most people dont really need more than 400 w SMPS.

Obviously a system cmmcnamara is building might need ~700 w.
buy a SMPS such that it sees a load of 30-50% that is where their efficiency is best.

 

[cmmcnamara]

So I've been browsing a little more at Newegg and have come up with that I'd really like to have the modular capabilities. In that case I'm in a different price range and cannot decide again. My choices now are:

Corsair:
CMPSU-1000HX

Kingwin:

ABT-1220MA1S
ABT-1000MA1S

Newegg has a rebate for the Corsair so I might as well have gone for the 1K Watt as the rebate makes it equal in price to the 850. The KingWin are lower priced but the 1200W KingWin has a rebate, making it equal to the 1K Watt Corsair and I don't think I'd ever have to worry about upgrading ever with the 1200W. Thoughts?

 

[tecmo34]

Corsair... Corsair... Corsair

Get the Corsair 1000HX...

 

[cmmcnamara]

I've been leaning toward the corsair this whole time. Yes the KingWin's have nice coax-style connecters that bolt down but it glows(not too big of an issue) and it has only a one year warranty.

Quickly though I need some schooling in power supply features. The PSU calculator I'm using seems very good and accurate. But in an attempt to get a real world estimate on power consumption I took a look at a 3-way SLI review on the GTX 280's here : http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-sli-triple-review-test/3. For 3 GTX 280's its showing a max power consumption under load for the entire system as 749W real world measuring. Obviously VGA card manufacturer's overestimate to ensure the user gets a stable graphics card performance....but is this PSU calculator misleading me? I realize the amperage on the rails is important but any of the PSU's I choose will have plenty for that. Am I missing something here?

 

[tecmo34]

Check this website to get an idea of your requirements... http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Based on your current system, you should be fine with the Corsair 850HX, since you want a modular PSU.

 

[cmmcnamara]

Lol I have access to the pro version of the calculator. That's the one I've been using.

 

[dirtmountain]

Not Kingwin. Check out reviews.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Review_Cat&recatnum=13

All the PSUs you're interested in should be there.
or here
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/page/power

 

[cmmcnamara]

After reading some more reviews, the Kingwin seems nice, but it seems less stable than the corsair and the 1 year warranty on such a unit is too scary. I'll be going for the 1000HX from Corsair, its got a rebate on Newegg. Thanks for the help!