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Need advice on a power supply

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The folks on this forum have convinced me to build instead of buy and I'm looking for some advice on components.

My system is going to have an Intel Core I7 920 CPU and my plan is to run Windows 7 Business Pro in 64-bit mode. My goal is to build a system with some staying power that will last many years. So here's my question:

My plan is to buy a Cooler Master Silent Pro M500, 500-Watt PSU. I ran my system configuraton through a program designed to calculate needed wattage and it came back with a figure of 384 Watts. I've heard that too much wattage is just a waste but I keep seeing system with 700 Watt PSU's inside. Is 500 Watt too little? Also the Cooler Master is going to run me around $90 so I'm wondering is this a reasonable price for a quiet PSU? Are there other alternatives to this model that are equally quiet or quietier than this unit that costs less?

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Judging from these two articles:

Cooler Master Silent Pro M700W
Corsair TX650W

The noise levels are about the same, with both using reaching about 30dB at 500W load (which you will not be hitting).
Granted this isn't the exact same 500W model, but I imagine it has the same fan, and similar speed/temp settings.

Depending on your entire hardware setup, and your plans for video cards in the future, 500W might be enough for you. But you can get the Corsair TX650 for about the same price, and I would pick a Corsair over a Cooler Master.

And about the noise, what sort of fans/video card are you getting? Usually the PSU fan noise is the least of your concerns. For reference, I found one review that measured the stock intel HSF at 37 dB at 100% (pretty quiet). Video card is often the loudest, or case fans if they are smaller/faster.
Power supply Expert

Which power supply you get in terms of how much wattage you need is heavily dependent on what graphic card you intend to use in your system. This article is probably the best i've seen in terms of testing and methodology. Their "High end gaming system 1" features an i7 920, not overclocked and a GTX260 graphic card.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/system...

You can not go wrong with a Corsair power supply, i've never read a bad meaningful review of any of them.

spinny said:
Judging from these two articles:

Cooler Master Silent Pro M700W
Corsair TX650W

The noise levels are about the same, with both using reaching about 30dB at 500W load (which you will not be hitting).
Granted this isn't the exact same 500W model, but I imagine it has the same fan, and similar speed/temp settings.

Depending on your entire hardware setup, and your plans for video cards in the future, 500W might be enough for you. But you can get the Corsair TX650 for about the same price, and I would pick a Corsair over a Cooler Master.

And about the noise, what sort of fans/video card are you getting? Usually the PSU fan noise is the least of your concerns. For reference, I found one review that measured the stock intel HSF at 37 dB at 100% (pretty quiet). Video card is often the loudest, or case fans if they are smaller/faster.



Thanks for the reply.

Well, I thought I had this all figured out by selecting a 600 W Cooler Master Silent Pro as a compromise between going too low and too high given what I thought would be the graphics card for the unit. After posting some inquiries on this and other boards I think I'm now leaning toward getting a Sapphire 4850 Graphic card with 512 MB of GDDR3 memory. Since that unit can consume 200W at a peak heavy load I'm having second thoughts regarding the 700W PSU vs. the 600W PSU. Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Bill
Power supply Expert

With your i7 920 and a HD4850 graphic card any quality 500w power supply would be fine. The HD4850 will only consume 151w at peak load.
http://mark.zoomcities.com/images/gfx/GFXpowerchartbybr...
Go with a quality power supply by Corsair, Seasonic, PC Power and Cooling or Antec, 80% efficiency or higher is a real plus. Just some random links.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...



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