Reccomend good PSU wattage

tom thumb

May 4, 2010 4:20:30 PM

First step in buying a PSU is knowing what wattage to look for.

So I have 2 questions here:

Question 1: Given the following system, please recommend a good, safe, PSU wattage:

i7-930 with moderate OC-ing, water cooling
2 HDDs, 2 SSDs
12Gb ram (2x2x6 Gb) (@ 1600Mhz – donno' if that affects power use much)
3-4 noctua 120mm fans
2-way sli of a 9800GX2 or similar card

(I was thinking 850W would be enough, but possibly overkill)
(I'm using a 700W PSU and its only got enough power connectors for one 9800GX2 card, so my thoughts right now are that the PSUs in this range just don’t come with the connectors even if they have enough output)

Question 2: I'm going for noise reduction here, and the PSU is the only component that I can't modify to make less noise without thoroughly violating the warranty.

Please recommend a PSU that is nearly silent/ very quiet (perhaps something that advertises its quiet-ness) and also proven and highly reliable.

Since this PSU will be powering a lot of expensive stuff, price is no object here. I am willing to pay upwards of $200 if the product is good enough.

Thanks in advance for your help.

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MU_Engineer

May 4, 2010 5:47:11 PM

tom thumb said:

First step in buying a PSU is knowing what wattage to look for.

So I have 2 questions here:

Question 1: Given the following system, please recommend a good, safe, PSU wattage:

i7-930 with moderate OC-ing, water cooling
2 HDDs, 2 SSDs
12Gb ram (2x2x6 Gb) (@ 1600Mhz – donno' if that affects power use much)
3-4 noctua 120mm fans
2-way sli of a 9800GX2 or similar card

(I was thinking 850W would be enough, but possibly overkill)
(I'm using a 700W PSU and its only got enough power connectors for one 9800GX2 card, so my thoughts right now are that the PSUs in this range just don’t come with the connectors even if they have enough output)

Question 2: I'm going for noise reduction here, and the PSU is the only component that I can't modify to make less noise without thoroughly violating the warranty.

Please recommend a PSU that is nearly silent/ very quiet (perhaps something that advertises its quiet-ness) and also proven and highly reliable.

Since this PSU will be powering a lot of expensive stuff, price is no object here. I am willing to pay upwards of $200 if the product is good enough.

Thanks in advance for your help.

If you want a rough idea of how many watts you need in a PSU, go look at one of the PSU calculators out there.

Once you have the rough wattage figured out, then find one with the appropriate connectors for your GPUs and other components that is in your price range. I would also check a PSU-centric review site like Jonny Guru's to get some idea of how good particular PSU is at being quiet and how well it is made.

One last piece of advice is to get a good uninterruptable power supply for power filtering if you are really worried about poor-quality power ruining your parts. Otherwise, a decent surge protector (NOT just a power strip) is enough.

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i4yue

May 5, 2010 5:00:10 AM

1000W+ muahahhah!!! if you're going to buy all that awsome stuff why skimp on the psu?