600W or 700W?

[korinu]

PC Hardware:
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H ATX
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GH With H50 installed.
GPU: ATI 5770 with after market Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro 92mm fan and heatsink
HDD: 1 500g hdd and a 1T hdd (both 7200rpm)
RAM: 4gigs of 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive
Fans: (3) 140mm and (1) 120mm fans

Now i figure a 600W should work fine but i was wondering if i should just get a 700W. ATM i have a 700W but its dying. I eventually want to buy a better GPU but i really dont want to crossfire my 5770 or any card at least not in the near future. Also the PSU im gonna get is a COOLER MASTER Silent Pro 700w or 600w.

So just let me know if you think i should spend the extra $11 on the 700W or if the 600W should be more than enough.

Thanks,

 

[davcon]

If the difference is only $11 get the 700W unit.
The CM Silent Pro's are actually one of the good model series from CM.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-Silent-Pro-M-600-W-Power-Supply-Review/929/1

 

[korinu]

If the difference is only $11 get the 700W unit.
The CM Silent Pro's are actually one of the good model series from CM.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-Silent-Pro-M-600-W-Power-Supply-Review/929/1

thanks for the reply. Yeah i bought the 700w unit (it went off sale the day after i bought it so i didnt wanna miss that). on another note how much overkill is the 700W? and how little power do you think i would actually need to run my system?

Cool thanks for the article it was interesting. I dont know much about PSU and all the stuff they do i was just drawn to the CM silent pro's because i've tried real hard to make my pc quiet and they are sposto be silent.

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

it actually is OverKill.But if you wanted more room to upgrade it would be better.

 

[davcon]

A high quality 450W psu would run your gear but nothing wrong with a 700W unit.
Your pc will only draw the power it needs anyways.
Btw CM Silent Pro M series and the 700W unit in particular is known for quiet operation.
It made SPCR's recommended list.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Recommended_PSUs

 

[maverick knight]

Some people hate on Cooler Master's PSU's. I think is a smart buy, you'll be fine for a while

 

[davcon]

Some people hate on Cooler Master's PSU's. I think is a smart buy, you'll be fine for a while

For legit reasons though,anything below the Silent Pro series are well known for being mediocre to just plain terrible.
I could link pages of reputable reviews to back it up,but i won't.
The OP bought a good one.

 

[jsc]

Yes, it looks like CM is finally starting to learn how to build PSU's or rather, is starting to put money into building good PSU's.

Your system will pull less than 300 watts - closer to 250 - 275 watts. One of my systems has an OC'd Q9550, 4 GB RAM, a GTX260 - a card with with substantially greater (about 50%) power requirements than a 5770, a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P motherboard, 3 hard drives and an optical, and a Soundblaster card all powered by a Corsair 750TX.

Running 3 instances of Prime95 to load the CPU and 3DMark06 to load the GPU, it pulls 375 watts from the wall as measured by my Kill-a-Watt meter. Figuring 80% efficiency, the system pulls 300 watts from the PSU.

 

[korinu]

Wow thanks for all the replies =).

300W? really? jeez. I've learned a lot of stuff about pc components over the last year since i built my first rig but i never understood power supplies. I figured 700W was much but i originally got one because ATI's website said it was needed for CFX 5770's. The 5770 however is a super low power GPU.

Yeah I've heard a lot of bad things about CM power supplies but also a lot of good reviews of some of the new ones. Mainly the bad stuff is just DOA and faulty products so CM just needs to step up their quality control. I am however a CM fan and i have a CM690 II Advanced along with all my case fans are CM and its helped make my PC almost as silent as i can make it without full water cooling.

I hope in the future to buy something like a 5870 so the 700w should be nice when that day comes along.

thanks for all the help!

 

[korinu]

Best answer selected by korinu.