Any opinions on a power supply replacement

[mister g]

Hey everybody, and I hope each of you are having a nice weekend.

Right now I'm running an Antec EA650 (650W) on an upgraded Dell E520 system. It was sort of an impulse buy at Best Buy three years back and I'm wondering if I should switch out the power supply to gain a bit more efficiency for my system.
CPU: Stock Intel Core 2 Q6700
RAM: 4GB DDR2 PC6400 (mixed brands)
Mobo: Standard Dell BTX P965/G965
Graphics: Asus Radeon EAH4870

I know a 5770 would increase efficiency more than a new power supply would but the 4870 does do better in games that still use DX10 and at my 1650x1050 resolution. I'm looking at these two PSUs but I'm open to other suggestions as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Seasonic-Fanless-ATX12V-EPS12V-Supply/dp/B003ZWQXUQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1315707845&sr=1-1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=17-151-074&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=2

 

[Onus]

Although I'm a big fan of efficiency myself, in your case you'd be spending a lot of money for very small savings that probably would take years to pay back. You would save more by getting a different graphics card. A GTX460 is more powerful, but uses less power at idle, where your PC spends a lot of its time.

 

[mister g]

Best answer selected by mister g.
n
nI'll start looking at some 460s that might fit my case, hopefully I'll find one.

 

[hunter315]

Upgrading a power supply just for efficiency is just going to cost you more money than you will save, especially coming from a unit thats already 80+ basic certified, even if its only 80% at your systems max load and the Seasonic X series would be 90%, you probably only pull 400W max underload so you are talking 40W and how, its going to take a longggg time to make up for the investment in power savings.


As jtt283 said, one of the GPUs from the last two generations would actually add up to more, the 5xxx and 6xxx series have vastly improved power saving features over the 4xxx series so you would drop your idle power quite a bit which would add up just as fast, but actually give you some extra performance in the process.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Efficiency is greatly overplayed. Do the math and you'll find it's generally not worth thinking about.

650 watt PSU w/ average draw of 325 watts .... 85% eff PSU vs 90%

325 / .90 = 361 watts x 35 hours per week x $0.10 per kw / 1000 watts per kw = $1.26
325 / .85 = 382 watts x 35 hours per week x $0.10 per kw / 1000 watts per kw = $1.34

At 8 cents a week, ya need 1125 weeks (21+ years) to cover the cost of a new PSU