Will my current PSU be strong enough ?

[Djentleman_007]

I am upgrading my processor from an AMD phenom 9600 to rather an AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE or an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE, I know they are both 125W so which one I go with shouldn't matter as far as power consumption goes (excluding overlocking) but I was wandering if my current PSU (Rosewill Green Series RG530-2) its a 530 watt Psu and its 80 Plus certified would be able to handle the new processor, the rest of my system consist of 2 250GB 7200rpm HDD an xfx radeon HD 4890 graphics card OC to 1000MHz core clock and 1100MHz Memory clock, MOBO is an MSI k9A2 Platinum, and I have 8GB of A-Data DDR2-400 Ram, I don't plan overclocking the new processor, at least not with my current system, I will overclock once I upgrade the rest of my system (new MOBO, CPU cooler, PSU, RAM, Video card, SSD, and new case) but not as long as I have this PSU because I know that I would be cutting it close just to run what I have in the first place (If at all) and if this PSU is not enough to handle this processor at least for a little while then what would be a good PSU to buy ? I was looking at 3 different PSU's


COUGAR SX850 850W 80 Plus silver certified $139.99

Antec High Current Pro HCP-850 850W 80 Plus Gold certified $174.99


Or I was thinking of saving up a bit longer and going all out and getting something like the Antec High Current Pro HCP-1200 1200W 80 plus gold certified $279.99, I know 1200W is WAY overkill for my system at the moment but I do plan on getting a new graphics card I want to get a GTX 580 and later on getting a second one if/when I feel its the right time to do so, and also once I get the rest of my planned parts I plan to overclock a good bit, and me being the paranoid person that I am I would rather have too much than risk not having enough power. So what do you guys think ?

 

[Silvune]

You definitely don't need to upgrade the PSU because of the CPU upgrade. You won't be cutting it close.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5870,2422-20.html
Shows a system using an OCed i7-975 and a 4890 drawing 330W at wall under Furmark.

The Rosewill Green *30 series are quite good in that they provide the wattage they claim and perform well. So if your system consumed a similar level to the test system (which I think is unlikely as i7-975 are extremely power hungry, probably much more so than Denebs or Thubans), then you would only be stressing your PSU to ~60% on maximum load, which for most people does not occur very often unless they run BOINC or similarly stressful programs.

At this point I think it is not that wise to be planning to buy a GTX 580, unless you are counting on getting one cheap once they are EOL, because by 1st quarter next year there will be new GPUs released which will probably outperform the GTX 580 but consume less power in the process. In which case spending all that extra money on a 1200W would be wasted, as you could probably quite easily power two next gen GPUs on a good 850W PSU.
So hopefully you won't buy/need to buy a new PSU until there are benchmarks for the next gen GPUs.
Otherwise, a good, potential, compromise between being sensible, paranoid and saving money is to consider getting a 900-1000W PSU.

 

[geofelt]

Power requirements are almost entirely gated by the graphics configuration.

Since you are doing OK now, and are not clear on what your future graphics will be, I suggest you just wait and see.

For your information,
a single GTX580 needs 600w with 42a on the 12v rails plus one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCI-E power lead.

A GTX590 needs 700w with 50a on the 12v rails plus two 8-pin PCI-E power leads or 4 6-pin power leads.

When new cards come out, based on 28nm, I expect them to be less power hungry. You may well find that dual cards is completely unnecessary unless you are looking at triple monitor gaming.

Also, don't look to the x6 cpu to be of much help for gaming. Games mostly need two or three fast cores, not many cores.

A x4 should do just as well. Check the benchmarks for your favorite games.

 

[Djentleman_007]

You definitely don't need to upgrade the PSU because of the CPU upgrade. You won't be cutting it close.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-5870,2422-20.html
Shows a system using an OCed i7-975 and a 4890 drawing 330W at wall under Furmark.

The Rosewill Green *30 series are quite good in that they provide the wattage they claim and perform well. So if your system consumed a similar level to the test system (which I think is unlikely as i7-975 are extremely power hungry, probably much more so than Denebs or Thubans), then you would only be stressing your PSU to ~60% on maximum load, which for most people does not occur very often unless they run BOINC or similarly stressful programs.

At this point I think it is not that wise to be planning to buy a GTX 580, unless you are counting on getting one cheap once they are EOL, because by 1st quarter next year there will be new GPUs released which will probably outperform the GTX 580 but consume less power in the process. In which case spending all that extra money on a 1200W would be wasted, as you could probably quite easily power two next gen GPUs on a good 850W PSU.
So hopefully you won't buy/need to buy a new PSU until there are benchmarks for the next gen GPUs.
Otherwise, a good, potential, compromise between being sensible, paranoid and saving money is to consider getting a 900-1000W PSU.

Thanks !!! so you say wait for the next round of gpu's before deciding on one and waiting on a new PSU untill then as well? and what do you think about the two 850W PSU's that I listed, would one of them be good for once I do upgrade my video card ? and thanks for linking that thread I did not know that I had a decent bit of wiggle room with my current PSU, that makes me feel ALOT better lol.

 

[Djentleman_007]

Power requirements are almost entirely gated by the graphics configuration.

Since you are doing OK now, and are not clear on what your future graphics will be, I suggest you just wait and see.

For your information,
a single GTX580 needs 600w with 42a on the 12v rails plus one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCI-E power lead.

A GTX590 needs 700w with 50a on the 12v rails plus two 8-pin PCI-E power leads or 4 6-pin power leads.

When new cards come out, based on 28nm, I expect them to be less power hungry. You may well find that dual cards is completely unnecessary unless you are looking at triple monitor gaming.

Also, don't look to the x6 cpu to be of much help for gaming. Games mostly need two or three fast cores, not many cores.

A x4 should do just as well. Check the benchmarks for your favorite games.

Well I do more than just gaming so that's why I'm considering the x6 plus the Thubans are usually better overclockers from my understanding, but believe me though if this was a primarily gaming pc then I would follow your advice and get the x4 because I have seen the benches lol

 

[Silvune]

Thanks !!! so you say wait for the next round of gpu's before deciding on one and waiting on a new PSU untill then as well? and what do you think about the two 850W PSU's that I listed, would one of them be good for once I do upgrade my video card ? and thanks for linking that thread I did not know that I had a decent bit of wiggle room with my current PSU, that makes me feel ALOT better lol.

Yes that is what I am saying. I think you would need a very pressing/urgent need to upgrade GPU now to not wait.
Out of the two you listed the Antec High Current Pro is the better, because it will have tighter voltage regulation, slightly less ripple on the 12V rail and of course is more efficient. I also believe that it being built by Delta will mean that reliability/longevity should be better, tho of course nothing in that department is guaranteed.

 

[Djentleman_007]

Yes that is what I am saying. I think you would need a very pressing/urgent need to upgrade GPU now to not wait.
Out of the two you listed the Antec High Current Pro is the better, because it will have tighter voltage regulation, slightly less ripple on the 12V rail and of course is more efficient. I also believe that it being built by Delta will mean that reliability/longevity should be better, tho of course nothing in that department is guaranteed.

Yea my need is not urgent to upgrade to upgrade my gpu, the HD 4890 is still a pretty powerful little card by today's standards, nothing like the HD 6000's or a GTX 580 but still gets the job done, I get a solid 60 FPS with no dips in RAGE with V sync on which is good seeing as this game just came out and this card is a few years old. the main reason I want to upgrade my gpu in the near future is due to me wanting DX11 and also for games such as battlefield 3 and stuff like that that are a bit much for my card. Thanks for your help, chances are I will be back to the forums to see whats what of the new GPU's when they come out next year lol.

 

[Djentleman_007]

Best answer selected by Djentleman_007.