PSU Watt Question

Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if you ran into some problems down the line, even without the SLI i would recommend at least 750w.

How long down the line are you speaking about? And what kind of problems could I run into?
I'd really rather not get a new PSU installed the moment it arrives but If I have to, I will.

Sigh
650 watts is more than sufficient for the OP's build.
A "Widetech" psu ? That's like a hunting decoy, looks like the real thing, just don't try and eat it.

Hi  

A 650 is fine...

All the best Brett  

Thanks for your answer, although I didn't understand your last sentence.

The psu shaped object in question has a single 26a / 12v rail, that makes it the equivalent of a 350 watt power supply, understand now ?

Nope.

It's a very low quality psu, that will never come close to being a 650 watt unit, replace it.

Alright, thanks.

OP, the Antec 380W Green PSU has 28 or 29A on it's 12V rails. If your "650W" PSU has even less then that, as Delluser said its more like a 350W PSU. A 350W PSU can't power a GTX550TI SLI setup. You can't just go by wattage.

Okay, I'm a little sceptical because why would a company sell a 650watt PSU knowingly its not as good as a 350watt? And what do you think is a good amount of watts for a PSU for this system?

Like others, I wouldn't trust the power supply from a Mickey Mouse brand (or a brand that I never heard of)

The other thing that is bugging me is the motherboard "upgrade" without a confirmation that you are actually getting an upgrade.
That's a really screw-move from your supplier.

I remember in the 90's a lot of PC vendors use this ***** tactics, to the point that the first thing I did when I bought my second computer
was to disassemble everything and verify that every component was the component on the list. (make sure that I got what I paid for)

After this I have built every computer after that for about 20 years now.
Is really not that hard, and it saves you money, plus buying every part separate (or on the same order) guarantees that you are getting what you are paying for.

Not sure about compatibility among parts?
Simply ask on forums like this one.

Before you buy.

Didn't have the 380 label , this tells the story just as well, notice the combined 12v output on the Antec 360w = 30a

also, no ones pointed out but id recomend a i5 2500k over a 2500 if your getting into gaming your going to want the potential of overclocks

The supplier is trustworthy here in Australia. The only thing I caught from him about the new motherboard is that it is a 'gen 3'. He said the older board that I had chosen didn't support SLI. I assume its a newer generation of the same motherboard...

also, if your only gaming and not editing photos 16 gigs of ram is massive overkill you need no more than 8 and even 8 your pretty set to go

16gb came with it, you couldn't downgrade.

well considering that i can give adivice based on what i know is best for gaming. get artic silver 5 and a 212 evo if it will fit in your case and always go namebrand with a psu its a bit more $$$ but in the long run id perfer my pc diddnt explode in sparks(not saying lowend pssu will but ive heard of it happening) and if its in the budget and your case has good airflow upgrade to a 2500k the k means you can overclock the cpu

I'm getting the Antec 300 case. Thanks for all your help, I appreciate it.

theres a few different versions of the 300, link me to the version your getting?

http://www.jw.com.au/jw-gaming-i5-2400-tower-p-2370

Thats the page where I customized the PC and I bought it on the same site. Tell me what you think?

?
One with blue fans, one without, is there more to it than that ?
You can also get them with the BP430 preinstalled.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... thermal paste
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... 2500k
just some upgrades to think about along with the psu upgrade also consider a 7200rpm sata hdd as well for the future, nothing wrong with 5200 rpm just the 7200 read and right faster. what games do you plan on trying to run?

write*

the one with leds has 4 fans the one without has 2 from what newegg says

Right, I'm already play most popular games Steam fine on my laptop. And all my games are PC exclusive otherwise they have a crappy console port like TF2. CS, CSS, TF2, Amnesia, Magicka, Orcs Must Die, Terraria, Portal (2), Mount and Blade, BF2 and garry's mod are my favourite.

as long as the vidcards hold up i think you should be fine then lol

Well, I have mainly been a console gamer but in the last 2 years I have taken a strong interest to pc gaming and so I began buying pc exclusives that are made for pc and kept the multiplatform games to consoles such as Battlefield 3, CoD or Assassin's Creed. But that doesn't mean I'm going to keep it that way.... I wanna be able to know that I can run those games without any problems? I also do a bit of graphic designing if that makes a difference?? Could you tell me a good PSU you think I should replace with the one I ordered? Thank you

well, how heavy of graphic design? and are you worried about cables in you case?

I use Photoshop quite a bit, I have 3 courses throughout the next 24 months where I'll use it a lot.
I'm not worried, should I be?

Yes
Guess I should have said, " one with 2 extra blue fans "

na not alot just i think itd be worth investing in the 2500k, id say checkout corsair 750watts so your overkilled and with a name brand just incase you want to upgrade later on modular means all the connectors come off semi means some like the pin 24 pin and such are connected to it and non mudular means all wires are connected to it

If he is staying with the GTX550s then a real 650W is more then enough. Anything that can do around 400W+ on the 12V rails should work. Even the Antec HCG520W should be ok. 750W is just way overkill.

thats the point, in a year or so new cards will be released and he will want to upgrade, overkill the psu now so it hold the cards a year down the line

I called the supplier and asked about the Widetech 650W PSU and I even told him some of the answers you guys have given me, he told me "Although Widetech isn't a very well-known brand, their very good quality. It isn't necessarily true that it is equivalent to a 350W PSU, we've been using Widetech for quite a few years and we've never had a problem".

I'm stuck between what this forum is saying and the guy from the supplier.

After looking at the label Delluser posted and what i can find online, it seems that it ships with 2 6 pin PCI-e connectors which isn't much for a 650 W unit. It is definitely a really old design, one page i found said it was a bit over 70% efficiency at full load which is terrible. Also, as for how they label it a 650 W unit, its got a lot of power available on its 5 V and 3.3 V rails which was useful back in the pre Pentium 4 days, unfortunately these days 80% of the system's power draw is from its 12 V rail so having 275 W available on the 5 V rail is absolutely useless these days as you would have to try really really really hard to get something that needs more than about 100 W from the 5 V rail. They are also likely cheating and labeling their PSU based on peak power not continuous power, no one defines peak power, it could be able to put out 650 W for 5 minutes or 5 seconds, it also might only be capable of that at 25 C.

Basically, if you let me select all of my conditions well enough i can give you a "650 W" unit that can do 650 W in very selective conditions but in the real world won't be nearly as useful as a well designed half decent 350 W unit.

I see. I have 24 months warranty on the whole system, I can buy a new PSU and replace it but it will void the warranty OR I can send it back, get it upgraded and sent back but it will cost more and I'm left without a computer for 2 - 3 weeks... OR I could just go with this PSU and if anything goes wrong I can use the warranty. What do you think?

Heres a link to the PSU I got:
http://www.jw.com.au/widetech-650w-silent-psu-120mm-fan...

well, worst comes to worse, use that psu if it doesnt work then you know what you need lol

There are three things on that page that scream CRAP! to me.

Passive power factor correction
-Any decent design uses APFC because it only costs a bit more but means you can sell your unit anywhere in the worldl

Max Output Power: 550W
-Definitely a peak power rated unit, if they have to lie about the power rating to get you to buy it what else did they lie about?

Efficiency: 70% Min at full load 230VAC/50Hz
-Even really cheap units these days can pull off around 80%, but like the passive PFC, its an ancient design so what do we expect?


Since each GTX 550 Ti has a TDP of about 115 W, and the i5-2500k has a TDP of 95 W that means your load on the 12 V rail could be up to about 325 W, likely around 280 W in normal situations. I don't expect that unit to have a long life span, if it were me i would ship it back and get a good unit this time around, most warranties don't cover electrical damage(aka PSU goes BOOOM!)

Thank you, I think I'll send it back and get it upgraded to this: http://www.jw.com.au/corsair-ax650-p-2226
I won't void my warranty by replacing it myself.

The AX 650 is a massive quality upgrade over the widetech, thats a top of the line unit, you would have been fine with a TXV2 or an HX 650 but the AX certainly won't disappoint, i expect it to have a very long lifespan in your system.

Thanks for that. I've phoned the supplier and made an agreement. Instead of spending a ton of cash for shipping the pc back and then again, the supplier has agreed to let me send the Widetech back and once it arrives he'll send back a new Corsair HX-650 or an Antec TP-650 and rebate the cost of the Widetech 650w. So all in all, it'll cost another $120 Australian dollars but hopefully it'll be worth it.
I still have to confirm whether or not the Corsair HX-650 and Antec TP-650 is compatible with all my components and nVidia SLI ready. Although, I'm unsure how to...

Again, I'm very appreciative of your help and I thank you a lot.

Either one of them will do just fine, i dont know if they have the nVidia SLI ready sticker on them but that doesn't really matter. They have the necessary power available and plenty of connectors to power the cards with.

Great! I'm much happier now that I've resolved this problem.