Power calculation for new build?

[kdon27]

I'm a total hardware newbie and this is my first build so any advice or suggestions (perhaps something I've missed or hardware compatibility issues) are much appreciated.

i5-2400
Gigabyte GA-H61M-S2P-B3 (mATX)
Powercolour HD 6850 1GB DDR5 (is this a good GPU brand?)
Corsair 4GB DDR3
Seagate 160GB SATAII HDD
2 additional 80mm external (case mounted) fans
No DVD drive
No extra PCI devices
Upto 4 USB devices (max)
No OC on anything (and I dont want to attempt it in future)

I used http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp but surprisingly I get only 354W!! I'm sure I have missed something - help please!

many thanks

Ps. what PSU brands do you recommend? I was looking at a thermaltake 600W for $65 but i've heard bad things about the quality of their PSUs...

 

[BohleyK]

Thermaltake is not a bad brand to go with for a psu. Its just not a great brand to go with. If you have a good deal on the Thermaltake psu you should go for it. Otherwise invest more on Corsiar, Antec, Seasonic, etc. 600W is plenty for that system and you could go to 550W if you like.

I'd go for another brand in GPU. Powercolor sometimes doesn't include things you need like power connectors. Why they do this, I don't know. Sapphire is probably the better brands to go with but ASUS, XFX, and HIS are good brands too.

 

[jsc]

I am not too surprised at the 354 watt power estimate. I'd estimate power consumption at around 300 watts.

One of my systems has an OC'd Q9550, 4 GB RAM, a GTX260 - a card with greater power requirements than yours, 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% PSU efficiency, the system pulls 300 watts from the PSU.

500 to 550 watts would be an appropriately sized PSU to use.

I'd choose one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151094

 

[guanyu210379]

You can go very well even with a 450W PSU just make sure to buy a very good brand.
Just in case you like to add something else to the system in the future, I would go as already suggested between 500 to 550W and no higher.
Good PSU brands are: Corsair, Seasonic, Antec, Tagan, Enermax and Silverstone

For the GPU, I have bad experiences with cheap branded GPUs like PowerColor.
I would choose MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS, HIS, XFX, HIS or Shappire.

 

[kdon27]

thanks for all the answers, i ended up going with the antec eco neo 520W - it was on sale.. thanks again

 

[kdon27]

oh and got a Sapphire HD6850 for sale! woot!

 

[kdon27]

Best answer selected by kdon27.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey