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Would 620W be unnecessary for me?

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For as much time as I've spent trying to figure out power supplies, I still feel clueless about them. I'm considering this power supply:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Would 620 watts be overkill? Is it just right? Do you suggest something else? Here's my planed build:

Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Some kind of 2x4GB RAM

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136769

An SSD in the future

Corsair Carbide Series 500R Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Considering a Geforce GTX 560ti, 570, or 460.

I apologize, this kind of question must get asked way too often...

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Power supply Master

The first rule for a psu purchase is to buy quality.
Seasonic is tops there.

It is not wrong to pverprovision the psu a bit. A psu operates most efficiently in the middle third of it's range.
It will be quieter because the fan will not need to spin up to keep it cool.

It will only use the wattage that is demanded of it.

I think your selection is a fine choice, and about right for a GTX570. The psu will even run one of the more efficient 28nm GTX670 or GTX680 cards.
Power supply Expert

If you don't care about the cost, either the 520 or 620 are awesome. The 520 is a steal right now on Newegg. My wife's machine has a i7 2600k and a 560ti 448 in it (almost the same as a 570) and never draws more than 270w, so you can actually go quite a bit lower...but Modular is very nice and there aren't many modular supplies smaller than the Seasonic 520.

Thank you everyone for your input. I've spent the weekend googleing GPUs and power supplies, and I'm kind of leaning towards the gtx 460... It's so similar to the 560ti and so much cheaper.

Let me see if I have this straight: the gtx 460 needs 13 amps, the i3 2120 needs 5, other components take maybe around 5, so I would be using about 23 amps from the +12v rail. And a power supply works at maximum efficiency when it's using 50% of it's maximum power. How accurate am I?

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Power supply Master

Don't make it any more complicated than it is.

The graphics card is the major component requiring extra power. All of the other parts of a normal desktop will run on 150watts or so, perhaps much less. The graphics card vendors have suggested power requirements which include an allowance for a normal complement of components.

In your case, evga suggests for a GTX460, a psu of 450watts, with an amp rating of 24.
Most of the time, the suggestions are conservative, to allow for poor quality psu's
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=01G-P3-136... 400 Series Family&sw=

rolli59 said:
There is a big performance difference between 460 and 560Ti http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_560...

I guess I consider them similar because I'm coming from a GeForce 9400.

geofelt said:
Don't make it any more complicated than it is.

The graphics card is the major component requiring extra power. All of the other parts of a normal desktop will run on 150watts or so, perhaps much less. The graphics card vendors have suggested power requirements which include an allowance for a normal complement of components.

In your case, evga suggests for a GTX460, a psu of 450watts, with an amp rating of 24.
Most of the time, the suggestions are conservative, to allow for poor quality psu's
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=01G-P3-136... 400 Series Family&sw=

Hmm... Good point....
Should I just stop worrying and get the 520W?
Power supply Expert

Mr_____ said:
Thank you everyone for your input. I've spent the weekend googleing GPUs and power supplies, and I'm kind of leaning towards the gtx 460... It's so similar to the 560ti and so much cheaper.

Let me see if I have this straight: the gtx 460 needs 13 amps, the i3 2120 needs 5, other components take maybe around 5, so I would be using about 23 amps from the +12v rail. And a power supply works at maximum efficiency when it's using 50% of it's maximum power. How accurate am I?



Modern psus are efficient across the whole range...not just at 50%. Possibly slightly more efficient at 50%, but we're talking 10ths of %.
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