Havent bought a PSU in 8-years, how many spare watts?

[WarMace]

PCParts Picker estimates my build to draw 328W.

Doing a quick & dirty search of highly rated low-cost PSU's I found a 450W Corsair that seems right.

Back when I last bought PSU's some people still doubled their needed wattage because making up wattages was so rampant, it seems with the 80 Plus certification, this is cleared up.

is 100 extra watts enough, or should I go more?

 

[David-Duc]

That PSU will be sufficient for a 328 W build. I suggest go for a 550-650 W in case you need to upgrade in the future since apparently you're going to keep this PSU for a very long time

 

[dragonstongue]

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/evga_geforce_gtx_660_sc_review,7.html
their system uses ~240w so I am sure yours would be maybe 300 at most.
Don't see how you ever needed or should have doubled wattage to "make it up" but it always was a good idea to give a bit of overhead just in case and it does help with efficiency and the parts aging

This is a very solid power supply, and you cant beat that price point really for what it is. If you want to ever up the gpu to a more powerful one, then maybe going a 550-650 might be a good idea, but beyond this you are fine for this build.

 

[techtechie]

just so you know you shouldnt really go with to many extra watts. i think it has something to do with the extra watts being a hazard when it goes out it can push too much into the system or something

 

[450]

just so you know you shouldnt really go with to many extra watts. i think it has something to do with the extra watts being a hazard when it goes out it can push too much into the system or something

no.

 

[techtechie]

no.

i was just trying to remeber back to about a year ago when i read something along those lines. or that was just a bunch or horsesh!t?

 

[dandragonrage]

i was just trying to remeber back to about a year ago when i read something along those lines. or that was just a bunch or horsesh!t?

Well, if it fails it fails, but sure I suppose a larger power supply could fail more spectacularly due to more power being potentially involved. But if a power supply is going to fail and kill other components, it will do so no matter what the capacity of the PSU is.

It's best not to oversize too much for efficiency reasons, though.

I wouldn't trust that site to size my PSU.

 

[dragonstongue]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus
generally between 50-70% is where one should try to get their loading close to 50 though this way here you get the best efficiency AND still have overhead in case.

If all the safeties are there it is extremely rare with any decent power supply for it to kill anything but the power supply if something goes wrong, however, if as an example you have write cache enabled on your hard drive and the power all of a sudden goes out it could erase/corrupt the drive and spike of power are bad for anything as are brownout(less then required power)

Either way, modern power supplies are built taking many things into account, but the biggest thing the user can do is ensure its a quality unit, not to overload (or I suppose massively underload) and try to keep it as dust free as possible.

I suppose if your psu fried and shorted itself it could in theory bridge circuits and have a higher chance of doing this the more wattage there is, however, the higher wattage units also tend to have much higher quality and capacity parts to avoid this happening, interesting thought experiment, anyways, get quality if something happens with a known good quality unit, them am sure it was a fluke nothing more, like walking down the street and having a tree fall on you XD

 

[MrCaffeineX]

If efficiency is a concern, then you will want to keep the PSU within reasonable range of your system's actual power draw. If your system will pull 328W at full-tilt, then a good quality 450W supply is more than sufficient. With the 80+ certifications, the unit should be reasonably efficient across your whole usage spectrum, which will be likely under 100W at idle.

Keep in mind that full-tilt is hard to accomplish without artificially loading your CPU/GPU with burn-in type tests like Prime95/FurMark. While gaming with my GTX 480 at 90% load or more, my current system isn't even pulling 400W at the wall. If I load the CPU down with Prime95 then load the GPU down with FurMark, I might hit 500W at the wall. Most workloads will not simultaneously tax the CPU/GPU to the maximum.

As far as the CS450M is concerned, I have one at home and it seems great so far. The review here was quite positive for what it is.

 

[PornoSatan]

I gotta get a new PSU too when I upgrade. Mine only has the 4 pin ATX12v connector and not the newer 8 pin EPS12v. I've seen Molex to EPS12v adapters for them, but those seem kinda like a gimmick/fire hazard.

 

[dandragonrage]

I gotta get a new PSU too when I upgrade. Mine only has the 4 pin ATX12v connector and not the newer 8 pin EPS12v. I've seen Molex to EPS12v adapters for them, but those seem kinda like a gimmick/fire hazard.

Your 4-pin ATX12v will work in place of EPS12v if you're not doing some really extreme stuff. Molex adapters are fine if it pulls from multiple adapters, though if you're pulling a lot of power you'd want them to come from separate cable chains, which can be difficult to accomplish and which is messy. Also, who knows what shape the capacitors in your current supply are in...

But you will be able to buy a more efficient PSU this way...

 

[plugwash]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus
generally between 50-70% is where one should try to get their loading close to 50 though this way here you get the best efficiency AND still have overhead in case.

Yes and no.

The thing is most systems do not spend most of their time anywhere near full load. From an efficiancy point of view you would ideally want to put your normal load at about 50% of the PSUs rating. However in pratice you can't do that because if you do then your max load will overload the PSU.

Unless I was building a system to be run at full load 24/7 or I was planning major upgrades i'd try and put the max load of the system somewhere arround 70-80% of the PSUs rating. This leaves enough room for calulcation errors, future minor upgrades etc.

I gotta get a new PSU too when I upgrade. Mine only has the 4 pin ATX12v connector and not the newer 8 pin EPS12v. I've seen Molex to EPS12v adapters for them, but those seem kinda like a gimmick/fire hazard.

If you are running recent mainstream parts then afaict you only need the 8-pin connector when you get into pretty serious overclocking.

 

[Tsumi]

i was just trying to remeber back to about a year ago when i read something along those lines. or that was just a bunch or horsesh!t?

BS. If it's going to fail spectacularly, it's going to burn and start an electrical fire, no matter the wattage. Quality power supplies do not fail spectacularly, they just die quietly without taking anything else out with them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Plus
generally between 50-70% is where one should try to get their loading close to 50 though this way here you get the best efficiency AND still have overhead in case.

If all the safeties are there it is extremely rare with any decent power supply for it to kill anything but the power supply if something goes wrong, however, if as an example you have write cache enabled on your hard drive and the power all of a sudden goes out it could erase/corrupt the drive and spike of power are bad for anything as are brownout(less then required power)

Either way, modern power supplies are built taking many things into account, but the biggest thing the user can do is ensure its a quality unit, not to overload (or I suppose massively underload) and try to keep it as dust free as possible.

I suppose if your psu fried and shorted itself it could in theory bridge circuits and have a higher chance of doing this the more wattage there is, however, the higher wattage units also tend to have much higher quality and capacity parts to avoid this happening, interesting thought experiment, anyways, get quality if something happens with a known good quality unit, them am sure it was a fluke nothing more, like walking down the street and having a tree fall on you XD

More BS. While you're technically correct, normal idle load is about 10-20% of maximum load, and normal gaming load is between 50 and 80% of maximum load, depending on hardware configuration and the game. And power supplies are notoriously inefficient below 15% of maximum load. If you have a power supply that's twice the maximum load of your system, your idle will be at approximately 5-10% of the power supply's maximum load.

I gotta get a new PSU too when I upgrade. Mine only has the 4 pin ATX12v connector and not the newer 8 pin EPS12v. I've seen Molex to EPS12v adapters for them, but those seem kinda like a gimmick/fire hazard.

8 pin only matters if you plan on overclocking a power hungry CPU like the FX-8xxx or LGA2011 CPUs to the max on water, or if you're planning on LN2/other sub-zero runs. Virtually every other system overclocked on air or water is easily handled by the 4-pin.

@OP: Get the CS450M for $30 AR at TigerDirect. At that price, it's pretty much unbeatable in terms of value.

 

[Dangman]

Doing a quick & dirty search of highly rated low-cost PSU's I found a 450W Corsair that seems right.

I don't factor in MIR until I actually receive them. So I judge parts on the price I'm paying up-front, not after rebate. As such, that Corsair is a not good deal IMO considering that $5 more gets you a far superior quality and performing PSU:
$75 - Seasonic G Series SSR-450RM 450W Modular PSU

The HardOCP review of the CS550M showed that while it technically isn't a bad PSU, it's not exactly a good choice to buy:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/01/15/corsair_cs550m_550w_power_supply_review/#.U6owM_ldV0a

Compare that to the HardOCP review of the Seasonic SSR-450RM:
http://hardocp.com/article/2014/04/03/seasonic_gseries_g450_power_supply_review/#.U6owavldV0Z

Big difference for only $5 more. Worth it in that case.

Back when I last bought PSU's some people still doubled their needed wattage because making up wattages was so rampant, it seems with the 80 Plus certification, this is cleared up.

Actually no: It's ridiculously easy to cheat the 80PLus testing. In addition, the ranking itself is pretty meaningless in the long-run. Read this article for more information:
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/10/04/80_plus_irrelevant_to_you_when_buying_psu/#.U6osuPldV0Y

 

[ep0x73]

Been happy with my HX650 bronze especially since it was practically free [send in a 520 with a dying fan].

That said I went with the Seasonic 660XP2 even though it was overkill for the recent build mostly due to being platinum and not needing the fan unless needed, modular but mostly it was on a killer sale.

 

[dragonstongue]

Tsumi says "More BS. While you're technically correct, normal idle load is about 10-20% of maximum load, and normal gaming load is between 50 and 80% of maximum load, depending on hardware configuration and the game. And power supplies are notoriously inefficient below 15% of maximum load. If you have a power supply that's twice the maximum load of your system, your idle will be at approximately 5-10% of the power supply's maximum load."

I simply stated a fact, you generally want to be in the load range of 50-70%, this will in many cases keep you idle in ~20% or so area, PSU by 80+ standards are best efficiency at 50% load, while not much every % counts. Though I do agree with you, no need to massively go over your wattage requirements even if its sometimes hard to find out the true amount one needs (properly) that and its not at all better and in many cases worse to do this, but folks do it anyways xd.

 

[FNtastic]

i was just trying to remeber back to about a year ago when i read something along those lines. or that was just a bunch or horsesh!t?

Any power supply will only "push out" as much as a device can draw in. (in general. obviously, there are exceptions to this rule)

 

[CharlesLam]

Don't see how you ever needed or should have doubled wattage to "make it up" but it always was a good idea to give a bit of overhead just in case and it does help with efficiency and the parts aging.

well kid let me sit you down and tell you how it was before 80 plus standard. it was a grim time, we were still using horses to get around...

jokes aside, this was definitely a must before 80 plus came about. you'd have third rate psu makers claiming 700w psu's that couldnt put out 500w without damaging itself. typically it was found in REALLY cheap psu. thats when makers like antec really stood out above the rest. they would rate a psu at 380w, and thats what you got. and for that reason alot of people would only go with antec, etc. so at the end of the day people would double up on wattage because they knew the rating's numbers would be fudged. had many o friends go through a cheap psu that came with their case rated at xyz watts only to find out it fried out when the power requirement was anything close to what was listed.

thank god there is a standard now with proper testing. it makes it simpler and easier to take gambles now. before i would hesitate with a psu from a no namer, now if it has that 80+ sticker, means it has to at least go through *some* certification process.

 

[dragonstongue]

kid huh, how old are you. I haven't been a kid in 2+ decades
OCZ, Ultra and numerous others spring to mind. Speaking of which you do know how many companies slap SLI/Crossfire, 80+ when they have not been passed for such cause their certification process is lacking in many ways(even putting the stickers on the packaging and shipping for sale before the units are even being tested, sometimes, not even at all) to the point where many times as long as 1 unit passed the process the same unit with the same name will get an autopass and are "allowed" to put the sticker on it.

This is how OCZ as an example got away with doing nasty things such as cherry picked units they sent for testing that passed but many of the production models ended up having things swapped for cheaper parts.

Anyways, It is nice to have some sort of certification. EU does it right cause if they put something on the shelf that does not match with their rating the company at fault pays massive fines and faces the risk their stuff gets thrown off the shelf. I just stick with name brands that I review as much as possible from many sites. Antec, Seasonic, Corsair, Silverstone, for the cost that folks put into their systems the cost difference from a quality power supply to a cheap one just is not worth it, platinum to gold that's a bit different

 

[CharlesLam]

true, improper labeling is still out there. OCZ has really fallen hard. they used to be THE enthusiast ram/whatever go to manufacturer. now i compare them to rosewill and logisys. but it is easier now to spot out a fake or a gamble now after the standard came out.

Also im 29. i was going to school for network administration right around the time the standard came out. thats why it is so fresh in my mind and put the disclaimer of joke in there. twas such the game changer in my A+ prep class

 

[dragonstongue]

it made a difference no doubt, but, it still is rampant from name brand companies to falsify the labeling, happens time and again. Rosewill are actually mediocre to quite decent. OCZ screwed themselves big time by doing that, cause I recall when I first got into computers and following all this, for Ram the top brands were Kingston, Crucial, OCZ then the rest followed. I suppose when you know folks will buy it cause you have the brand name you don't care much anymore how you act. I can think of another company who acts this way straight up though they do have much better products in comparison overall Starts with an N.

I am 32 BTW

 

[Dangman]

well kid let me sit you down and tell you how it was before 80 plus standard. it was a grim time, we were still using horses to get around...

jokes aside, this was definitely a must before 80 plus came about. you'd have third rate psu makers claiming 700w psu's that couldnt put out 500w without damaging itself. typically it was found in REALLY cheap psu. thats when makers like antec really stood out above the rest. they would rate a psu at 380w, and thats what you got. and for that reason alot of people would only go with antec, etc. so at the end of the day people would double up on wattage because they knew the rating's numbers would be fudged. had many o friends go through a cheap psu that came with their case rated at xyz watts only to find out it fried out when the power requirement was anything close to what was listed.

thank god there is a standard now with proper testing. it makes it simpler and easier to take gambles now. before i would hesitate with a psu from a no namer, now if it has that 80+ sticker, means it has to at least go through *some* certification process.

true, improper labeling is still out there. OCZ has really fallen hard. they used to be THE enthusiast ram/whatever go to manufacturer. now i compare them to rosewill and logisys. but it is easier now to spot out a fake or a gamble now after the standard came out.

Actually no, nothing has really changed with the 80Plus system. Did you see the link I posted earlier?:
http://hardocp.com/article/2011/10/04/80_plus_irrelevant_to_you_when_buying_psu/#.U6zIVLH6eZ1

As the above article shows, it's ridiculously easy to cheat and pass the 80Plus testing. Nor do you actually have to get approval to use the 80Plus ranking yon our PSU. So while a great idea in theory, in practice 80Plus ranking is effectively useless to an informed consumer. It's just now another marketing gimmick for the uninformed.