Building a New Computer - What capacity power supply?

[ImportBoy]

So I am building a new computer soon. The one thing I am stuck on is the power supply. I don't want to underpower the thing...yet I don't want to waste money on watts I'm never going to use.

My current plans call for the following:
-Intel Core 2 Quad Yorkfield 2.83GHz 45 nm / Socket LGA 775 95W
-EVGA GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
-G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
-LG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner w/ SecurDisc Tech Black SATA Model GH20NS15

Looking at EVGA's website they recommend a 500 watt minimum power supply. Can't seem to find what the "recommended" power supply would be.

Any thoughts? I am figuring something in the 600 - 700 watt range.

PS: I will never use SLI or Crossfire cards. The only upgrade over the life of the PC will probably be a Blu-Ray burner in a year or so when blank media prices come down.

[Mozgus]

Watts mean jack shit anymore. There are $20 600 watts, and $250 600 watts.

[Niode]

Doesn't matter, to power that system you need at least 500w. It all depends on the quality of the 12v and 5v rails. Get a nice twin rail power supply. Don't cheap out on a power supply, that's the worst thing everybody does.

If I were you get either an Enermax Galaxy or Sparkle thats at least 500/600w.

I have owned a 500w Enermax Liberty for about 4/5 years now and that is still going strong. It's solid as a rock. Stable overclocks a plenty.

BTW any particular reason for the 260? If I were you I'd get an ATI 4870 seeing as it has better performance and is pretty comparable on price.

[D.D.D.]

Watts mean jack shit anymore. There are $20 600 watts, and $250 600 watts.

While that is true, I really doubt that a 200 watt PSU would power my old PC (2 HDDs, 1 DVD burner, 1 CD burner, ATI AGP card, P4 2.0GHz, and some Sound Blaster surround sound card). The price of a PSU should dictate build-quality.

For the recommended specs, I always give 33% more to find the average rec.specs. So 500 * 1.33=665watts or go with a 700 watt PSU.

[Mozgus]

Watts mean jack shit anymore. There are $20 600 watts, and $250 600 watts.

While that is true, I really doubt that a 200 watt PSU would power my old PC (2 HDDs, 1 DVD burner, 1 CD burner, ATI AGP card, P4 2.0GHz, and some Sound Blaster surround sound card). The price of a PSU should dictate build-quality.

That was my point, exactly.

[Ziggy]

I would go with a higher wattage for the "down the road" scenario. You might not plan on it now, but you don't wanna screw yourself down the road. Don't get just enough to get the initial build going, then down the road you want to add another hard drive, CD drive, run USB devices, ect and its under powered. And its very important NOT tobuy a cheap power supply. You say you'll never upgrade anything, not even the graphics card? Obviously you chose that card for gaming, right? You're not gonna eventually upgrade that card?

Brands I recommend are Enermax, Sparkle, and Thermaltake. I usually always get Enermax, I've been extremely satisfied with the ones that I own, and I've also put them in other people's computers as upgrades. I also monitor my temperature, fan speed, and voltage constantly using software and the voltage on my Enermax PSU's are very stable.

edit: http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html

^ That's a power supply calculator. I just popped in your parts and it spit out 650w. I would go with at least that or 700w.

[sakicfan84]

So I am building a new computer soon. The one thing I am stuck on is the power supply. I don't want to underpower the thing...yet I don't want to waste money on watts I'm never going to use.

My current plans call for the following:
-Intel Core 2 Quad Yorkfield 2.83GHz 45 nm / Socket LGA 775 95W
-EVGA GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
-G.SKILL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
-LG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner w/ SecurDisc Tech Black SATA Model GH20NS15

Looking at EVGA's website they recommend a 500 watt minimum power supply. Can't seem to find what the "recommended" power supply would be.

Any thoughts? I am figuring something in the 600 - 700 watt range.

PS: I will never use SLI or Crossfire cards. The only upgrade over the life of the PC will probably be a Blu-Ray burner in a year or so when blank media prices come down.

Quick question, why are you going with the gtx 260 over the 4870? 4870 is faster in most games and can be found for cheaper; just wondering why you are going with that particular card.

As far as power supplies go, I wouldn't be overly concerned about getting the highest quality power supply around. My buddy is running pretty much the same system I am but has an antec signature PSU which cost over $150, while I'm using a rosewill PSU that cost around $60 after rebate; my system has had no problem at all on the rosewill. My 12v rails aren't fluctuating like a mother or anything, and it isn't really that much louder. Unless you plan on pushing that thing to the max regularly, I wouldn't really worry about getting a lower grade power supply. Check the reviews on a site like Newegg and see what other people are successfully running on a particular PSU; that will tell you quite a bit.

[ImportBoy]

Quick question, why are you going with the gtx 260 over the 4870? 4870 is faster in most games and can be found for cheaper; just wondering why you are going with that particular card.

I havn't looked to much into the ATI scene these days but, almost every user review of the 4870 complains that the thing ides very hot and the fan is loud. 512MB also seems a little low considering most other cards these days; unless your running in crossfire. Do you have an 4870 yourself by chance?

edit: http://educations.newegg.com/tool/psucalc/index.html

Thanks, been looking for something like that!

You say you'll never upgrade anything, not even the graphics card? Obviously you chose that card for gaming, right? You're not gonna eventually upgrade that card?

Nope! That is why I try to go for a high-end card that will last around 3 - 3 1/2 years each new PC. My current PC is an AMD 64 3400+, 2GB DDR-400, and Radeon X800 Pro 256MB AGP; from March of 2005. I think the video card was around $400 at the time.

[Ziggy]

But the motherboard, in most cases, will LONG out live the graphics card. I find it to be a lot less money to slowly upgrade a PC rather to build a new one every few years. My PC is about 10 years old and I'm playing current games like Call of Duty 4 and Medal of Honor Airborne, and should be able to play Far Cry 2, and I don't even have the best graphics card I could get for it. I could also double my RAM from 1GB to 2GB. The only thing thats 'maxed out' is my CPU, a P4 3GHz.

As far as power supplies go, I wouldn't be overly concerned about getting the highest quality power supply around. My buddy is running pretty much the same system I am but has an antec signature PSU which cost over $150, while I'm using a rosewill PSU that cost around $60 after rebate; my system has had no problem at all on the rosewill. My 12v rails aren't fluctuating like a mother or anything, and it isn't really that much louder. Unless you plan on pushing that thing to the max regularly, I wouldn't really worry about getting a lower grade power supply. Check the reviews on a site like Newegg and see what other people are successfully running on a particular PSU; that will tell you quite a bit.

Eh, I don't know about that. I have seen many cheap or even mid range PSU die. My one friend had a PSU die that he replace with a spare cheap PSU that died in another week. He got another cheap PSU that died in a few months until he finally got a good name brand PSU.

Also, I find about 90% of the people reviewing products on New Egg, or any site for that matter, don't really know what they're talking about. Also, just because a product works a week or a month after you got it doesn't mean anything. A PSU might not just out right stop working, but may become unstable after a while. Or even if its supplying the correct voltage, might become unable to supply enough wattage all the time.

When I finally go to build my next PC, I will most definitely get an Enermax PSU for it. A Thermaltake would be a close second. I, and this is just me, would not get any other brand save for Antec or Sparkle. I've seen many Enermax that just last and last, 2 of my own. But I've also seen many cheap PSU that died after some time. My one friend got a computer not to long before I build my current main computer. He called me to fix his PC one day, and I found that all the capacitors in the PSU were burned out. That's nuts! I've actually never seen capacitors burn out that soon. The NES I have is more then double its age and the capacitors are fine (for example).

Eh... rant over.

[sakicfan84]

But the motherboard, in most cases, will LONG out live the graphics card. I find it to be a lot less money to slowly upgrade a PC rather to build a new one every few years. My PC is about 10 years old and I'm playing current games like Call of Duty 4 and Medal of Honor Airborne, and should be able to play Far Cry 2, and I don't even have the best graphics card I could get for it. I could also double my RAM from 1GB to 2GB. The only thing thats 'maxed out' is my CPU, a P4 3GHz.

As far as power supplies go, I wouldn't be overly concerned about getting the highest quality power supply around. My buddy is running pretty much the same system I am but has an antec signature PSU which cost over $150, while I'm using a rosewill PSU that cost around $60 after rebate; my system has had no problem at all on the rosewill. My 12v rails aren't fluctuating like a mother or anything, and it isn't really that much louder. Unless you plan on pushing that thing to the max regularly, I wouldn't really worry about getting a lower grade power supply. Check the reviews on a site like Newegg and see what other people are successfully running on a particular PSU; that will tell you quite a bit.

Eh, I don't know about that. I have seen many cheap or even mid range PSU die. My one friend had a PSU die that he replace with a spare cheap PSU that died in another week. He got another cheap PSU that died in a few months until he finally got a good name brand PSU.

Also, I find about 90% of the people reviewing products on New Egg, or any site for that matter, don't really know what they're talking about. Also, just because a product works a week or a month after you got it doesn't mean anything. A PSU might not just out right stop working, but may become unstable after a while. Or even if its supplying the correct voltage, might become unable to supply enough wattage all the time.

When I finally go to build my next PC, I will most definitely get an Enermax PSU for it. A Thermaltake would be a close second. I, and this is just me, would not get any other brand save for Antec or Sparkle. I've seen many Enermax that just last and last, 2 of my own. But I've also seen many cheap PSU that died after some time. My one friend got a computer not to long before I build my current main computer. He called me to fix his PC one day, and I found that all the capacitors in the PSU were burned out. That's nuts! I've actually never seen capacitors burn out that soon. The NES I have is more then double its age and the capacitors are fine (for example).

Eh... rant over.

I won't say that a more expensive PSU isn't going to be more durable, but I will say that a lot of power supplies will fry pretty early on. Lots of luck involved (as with any other computer part), but there are supposedly high quality PSUs that run just as high of chance of blowing as lower/midrange ones. Look at some of the reviews for some enermax PSUs:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRe ... 6817194004
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRe ... 6817194021

Lots of early blow ups, even for when people are paying $200 as in the case of that second PSU. The people reviewing might just be normal computer users, but they are capable of figuring out when a power supply units dies on them. They are also capable of reporting when a PSU doesn't die on them and runs their computer without issues. I'd wager that most of the people reviewing parts of Newegg are more computer enthusiasts as opposed to just a normal person who can barely operate a computer. Not sure why 90% won't know what they are talking about; I'd bet that the majority of the people who are building a computer and buying parts for it, know a little something about computers...at least more than 10% of them. Also, there are quite a few reviews on Newegg with ownership over a year; they are not all short term reviews.

Again, I'm not saying that a more expensive power supply doesn't have benefits in quality and performance. I"m saying that this particular guy in his situation probably won't have any difference in using a $70 dollar rosewill supply or a $200 enermax supply. He's doesn't sound like he's trying to push his computer to it's limits. I'm just trying to say that he'll most likely be fine if he decides to save himself around $75-100 dollars and get a little less expensive power supply.