How much power do I need?

[jlarsen]

Right now I'm running on an old POS "500watt" Rosewill PSU I got as a hand-me-down, definitely didn't plan on using it as long as I have been. Not only do I know it's not putting out that much power, the connectors are falling apart and I'm afraid it's going to short something out, so I need to upgrade.

Currently my setup is as follows:

Q6600 OC'd @ 3.2Ghz
4 GB DDR2
ATI HD4830
6 HDD's

In the next few months, I plan on upgrading to an i7-930 setup with ~6+ gigs of ram and a HD5870 or newer. I'll probably be adding a second video card a few months after that, and probably be getting an external RAID enclosure to get some of those disks out of my case.

I've been looking at either the Corsair or SilverStone 750watt PSUs, but I don't want to regret not going bigger down the road. Can anyone give me recommendations on PSU size and/or brand?

Thanks.

 

[Zero82z]

I'd pick a 500-600W PSU for that kind of system, but if you want a 750W unit, that would certainly be enough. Also, I hope you meant Corsair, not Crucial.

What I recommend is this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371025

 

[jlarsen]

Yes that's definitely what I meant, sorry about that. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll consider Antec also.

 

[Siorus]

A solid 400-500w unit would be MORE than adequate for your current system. But after you upgrade that may be asking a bit much; [H] saw about 400w at the wall in their HD5870 review with a test system that's not a lot different from what you're looking to upgrade to, and the same article cites the maximum power draw for the 5870 at about 190w. With that in mind, I'd say the bare minimum that I would be comfortable with is about 650w. Add some headroom for future upgrades and overclocking and you're looking at the 750w range.

I would not personally recommend the Antec Zero82z linked; someone can correct me if I'm mistaken but as I recall that thing is Delta-based and the capacitor selection amounts to "whatever we found on the supply room floor." It's a solid PS, don't get me wrong-I don't doubt that it'll do its rated wattage @ 40 or 50*C, and Delta's build quality is typically excellent. But the capacitor issue makes me very uncomfortable. Were it my money, I'd buy a Seasonic X-750 or Corsair HX850.

Assuming you don't want to drop $180 on a power supply, though, I'd look at one of these:
XFX 850w (Seasonic) ($150): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207001
XFX 750w (Seasonic) ($125): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207003

JonnyGuru.com reviewed both XFX units, the 750w review is here, and there's a link there to the 850w review as well. You can't go wrong with the Corsair HX650/750s, either, and most if not all of Silverstone's stuff is pretty good from what I've seen. The older Corsair TX750 is down around $90 after rebates right now and will do what you need it to do as well, but it's an older platform and it has much higher ripple levels than the other PSes I mentioned do. It's not something that would stop me from buying one, but if you can drop another $50 on say, the 750w XFX unit, it'd be money well spent.

 

[Zero82z]

I would not personally recommend the Antec Zero82z linked; someone can correct me if I'm mistaken but as I recall that thing is Delta-based and the capacitor selection amounts to "whatever we found on the supply room floor." It's a solid PS, don't get me wrong-I don't doubt that it'll do its rated wattage @ 40 or 50*C, and Delta's build quality is typically excellent. But the capacitor issue makes me very uncomfortable. Were it my money, I'd buy a Seasonic X-750 or Corsair HX850.

1) It's a Seasonic PSU, and all the capacitors are from NCC.
2) Capacitor selection in any Antec PSUs including those made by Delta is not an issue.

 

[Siorus]

1) It's a Seasonic PSU, and all the capacitors are from NCC.
2) Capacitor selection in any Antec PSUs including those made by Delta is not an issue.

Re 1.: My mistake. In that case, there's no real reason to not pick one up.
Re 2.: Objectively, you're right; every Delta-built Antec I've seen that's been properly tested has had no problem reaching its rated output with very good ripple control and voltage regulation. It just makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I dug up the JG review of the CP-850; the primary caps in his sample were from Samxon, the secondary side caps were Nichicon, Ltec, Taicon, Rubycon, and Aishi.

Samxon is Chinese, Ltec is Taiwanese, as is Taicon (though apparently it's a subsidiary of Nichicon), and Aishi is Chinese from what my research tells me. Does that mean that nobody should ever buy a CP-850 or any of the other Delta-based Antec units? No, not at all. They've been demonstrated to work, and work well. But I can't bring myself to trust that a Chinese/Taiwanese cap will still be in spec and working properly 5 years from now. For that reason, I'd just as soon buy something else that's been proven to work, and work well, AND that has all Japanese caps in it. For other people that aren't as paranoid as I am, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Antec's current products that I know of.

 

[Zero82z]

There is no reason to believe that any of those capacitors will fail early in the applications they are being used for.

 

[Siorus]

That depends on how you define "early", no? If a Samxon cap works without fail for 5 years, but a Nichicon in the same application functions for 10 or 15, did the Samxon fail early?

As I've already said twice, the Antec/Delta units have proven many times in tests here, at JonnyGuru, at Hardware Secrets and multiple other websites to be very solid units. You can do much, much, much worse than an Antec/Delta unit with some Chinese caps in it.

But, the capacitor selection is enough to keep me from buying one, irrespective of the reviews (well that and many, many bad experiences with Antec's SmartPower units that I'm still pissed over), which is why I mentioned it in the context of "I wouldn't recommend-I'd get one of these units instead-but all the reviews I've seen indicate that it's fine" not "HOLY SHIT DON'T BUY THAT THING IT'LL EAT YOUR HARD DRIVE AND SET FIRE TO A PUPPY." And, as it turned out, as you noted, I was mistaken with that particular unit anyhow.

 

[Zero82z]

That depends on how you define "early", no? If a Samxon cap works without fail for 5 years, but a Nichicon in the same application functions for 10 or 15, did the Samxon fail early?

No. 5 years is a reasonable lifespan for a PSU.

 

[Zenshi]

Yeah I would agree. I mean the only real important thing is how long the PSU will last before you replace it. It seems especially to the fine members of [H], most replace their PSU before 5 years. Also I presume the 5 year mark was just picked out of the air. I have not heard any lifetime issues with the Delta based PSUs, unlike Antec's older Truepower PSUs. Now there was capacitor problems!