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Thoughts on PSU Efficiency

M

Mako_0ne

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May 26, 2015
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Great site I've enjoyed reading through quite a few reviews, it seems yall really put the products through the ringer. That being said, I do have a few questions that have seemed to linger a bit. I've heard 2 schools of thought when it comes to buying power supplies A. Buy for efficiency, i.e. find what your rig uses on average and buy a unit that will be the most efficient or B. Buy a much larger power supply than what you need so your psu will not work as hard theoretically extending its life. I've always tended to purchase PSUs with first school of thought while also having a little extra wiggle room later for expansion. But the second school of thought seems viable as well. Less stress on a unit, longer life. Arguably the second option is more expensive though as you are buying way more than what you need. What are your thoughts on this?

Case in point:
I have a build I putting together for my younger siblings.
I almost have all the parts for the following build except for a PSU. https://pchound.com/X3uv7c/ What wattage would you comfortably recommend? My initial thoughts were somewhere around 500. I wanted to build a little extra room in there if I were to put another 970. Right now I'm leaning with XFX XTR 650 or a EVGA GS 650. Not too sure. If I did decide to OC the CPU how much would that increase the wattage?

Thanks in advance for a little clarity in this matter.
 
I'm usually of the school of thought:

Buy enough PSU so you have around 200-250w unused (250-300w if you're going to overclock). That gives you enough room for a second GPU, or a much more power-hungry GPU/CPU upgrade in your future. For most single-GPU people this puts you at around the 500-600w mark.

It means your PSU is not working all that hard for the first few years of ownership, so it has an easy early life.

You don't need to do something drastic like buy double capacity to get long life. Just don't run it at 100% 24/7.

I also recommend that you spend at least $70 (normal price, ignores discounts) on a PSU. Quality components are another way to get longer life, but you'll have to do research if you buy anything aside from Seasonic.

You have the right idea. Your system without overclock will not use more than 350w. Overclocked, around 400-450w.

I'd shoot for 650-700w, which should be enough for SLI in the future.
 
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