Within reason, recommend me a PSU

[pratik97]

This is what I'm planning (of course plans are still up in the air and can change). I'm making a new rig and this is what I will probably end up having. (I will be trying to OC as well)

Athlon64 3000+(Winchester) - Will be overclocked with custom DangerDen Watercooling setup
MSI Neo Platinum
1 Gig or dual channel 512 MB (Corsair probably)
120GB HD
9800 Pro or NVidia 6600 (I'm not too big on games)
2 CD drives (dual format burner and CD drive)
All this going in a Lian-Li PC75 (95% sure on that one)

I know PSU is very critical as far as overclocking goes so what would be a smart, economical choice here. I know I'm spending all this and don't want to skimp but I dont want to overpay either.

I should also say that being quiet is a priority. Hence, partly the reason for going watercooling anyways.

Looking at some of the other posts and reviews the Tagan, Fortron 530Watt is a good option for me.

 

[Ice Czar]

stock cut and paste, run the calculator and either give me a working link to the raw numbers or factor in the realworld baselines and I can make some reasonable recommendations

Do the math here: http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
There's a good chance you will need a bigger PSU than the 470..

And once again. Let's not forget that these calculators are absolute worst case.

well as far as calculators goes, that one sucks (sorry)
its very important to actually determine the amps per rail
and not all calculators are automatically the worse case senerio
I use > takaman's Power Supply Calaculator v2
which does have the option to set a utilization percentage, and to manually enter amp values for a given component
which is very handy if you have real world test values like
Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators: ATi
Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators: Nvidia
(all the better because they break out the draw between the AGP and the auxillary connector, which on an ATX12V v2.0 is on different +12V rails)
and various databases like Processor Electrical Specifications
(if the board has a +12V auxillary you add to the +12V otherwise it goes on the +5V rail,
and you convert the watts to amps for the appropriate rail, AMPS = Watts / Voltage)
or the actual spec sheets on the components (like say from Seagate)

that way Im able to run multiple calculations
first I do a "full" calculation, of all the additive maximums of the components
then for an ATX12V v2.0 supply or an EPS12V supply I repeat that for the +12V1, +12V2 and additionaly for EPS12V +12V3\+12V4 rails

then I run a "realworld" worse case senerio,
Its just as likely Im helping someone calculate a NAS as a lean gaming rig
so a "spinup" calculation is the first criteria
all the fans and HDDs\RAID arrays at 100% value and a 25% value for the CPU\GPU, often that will tell me if a more powerful supply is needed simply to boot or if the NAS\SAN need to employ a controller with a delayed spinup option
(common on SCSI controllers, and found on quite a few ATA)
once the fans and HDDs are spinning they will drop to 1\4 of their full rating, so I recalculate with that value as a static load, and throw in a 100% CPU\GPU and single optical (full spinup draw) for a worse case senerio realworld


Interpreting the veracity of a manufacturer is the tricky part
since we dont get to actually see the engineering test specs
which will typically say sometghing like
rated for full power at 25C decreasing linearly to no power at 70C
and your operating temperature being around 40C

generally I start with deducting a third off the rated amps for temperature
and then start to match to the baselines, factor in thermal considerations (PSU placement, type of thermal solution for the rig,) and special factors like overclocking or usage patterns (NAS\Server\Workstation\word processor ),

when I actually make recommendations however I typical build in a healthier safety value than the "real world" worse case senerio unless someone has specifically stated they are running a UPS

 

[pratik97]

Thanks for all that work. Even if it was a copy and paste I'm at work right now and kinda hard for me to comprehend what was said. I'll try and taking a look at the numbers and see.

Thanks.