How many watts should I be looking for in a PSU

[Bumbummen]

2 hours ago, GoldenLag said:

Actually you can run most systems now, and most future systems in 450w. 

 

550w covering most upgrade paths for gaming workload.

 

Just a note. That PSU is prone to wining and is rather overkill for the system.

 

In other words, there are better option withoit spending money on meaningless wattage. 

There is a difference between cheaping out, and buying adequate wattage and quality. 

 

And usually if you have 15-20€ extra to spend, you spend it elsewhere, or get a better quality PSU. 

We must have different performance tiers then but yes as i suggested in my first reply 550W would be good but also tightly planned if a future upgrade would increase in power draw ^^ Sorry but if you may look on my location i am not a native speaker, but by cheap out i mean saving that money if it is an offensive term - i did not mean it in any offensive manner. Going to edit that.

[Bumbummen]

5 hours ago, Juular said:

PSU durability doesn't depend on it's efficiency directly. It depends on the components choice and operating temperature. High-end PSUs have A LOT of headroom on components, and even PSU itself has OCP\OPP tripping points 30% up from total rated power, also, good high-end PSUs are 50°C rated, which means that they were designed to run at 50°C outputting 100% rated power and last at least the warranty period which is usually 5-10 years depending on brand. That means that manufacturer are confident that it will be running good in these conditions for this period.

 

But back to efficiency, it's a function of PSU components, and the more efficient it is the less power are lost as heat, so operating temperature will be lower, but that's a consequence, not cause of high quality, and you can't just grab a random 80+ Gold, Platinum, Titanium, whatever unit and call it a day, not all of them made equal. Also, if you see, most modern high-efficiency PSUs have semi-fanless mode and OTP tripping point are generally set 100-150°C which is another sign that manufacturer are confident in it.

 

Generally speaking, don't look at the brand or efficiency, look at the unit itself, it's reviews, the performance.

 

Same with warranty, it's a function of PSU quality, not the other way around, don't choose the PSU just based on the warranty, for example, for whatever reasons, high-end-ish be quiet! units still have 5 years warranty in comparison with 10 years from Corsair and Seasonic, which is a shame, but those units are perfectly good otherwise.

 

Speaking of wattage, as you might've noticed, i'm trying to say that you don't need to get the wattage twice of what your PC would consume, it's pointless, don't choose a PSU based on wattage, look at quality and performance, any desktop CPU based, single-GPU rig would be good with 650W, even 550W if it's strictly for gaming or it's not so high-end (OP's build qualifies for that), 450W if it's smth as low power draw as R5 2600\3600 + GTX1660 Ti and you don't need a headroom for upgrades, 750\850W if it's based on workstation-level CPU (Intel X-series, AMD Threadripper, 300-400W high core count ones), 1000\1200W if it's multi-GPU with modern ones. Buying 1000W PSU for gaming rig, especially with R5 3600 and RTX2070 Super are complete waste of money.

 

Of course all that applies only if PSU are already high-quality, aka relatively modern, preferably LLC-resonant topology, 50°C rated (at least 40°C if we're talking about mid-end unit) with good performance (look at reviews), complete protections set, better multi-rail if the rig warrants a PSU with more than 850W, despite most 'reputable' brands still manufacture only single-rail 1000W+ units (looking at you Seasonic). If you've seen EVGA 30°C (FFS EVGA, stop selling that crap) rated units fail that doesn't mean that high-quality PSUs will fail under 100% load, they're designed to run this way.

Thanks for putting in actual arguments and substance to the longevity topic on high load. I did not know that and google for the most part does always suggest headroom, but i am going to not plan in as much the next time then I agree with all you said, but i would still take the 650W, as you and i said 500-550W would be enough for his specs but when i did my first build i had better "basic" parts and that saved me a lot on the next one / upgrade. I have been with 650W and low to high end parts since, no need for 800+ or workstation parts on my side so i think 650W is really the sweet spot imo if you have like me a lot of HDD's and periperals connected or want to keep that a possibility.

[Juular]

3 minutes ago, Bumbummen said:

google for the most part does always suggest headroom

That seems to stem from the GPU manufacturers recommendations which tend to recommend say 750W PSUs for 200W GPUs, mostly because there are very old PSUs still get sold that can't output full rated power on 12V rail. Also, they don't know  what other components are in your PC so they're just taking precautions, although as i said, PSU wattage isn't an indicator of it's quality.

[Bumbummen]

8 hours ago, Juular said:

That seems to stem from the GPU manufacturers recommendations which tend to recommend say 750W PSUs for 200W GPUs, mostly because there are very old PSUs still get sold that can't output full rated power on 12V rail. Also, they don't know  what other components are in your PC so they're just taking precautions, although as i said, PSU wattage isn't an indicator of it's quality.

I recall my uncle talking novels about the importance of rails and quality PSU's with plenty of headroom when i was young. I never really tought about the headroom in relation to rails but it makes a lot of sense. Yeah i never trust GPU vendor power requirements, i always use to look up the real power draw or use a calculator that has that data. I never understood how you should even threat/view that number they since they simply pull it out of their nose based on assumptions - and they do not tell you what they assumed

[WkdPaul]

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