Choosing the right PSU

[theschmidt]

Hello guys,

 

As my first gaming build is starting to "get in shape" (mostly with the help from you guys), I believe that next month I will be able to buy all the parts. But, there is still one component that gets me nervous and I still can't be confident enough to buy: the power source. I recieved some help from some of you guys and recieved tips on the powersource, but my build has changed a bit because I've found some good offers. I've calculated on different websites what power do i need, and the results are: Load Wattage:357 W; Recommended UPS rating:700 VA; Recommended PSU Wattage:407 W. Needles to say I don't quite understand 100% what those numbers represent.

 

It was recomended to me by Aereldor the Seasonic S12II-620 Bronze PSU, but i think with the new build it's not enough. Here's the final build:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($329.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($27.88 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($148.49 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($93.99 @ Jet) 
Storage: ADATA Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($71.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.66 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card  ($399.99 @ B&H) 
Case: NZXT S340 - Designed by Razer ATX Mid Tower Case  ($85.99 @ NCIX US) 

 

To this I would like to add that sometime in the future I would like to add an optical drive. The PC will have two monitors, gaming mouse and keyboard, i would oftenly use the USB ports. The pc will be used in the weekdays for ~5h, and in the weekends ~10h. Any help would be apreciated, thanks!

[comicsansms]

You will be fine with a good PSU that is about 400W, the Corsair CX450M and Vengeance 400 are a great low cost options, anything from Seasonic will be fine, same with XFX (excluding the XT), Antec High Current series, EVGA G2, B2, GS, GQ, P2, PS, G3 and Corsair RMi/RMx/HXi. 

[Mr.Humble]

9 minutes ago, theschmidt said:

OP

Hi,

 

anything Tier 1-3 from the PSU tier list linked in my signature, with 450 - 550W will be enough for you. Personally I'd pick a 550W unit especially if you plan to overclock the CPU/GPU in the future.

[theschmidt]

@Comic_Sans_MS ok, so the required W (watts) for my components is 357W (acording to the coolermaster calculator). And it's recomended to have more than the recomended, especially if I want to add aditional RAM or overclock.

[theschmidt]

@vojta.pokorny good, I will take a look. I have no ideea why friends recomend me to get a 800W ;___; They also recomend +80 platinum or diamant rank.

Later edit: took a look at your signature, a lot of info there. Thanks!

[iRileyx]

Additional ram will use barely any extra wattage, overclocking should use more than an extra 75 or so, if you overclock both cpu and gpu. You could go for a 450 watt but the extra overhead from a 550 would be better.

[comicsansms]

2 minutes ago, theschmidt said:

@Comic_Sans_MS ok, so the required W (watts) for my components is 357W (acording to the coolermaster calculator). And it's recomended to have more than the recomended, especially if I want to add aditional RAM or overclock.

Coolermaster calculator is really off, it has to cover for all of Coolermasters garbage. 

You can completely ignore the number it has given you, you can run any single CPU, single GPU computer on a good 400W PSU even with overclocking. 

 

[ForsakenLive]

1 minute ago, theschmidt said:

@Comic_Sans_MS ok, so the required W (watts) for my components is 357W (acording to the coolermaster calculator). And it's recomended to have more than the recomended, especially if I want to add aditional RAM or overclock.

That's right.

However more wattage doesn't mean better. You need enough wattage for it to run (on your config 400W-450W are actually enough), nonetheless, the quality of the PSU is as important. There are lots of 700W/800W PSUs that are complete garbage. 

Stick with a high quality unit, Comic_Sans_MS listed a few good options. The list of good PSUs does go on. 

Are you buying on the US? How much money are you going to spend on the PSU? 

[theschmidt]

10 minutes ago, ForsakenLive said:

That's right.

However more wattage doesn't mean better. You need enough wattage for it to run (on your config 400W-450W are actually enough), nonetheless, the quality of the PSU is as important. There are lots of 700W/800W PSUs that are complete garbage. 

Stick with a high quality unit, Comic_Sans_MS listed a few good options. The list of good PSUs does go on. 

Are you buying on the US? How much money are you going to spend on the PSU? 

I'm going to buy it in Romania, I'm thinking of spending 100$ at max. For example, the Seasonic S12II-520 Bronze 520W costs ~60$

[The Pikachu Mafia]

Yeah, I would go for a 550W or a 650W PSU. I Generally like to give myself at least an extra 150W-200W of power for any future upgrades or overclocking down the line. You may never hit the maximum 550W that your PSU would be able to handle, but that's the point. You don't wanna have to worry about asking yourself "can my computer power this component?" I also really like Corsair and EVGA for PSUs (I use EVGA and have heard good things from both companies) although I'm sure that there are other good ones out there as well. Just don't get a cheap no name brand PSU without a lot of reviews, good luck!

[theschmidt]

3 hours ago, vojta.pokorny said:

Hi,

 

anything Tier 1-3 from the PSU tier list linked in my signature, with 450 - 550W will be enough for you. Personally I'd pick a 550W unit especially if you plan to overclock the CPU/GPU in the future.

The GPU specifications tell me that they recommend a 500w PSU, so the 620W PSU from Seasonic would do just fine. Damn @Aereldor knows his shit.

[Aereldor]

16 minutes ago, theschmidt said:

The GPU specifications tell me that they recommend a 500w PSU, so the 620W PSU from Seasonic would do just fine. Damn @Aereldor knows his shit.

When I put together your parts list, I had a rough idea of what the power consumption would be. GPU recommendations aren't very accurate (The GTX 750 is a 55-watt card, but NVidia recommends a 300w PSU as the minimum), but if you know what the TDP of popular components is, you can usually arrive at a conclusion yourself.

 

The SeaSonic S12ii 620 is a very reliable power supply, and it was also one of the cheapest in your area (Romania). I'd pull the trigger on it; it's a good price for a great power supply, and you don't have to pay import and shipping fees to get it from another country.

[STRMfrmXMN]

4 hours ago, theschmidt said:

Hello guys,

 

As my first gaming build is starting to "get in shape" (mostly with the help from you guys), I believe that next month I will be able to buy all the parts. But, there is still one component that gets me nervous and I still can't be confident enough to buy: the power source. I recieved some help from some of you guys and recieved tips on the powersource, but my build has changed a bit because I've found some good offers. I've calculated on different websites what power do i need, and the results are: Load Wattage:357 W; Recommended UPS rating:700 VA; Recommended PSU Wattage:407 W. Needles to say I don't quite understand 100% what those numbers represent.

 

It was recomended to me by Aereldor the Seasonic S12II-620 Bronze PSU, but i think with the new build it's not enough. Here's the final build:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($329.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($27.88 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($148.49 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($93.99 @ Jet) 
Storage: ADATA Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($71.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.66 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB G1 Gaming Video Card  ($399.99 @ B&H) 
Case: NZXT S340 - Designed by Razer ATX Mid Tower Case  ($85.99 @ NCIX US) 

 

To this I would like to add that sometime in the future I would like to add an optical drive. The PC will have two monitors, gaming mouse and keyboard, i would oftenly use the USB ports. The pc will be used in the weekdays for ~5h, and in the weekends ~10h. Any help would be apreciated, thanks!

You can't add an optical drive with that case, just letting you know. You'll have to use a USB solution or a janky optical drive hanging out the side of your case kinda thing.

 

Your system will never use more than 350W so an EVGA GS/G2/G3/GQ/B2 will do fine, 550W being the minimum available for a few of those units.

[theschmidt]

2 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

You can't add an optical drive with that case, just letting you know. You'll have to use a USB solution or a janky optical drive hanging out the side of your case kinda thing.

 

Your system will never use more than 350W so an EVGA GS/G2/G3/GQ/B2 will do fine, 550W being the minimum available for a few of those units.

Yes, I know. I will use a external one. Deal, so the SeaSonic S12ii 620 it is then, especially now that I've found it at 75$

[STRMfrmXMN]

5 minutes ago, theschmidt said:

Yes, I know. I will use a external one. Deal, so the SeaSonic S12ii 620 it is then, especially now that I've found it at 75$

It'll work. 

[Aereldor]

13 minutes ago, theschmidt said:

Yes, I know. I will use a external one. Deal, so the SeaSonic S12ii 620 it is then, especially now that I've found it at 75$

@STRMfrmXMN I found him a Super Flower power supply for far less, but I can't ID it. Do you know it?

 

http://www.pcgarage.ro/surse/super-flower/sf-550k12xp-550w/

[STRMfrmXMN]

5 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

@STRMfrmXMN I found him a Super Flower power supply for far less, but I can't ID it. Do you know it?

 

http://www.pcgarage.ro/surse/super-flower/sf-550k12xp-550w/

Can't find anything on it so I'd stick with Safesonic even though the chance of that Super Flower being better isn't super low.

[Aereldor]

2 minutes ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Can't find anything on it so I'd stick with Safesonic even though the chance of that Super Flower being better isn't super low.

Well, I've been wary of unknown power supplies from recognized brands. Remember our first discussion regarding XFX XT and 'Hydrance by SeaSonic' power supplies? They were terrible.

Edited January 17, 2017 by Aereldor
XFX XT*, not TS

[theschmidt]

It is done, the beast was born!

 

Everything went well and it was a great experience. I was almost surreal, it took me almost 5h with the windows installation to get things done. The most difficult things were to put in the RAM (i know, but no matter how hard i pushed them they still didn't want to click, and i was afraid not to break anything. it worked in the end), placing the motherboard on the case and arranging the psu cables. 

 

I am verry happy of the build and the components and I would like to thank you all for your help, you guys shifted my own build in the right direction. And for that, I am gratefull. I will write this post in both of the posts I made regarding this build and tag you, because I don't want to miss anybody. Thank you @Aereldor , @STRMfrmXMN , @The Pikachu Mafia , @ForsakenLive , @Comic_Sans_MS , @RKRiley and @vojta.pokorny !

 

Here are some photos;

Have a great day and see you arround!

 

[ForsakenLive]

Your PC looks great! Hope you enjoy it

[theschmidt]

1 minute ago, ForsakenLive said:

Your PC looks great! Hope you enjoy it

thanks. I will! And by the look of your avatar and name, i want to mention that I entered last night in WoW and i was amazed. I've been playing this game for 10 years on low settings and now on ultra it's mindblowing. I have to level a character from 1 to 110 to see al the zones

[ForsakenLive]

17 minutes ago, theschmidt said:

thanks. I will! And by the look of your avatar and name, i want to mention that I entered last night in WoW and i was amazed. I've been playing this game for 10 years on low settings and now on ultra it's mindblowing. I have to level a character from 1 to 110 to see al the zones

haha yeah, with a weak system legion's dalaran is pretty complicated to run smoothly. I usually test dalaran and a boss in LFR to see how the game will work on a particular system. I organized with my guild a lan party last week to raid The Nighthold, which just opened,so I had to build a couple PCs with spare parts.

[STRMfrmXMN]

5 hours ago, theschmidt said:

It is done, the beast was born!

 

Everything went well and it was a great experience. I was almost surreal, it took me almost 5h with the windows installation to get things done. The most difficult things were to put in the RAM (i know, but no matter how hard i pushed them they still didn't want to click, and i was afraid not to break anything. it worked in the end), placing the motherboard on the case and arranging the psu cables. 

 

I am verry happy of the build and the components and I would like to thank you all for your help, you guys shifted my own build in the right direction. And for that, I am gratefull. I will write this post in both of the posts I made regarding this build and tag you, because I don't want to miss anybody. Thank you @Aereldor , @STRMfrmXMN , @The Pikachu Mafia , @ForsakenLive , @Comic_Sans_MS , @RKRiley and @vojta.pokorny !

 

Here are some photos;

Have a great day and see you arround!

 

 

 

 

Ironically I can't quite tell what PSU it is. Which one did you end up getting?

[theschmidt]

3 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Ironically I can't quite tell what PSU it is. Which one did you end up getting?

the seasonic s12II 620  

[STRMfrmXMN]

4 minutes ago, theschmidt said:

the seasonic s12II 620  

Gotcha, good choice