A few Qs: Corsair RM850x Vs. Seasonic FOCUS PX/GX-850; Best large internal HDDs; Populating 2nd M.2 slot on B550 motherboard

[ABetterTomorrow]

Hi all.

1. I know nothing about PSUs. Did some research online and on the forum and narrowed it down to two contenders: 

Corsair RM850x, and the Seasonic FOCUS GX-850 / PX-850.

Any opinion on which to go with and why? Does either have features that the other doesn't? Is one more reliable? Build below.

 

2. I'd also like to know what's the best (most reliable) brand and model of large-capacity (8TB+) HDD?

According to Amazon reviews the Seagate IronWolf might be good.

Any opinions please or other things I should look at?

 

3. Lastly: Is there any downside to using both M.2 slots on this motherboard?

I don't really understand PCIe slots etc, but if I have both M.2 slots in use will it slow other things down? Sorry for the stupid question.

 

So far I have the 5900x and Meshify 2 ordered and just trying to get the rest straight.  PS: Lots of RAM and storage as it'll be a workstation kind of build, with gaming on the side.

 

Case    Fractal Design Meshify 2 Grey Light Glass
Motherboard    MSI B550 Gaming Edge Wifi
CPU    AMD Ryzen 5900x
GPU    EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
RAM    Crucial Ballistix DDR4 3600Mhz 64GB (2 x 32GB)
M.2 01    Samsung 970 Evo Plus 
M.2 02    Samsung 970 Evo Plus 
SSD 01    Samsung 860 EVO 
SSD 02    Samsung 860 EVO 
HDD 01    Seagate IronWolf 
HDD 02    Seagate IronWolf
CPU cooler    Noctua NH-D15, 2x NF-A15 PWM 140mm
Front / top fans    Noctua NF-A14 PWM 140mm x 4
Rear fan    Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM 120mm
PSU    Corsair RM850x / Seasonic FOCUS PX/GX-850 

[brob]

All three psu models are excellent.

 

The Seasonic models can be switched between fanless at low draws and always on. The Corsair unit does not spin the fan at low draws.

 

Unless you want 80+ Platinum efficiency, pick the best priced unit.

 

Iron Wolf and Iron Wolf Pro are good drives for use in RAID arrays. WD Red and Red Pro are the Western Digital equivalents. Both Seagate and WD make enterprise units that are designed for heavier work loads.

 

One of the motherboard m.2 connectors communicates directly with the cpu. The other goes through the chipset. I'm not aware of any downside to having two m.2 drives in a B550 motherboard.

[ABetterTomorrow]

Thank you  

[ABetterTomorrow]

Is there any reason to get the P model over the G model of the Seasonic? £20 difference. I checked the website and the specs look the same except for a 2% efficiency difference. Does this mean it will use less power over time and save me a bit on the electricity bill? I looked at the images on their website of the internals of both units and they seem the same too. I read somewhere that Platinum and Titanium rated PSUs use higher quality components, or is that nonsense? 

[brob]

Rated efficiency is the only difference i know of. 80+ Platinum psu should use less input power to deliver the same output. So it will save a bit. Depending on rates in your area, over 10 years the savings might even offset the cost difference.

 

If memory serves, reviews of earlier Focus models suggested that the gold units had performance close to platinum levels.

[ABetterTomorrow]

Thank you. So it makes zero difference to the performance of the system as a whole? So if I am playing a game or rendering something there won't be any difference in fps or time for example? The only thing the Gold / Plat / Ti stuff changes is the power it takes from the wall, not the power it gives to the components? I know these questions are probably dumb but this is my first build and I want to make sure I am getting the best performance and not making any silly errors. 

[boggy77]

Just now, ABetterTomorrow said:

Thank you. So it makes zero difference to the performance of the system as a whole? So if I am playing a game or rendering something there won't be any difference in fps or time for example? The only thing the Gold / Plat / Ti stuff changes is the power it takes from the wall, not the power it gives to the components? I know these questions are probably dumb but this is my first build and I want to make sure I am getting the best performance and not making any silly errors. 

No, they all give the same power to the components, the power they request. They won't make any difference to performance in any way. The only difference is how much power they will draw from the wall, but that is not very significant.

[ABetterTomorrow]

Perfect. That clears it up for me.

[HawkinEagul]

I have an RM650x (the smaller model of the 850x) and am so far really happy with it. After four years, all the internal components still measured in spec last time I opened it up for what I expected was bad caps (from natural aging.)

[ABetterTomorrow]

Great, thanks. I'll consider that one too.

 

I went through the Outervision PSU calculator and it's recommending anything from 850 all the way up to 1350w PSUs, depending on the efficiency rating I select:

 

https://outervision.com/b/A72iX9

 

Is 850w the right choice for what I will be using it for?
- Software such as Maya, Substance, Zbrush, Unreal, Houdini, Redshift, Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere etc

- Some gaming

 

Here's the efficiency graph from the Focus GX page. I live in the UK so it's the 230v line (the top one) that is relevant.

 

[brob]

Nvidia recommends an 850W psu in RTX 3080 Ti systems.

 

If you want a good estimate of total power requirements use pcpartpicker.com and create a build. The tool will tally actual manufacturers' power requirements.

[seon123]

1 hour ago, ABetterTomorrow said:

I went through the Outervision PSU calculator

That was just a waste of time. It's useless.

19 hours ago, ABetterTomorrow said:

Corsair RM850x, and the Seasonic FOCUS GX-850 / PX-850.

Any opinion on which to go with and why?

Out of those, easily the RMx. It's quieter, and uses a fan that isn't complete garbage, unlike the Focus.

A slightly cheaper alternative could be the Ion+ 860W. It is about as quiet as the RMx, but doesn't perform quite as well.

 

10 hours ago, ABetterTomorrow said:

I read somewhere that Platinum and Titanium rated PSUs use higher quality components, or is that nonsense? 

The 80+ rating is only for efficiency (and it's also quite bad at it, as it measures only at 20%, 50% and 100% (+ 10% for Titanium). Cybenetics certifications are way way way more thorough). It says nothing about how good a PSU is. You can create an absolutely garbage 80+ Titanium PSU, and you can create an amazing 80+ Standard PSU. Just ignore the rating, and anyone that thinks the rating actually matters. Instead of efficiency, look at things like the noise, regulation, ripple, transient response, hold up time etc etc etc.

[ABetterTomorrow]

12 hours ago, seon123 said:

That was just a waste of time. It's useless.

Out of those, easily the RMx. It's quieter, and uses a fan that isn't complete garbage, unlike the Focus.

A slightly cheaper alternative could be the Ion+ 860W. It is about as quiet as the RMx, but doesn't perform quite as well.

 

The 80+ rating is only for efficiency (and it's also quite bad at it, as it measures only at 20%, 50% and 100% (+ 10% for Titanium). Cybenetics certifications are way way way more thorough). It says nothing about how good a PSU is. You can create an absolutely garbage 80+ Titanium PSU, and you can create an amazing 80+ Standard PSU. Just ignore the rating, and anyone that thinks the rating actually matters. Instead of efficiency, look at things like the noise, regulation, ripple, transient response, hold up time etc etc etc.

Alrighty, thank you. Do you have any links to people saying the Seasonic fan is poor? Amazon reviews seem to be glowing (1900+).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seasonic-Efficiency-Cable-Free-Connection-Performance/dp/B07WVMDZMZ/ref=sr_1_20?dchild=1&keywords=psu&qid=1608611960&sr=8-20&th=1

 

EVGA would be another option. There seem to be a handful of people reporting that their PSU blew up / fried all their components no matter which one I research (Seasonic, Corsair, EVGA). I guess I'll go with the one with the least reports of that  How about NZXT?

[brob]

If you do a search for the fan model (Hong Hua HA1225H12F-Z) you should get a few hits. 

[seon123]

1 hour ago, ABetterTomorrow said:

Alrighty, thank you. Do you have any links to people saying the Seasonic fan is poor? Amazon reviews seem to be glowing (1900+).

Ignore customer reviews. They are just a way for clueless people to justify their own unresearched purchase. 

Just search for Hong Hua motor noise or something similar. During both idle and load, the loudest part of my system is the Hong Hua fan in my Seasonic Prime Titanium, so that's not great either. 

1 hour ago, ABetterTomorrow said:

EVGA would be another option. There seem to be a handful of people reporting that their PSU blew up / fried all their components no matter which one I research (Seasonic, Corsair, EVGA). I guess I'll go with the one with the least reports of that  How about NZXT?

Well, duh. You'll find failures of any product. Going for NZXT because of few reported failures is just really stupid. What do you think has more reported failures? 10K units sold with a 1% failure rate, or 100 units sold with a 50% failure rate? Besides, NZXT uses Seasonic for their new PSU series, so they'll have the same issues as Seasonic. 

 

I already looked at the options available on PCPP UK, and gave you an alternative. 

[ABetterTomorrow]

Thank you. Still learning about it all so grateful for the info. Hopefully, when it comes time, I can assemble it all without wrecking anything  < This face looks way different to the normal emoji version too - _ - (Meant to be to poke fun at my ignorance, not anyone else).