Power Supply advice

[kingkvndrick]

Hi guys,

 

I am looking a new power supply for my build and I am wondering what I should get. I am looking at the Corsair CX430 and VS550. Both of them are exactly the same price however the CX430 is rated at an 80+ Bronze rating but it has less power. The VS550 on the other hand has more watts however it has not got a 80+ bronze rating.

 

To be honest, I don't really care about the rating of the PSU as I know that Corsair makes high quality products no matter how much they cost. The question now is when I want to upgrade in the future.

 

I am running a G3258 Pentium OC at 4.00GHz with an Arctic Freezer 13 on an ASrock H97 Anniversary board. The system is running on a single stick of Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB DDR3 RAM Clocked at 1866 MHz. At the moment, I am not running a graphics card however in the future I would like to get a GT730 or an EVGA GTX 750ti FTW edition card. This is where I need you help in choosing the right power supply.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

 

[FuriousGamer]

Both of those are horrible psu. Go with this (it is alot more expensive but its worth it.) https://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-220g20550y1

 

Look at this when buying a psu 

 

 

[papapoi]

a 430 is enough for the 750ti but if you plan to go higher, a 950 is like $10-$20 usd more and prices for the 960's and AMD R9 series are going down also. so a 600w or higher might be better, honestly you can get an evga for almost the same price as those on sale. is price a factor in your choice?

[FuriousGamer]

5 minutes ago, papapoi said:

a 430 is enough for the 750ti but if you plan to go higher, a 950 is like $10-$20 usd more and prices for the 960's and AMD R9 series are going down also. so a 600w or higher might be better, honestly you can get an evga for almost the same price as those on sale. is price a factor in your choice?

You dont need 600w+ for a 960 & his other stuff, he only really needs a 450w psu because his pc would only put out about 350w if he added a 960 to his build. So in conclusion 600w+ is overkill. 

[papapoi]

1 minute ago, FuriousGamer said:

iYou dont need 600w+ for a 960 & his other stuff, he only really needs a 450w psu because his pc would only put out about 350w if he added a 960 to his build. So in conclusion 600w+ is overkill. 

yea the 600 was in case he was going with more than a 960, im running a 960 with a 500 and barely hit 330 on my watt meter, but prices for 600w vs 450w is about the same so it wouldnt hurt to go higher in case he decides on a more power hungry card or decides to build a new pc altogether later on down the line

[applesuxD]

26 minutes ago, kingkvndrick said:

Hi guys,

 

I am looking a new power supply for my build and I am wondering what I should get. I am looking at the Corsair CX430 and VS550. Both of them are exactly the same price however the CX430 is rated at an 80+ Bronze rating but it has less power. The VS550 on the other hand has more watts however it has not got a 80+ bronze rating.

 

To be honest, I don't really care about the rating of the PSU as I know that Corsair makes high quality products no matter how much they cost. The question now is when I want to upgrade in the future.

 

I am running a G3258 Pentium OC at 4.00GHz with an Arctic Freezer 13 on an ASrock H97 Anniversary board. The system is running on a single stick of Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB DDR3 RAM Clocked at 1866 MHz. At the moment, I am not running a graphics card however in the future I would like to get a GT730 or an EVGA GTX 750ti FTW edition card. This is where I need you help in choosing the right power supply.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

 

Read up on efficiency curve,thats all you really need to know

 

And figure out how much wattage you use,

lets say 250W is the power yr system draws out of the wall.

 

And the power supply A(400w) efficiency curve is peaked at 90% efficiency at 150W

 

And Power SUpply B(650W) peaked at 95% efficiency at 250W,get the power Supply B, there you will not waste alot of energy, overtime using more electricity efficiency for less the money

 

do lookup on efficiency curve,or you wont understand what im talking about

 

80+ to 80+ gold only affects the peak percentage of efficiency in most cases,which you should lookout for as well.

 

 

[FuriousGamer]

6 minutes ago, papapoi said:

yea the 600 was in case he was going with more than a 960, im running a 960 with a 500 and barely hit 330 on my watt meter, but prices for 600w vs 450w is about the same so it wouldnt hurt to go higher in case he decides on a more power hungry card or decides to build a new pc altogether later on down the line

I heard you should never have double the watts from what you put out. Dont know why just been told not too lol 

[Energycore]

I wouldn't go anywhere near a bad PSU. If there's a PSU error chances are it's going to take some piece of hardware with it as well.

 

If you can afford the 80$ price tag, the 550W or 650W EVGA Supernova G2 models are excellent quality power supplies, i can recommend those for sure. If you're on a bit of a tighter budget it's going to be a bit hard to find an end-all-be-all unit for your needs.

 

I ran some generous tests for your system with the OC Pentium, an OC 960 plus multiple external drives and cooling fans and was rated at 340W load wattage. Keep in mind that most power supplies hit their efficiency peak at about 50% load but you should never compromise build quality and reliability for efficiency. The electric bill difference is not worth the risk of damaging your computer since the difference between 400W at 80% and 400W at 90% is about 55W or less than a conventional light bulb's power consumption.

 

You can find a calculator for your system's power consumption over at http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator .

[papapoi]

6 minutes ago, FuriousGamer said:

I heard you should never have double the watts from what you put out. Dont know why just been told not too lol 

yeah, its mainly because of the the rating of effieciency(bad spelling?) gets better the closer it is to total usage from what i've read, one of the reasons i have a pc sitting with a seasonic 850w 80+ gold even if i sli my 960 i wont be close to power use, a 750ti with what he got should bring him to about 280w maybe? so its not that bad

 

edit: damn should have read the above post, lol applesux(great name) kinda explained it.

[Goat]

The CX psus are not good. Get something else. Although Corsair is a reputable brand, not all of their psus are good.

[STRMfrmXMN]

7 hours ago, Goat said:

7 hours ago, Energycore said:

7 hours ago, FuriousGamer said:

7 hours ago, papapoi said:

 

 

 

 

Dear god the amount of misinformation here is OVER 9000!

 

A CX430M is entirely more than what he needs. A 750ti, first of all, doesn't even require external power. The entire card uses less than 60W on its own and an OCd Pentium G3258 will hit around 60W on its own as well. So we're coming nowhere near the heat or wattage output that the CX430 would restrict.

 

8 hours ago, kingkvndrick said:

Hi guys,

 

I am looking a new power supply for my build and I am wondering what I should get. I am looking at the Corsair CX430 and VS550. Both of them are exactly the same price however the CX430 is rated at an 80+ Bronze rating but it has less power. The VS550 on the other hand has more watts however it has not got a 80+ bronze rating.

 

To be honest, I don't really care about the rating of the PSU as I know that Corsair makes high quality products no matter how much they cost. The question now is when I want to upgrade in the future.

 

I am running a G3258 Pentium OC at 4.00GHz with an Arctic Freezer 13 on an ASrock H97 Anniversary board. The system is running on a single stick of Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB DDR3 RAM Clocked at 1866 MHz. At the moment, I am not running a graphics card however in the future I would like to get a GT730 or an EVGA GTX 750ti FTW edition card. This is where I need you help in choosing the right power supply.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

 

For your system the CX430M is fine. That's what those PSUs are built for.

[papapoi]

5 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

Dear god the amount of misinformation here is OVER 9000!

 

A CX430M is entirely more than what he needs. A 750ti, first of all, doesn't even require external power. The entire card uses less than 60W on its own and an OCd Pentium G3258 will hit around 60W on its own as well. So we're coming nowhere near the heat or wattage output that the CX430 would restrict.

 

For your system the CX430M is fine. That's what those PSUs are built for.

and this is coming from a guy with a 550w on his own system?? what if decides to get something other than a 750ti??dont need to get into an argument over this but everyone here is trying to give info to help this guy so he can make his own educated decision because ultimately its HIS money.

[STRMfrmXMN]

5 minutes ago, papapoi said:

and this is coming from a guy with a 550w on his own system??

What does that have to do with anything? If you want an explanation of why my PSU is as it is then here's a list of reasons:

 

It's a high-quality unit

It's dead silent under 25% load or less as the fan never kicks on

I got it on sale for the then sale price of 80 USD

It's fully modular 

It's small

Is the lowest wattage version of the EVGA GS series (couldn't get one with a lower output if I wanted to) for my system which will only ever use around 140W under load.

 

7 minutes ago, papapoi said:

 what if decides to get something other than a 750ti??dont need to get into an argument over this but everyone here is trying to give info to help this guy so he can make his own educated decision because ultimately its HIS money.

Yes? 430W is enough for nearly any single GPU setup - not saying he should pair a 390 with this as he should get a higher-quality unit that can handle the heat output of a 390 - and for a 960 even it's a good enough unit. The "education" y'all are giving him is entirely false so throwing out said information doesn't actually inform him more than it regresses.

 

Let's address a couple of things you've said, for one.

 

Your explanation of 80 PLUS efficiency is wrong, commonly misunderstood. Check out the guide to it pinned on our subforum or in the link in my signature.

 

Unless you have a 9590, you're not coming near 330W with a GTX 960. Guru3D, with an overclocked 3960X (most power-hungry chip out there bar the 9590 iirc) got the entire system up to 236W under load. That's not a lot. 

 

All is well if he buys a CX430M. No, it's not an EVGA T2 or Corsair AXi, but it's a good choice for a CPU + GPU system that will rarely, if at all, hit 100W of power consumption.

[Energycore]

If you ever want to upgrade your Graphics card to a high end solution, you're going to need a second PCI-Express 8-pin power connector and the CX430W doesn't have that. It's also only rated for 336W on the 12V rail. You'd be doing yourself a favour by purchasing a unit that has 2 8-pin connectors and you can find such units for less money than a CX430's cost.

[Goat]

10 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

What does that have to do with anything? If you want an explanation of why my PSU is as it is then here's a list of reasons:

 

It's a high-quality unit

It's dead silent under 25% load or less as the fan never kicks on

I got it on sale for the then sale price of 80 USD

It's fully modular 

It's small

Is the lowest wattage version of the EVGA GS series (couldn't get one with a lower output if I wanted to) for my system which will only ever use around 140W under load.

 

Yes? 430W is enough for nearly any single GPU setup - not saying he should pair a 390 with this as he should get a higher-quality unit that can handle the heat output of a 390 - and for a 960 even it's a good enough unit. The "education" y'all are giving him is entirely false so throwing out said information doesn't actually inform him more than it regresses.

 

Let's address a couple of things you've said, for one.

 

Your explanation of 80 PLUS efficiency is wrong, commonly misunderstood. Check out the guide to it pinned on our subforum or in the link in my signature.

 

Unless you have a 9590, you're not coming near 330W with a GTX 960. Guru3D, with an overclocked 3960X (most power-hungry chip out there bar the 9590 iirc) got the entire system up to 236W under load. That's not a lot. 

 

All is well if he buys a CX430M. No, it's not an EVGA T2 or Corsair AXi, but it's a good choice for a CPU + GPU system that will rarely, if at all, hit 100W of power consumption.

The problem with the CX series is that the capacitors aren't good enough to handle high loads. The system may not be using that much power, but if he decides to upgrade to a more powerful system, he needs a psu that can handle high loads. The CX psu simply won't cut it.

 

And yes, I agree that wattage is not as important, but as I said before, if he plans to upgrade to more powerful hardware, he will need a psu with much better quality.

 

Its not just about what he's getting now that dictates what psu is good for him, its also about what he plans to upgrade in his system in the future. If he plans to upgrade to something more powerful, it would be a wise decision to get a better quality psu now to avoid that hassle in the future.

 

I am just giving advice to help him make a better decision, but ultimately, if he wants the CX psu, then its his choice.

[STRMfrmXMN]

5 hours ago, Goat said:

The problem with the CX series is that the capacitors aren't good enough to handle high loads. The system may not be using that much power, but if he decides to upgrade to a more powerful system, he needs a psu that can handle high loads. The CX psu simply won't cut it.

 

And yes, I agree that wattage is not as important, but as I said before, if he plans to upgrade to more powerful hardware, he will need a psu with much better quality.

 

Its not just about what he's getting now that dictates what psu is good for him, its also about what he plans to upgrade in his system in the future. If he plans to upgrade to something more powerful, it would be a wise decision to get a better quality psu now to avoid that hassle in the future.

 

I am just giving advice to help him make a better decision, but ultimately, if he wants the CX psu, then its his choice.

I know exactly why the CX gets hate around here and I'm well acquainted with the 30C temperature tolerance of the older generations of it. The third revision is out with a higher tolerance of 43C. 

 

So the wattage. I get the he won't have enough if he throws 980tis in SLI. At that point he'll just buy a new PSU anyways and it's a total waste of money now to throw in a crazy high quality unit if he doesn't have the funds (which he currently does not appear to have seeing how basic his system is and how the PSUs he's looking at are under 50 USD). 

 

The ambient tolerance of the CX literally does not matter in a system like his. It can easily handle 24/7 operation of a 50W TDP CPU and GPU that doesn't even need external power. The CX is sold with these sorts of PCs as their target audience. Sure, if he gets a 390 down the road he shouldn't be using that PSU but judging by his system now, the likelihood of that happening anytime soon is nill. 

 

There really is no reason for him to be spending more money on a PSU unless it gives him some sort of features he wants like a silent fan, full modularity, etc, and for his budget he won't be getting that anyways.

[Goat]

17 hours ago, STRMfrmXMN said:

I know exactly why the CX gets hate around here and I'm well acquainted with the 30C temperature tolerance of the older generations of it. The third revision is out with a higher tolerance of 43C. 

 

So the wattage. I get the he won't have enough if he throws 980tis in SLI. At that point he'll just buy a new PSU anyways and it's a total waste of money now to throw in a crazy high quality unit if he doesn't have the funds (which he currently does not appear to have seeing how basic his system is and how the PSUs he's looking at are under 50 USD). 

 

The ambient tolerance of the CX literally does not matter in a system like his. It can easily handle 24/7 operation of a 50W TDP CPU and GPU that doesn't even need external power. The CX is sold with these sorts of PCs as their target audience. Sure, if he gets a 390 down the road he shouldn't be using that PSU but judging by his system now, the likelihood of that happening anytime soon is nill. 

 

There really is no reason for him to be spending more money on a PSU unless it gives him some sort of features he wants like a silent fan, full modularity, etc, and for his budget he won't be getting that anyways.

You have a point and I can understand that, but it will still be better for him to spend a little bit more money to get a psu that of a similar wattage, but is able to handle higher loads to make upgrading to better hardware easier.

 

Think of it as insurance. You may not need it now, but it will help out a lot when the time comes.